1229 Tricky Dick 2

A while back, I wrote about one commentator’s theory that the folks making up the Tea Party were disgruntled ex-yippies. The reasoning was that the Tea Baggers were using street theatre tactics from the sixties, and that they were mostly white males in and around their sixties.
There are some other similarities worth considering. Like believing in simple solutions based on arbitrary attributes. For instance, one Tea Party organization manifesto says they want to scrap the tax code and replace it with one no longer than 4,543 words.
Why such a weird number? That’s the length of the constitution. Sounds catchy, except I’m guessing the Founding Fathers attached no, um, mystical significance to the word count of the constitution.
I mean, I can’t imagine James Madison admonishing Ben Franklin over the length of his Article on Regulation of Commerce. “Sorry Ben, that’s thirteen words too long. This document is for posterity. Someday some proud patriot might base the length of the tax code on it.”
An arbitrary length tax code is sort of like the simplistic sixties’ solution “all you need is love.” Sounds nice, but I’m all for food and shelter too.
There are other parallels to the sixties these days. LBJ was a Democratic President. Obama is a Democratic President.
Johnson had rioting in the streets over major civil rights legislation set-in-their-ways white folks didn’t like. Obama has protest marches against major civil legislation on Health Care.
The upshot of the sixties was we got one of our oddest presidents of all time, Dick Nixon.
Nixon has five letters and two syllables and ends in an N.
So does, uh oh, Palin.
Scary thought: is the big heartthrob of the Tea Baggers the next Tricky Dick?
America, ya gotta love it.