I booked a room at the Extended Stay Hotel in Phoenix.
I've been in a funk for the last few days. I learned about the Tucson shooting seconds after publishing my last post about the decision to attend the Tea Party Summit in Phoenix.
After writing the post, I did a Twitter search on "Tea Party Az." Although the police had not released information about the suspect, the real time search stream was filled with people trying to associate the shooting and the tea party.
It's telling that the anarchist shooter had an obsession with mind control. The game where people seek to associate their friends with positive images and enemies with negative ones is the most common form of political mind control. That so many people engaged in the practice was scary.
Anyway, I was excited to go to the Tea Party Summit because I've been hoping to get out of the toxic environment of Salt Lake.
This shooting means that Phoenix itself will be extremely ugly during the summit. Progressive protestors will be more vile than usual, and the MSM will pull every propagandist technique in the book to associate speakers at the meeting with the shooting.
But I am not going to Phoenix to talk to Phoenix. I am going there to see if there is any interest among the Tea Party leaders in the Medical Savings and Loan.
It is my belief that, for the Tea Party to succeed in its goal of restoring health care freedom, it must switch from the activist/agitation model to a discussion of ideas. The Medical Savings and Loan is a structure that allows for the open discussion of ideas related to financing health.
The Tea Party was correct in using the activist/agitation model in its effort to stop the passage of ObamaCare. After all, the progressives used this very model to build their supermajority. Obama was a Community Organizer weaned on Alinsky.
Using the weapons developed by progressives against progressives was an acceptable trick in the effort to stop ObamaCare.
The agitation model of discourse is not an adequate tool for restoring freedom. If the Tea Party continues on the activist path, it will become just another progressive group in the grub for base political power and will stop being a force for restoring liberty.
To restore liberty, the Tea Party must find higher ground.
The Medical Savings and Loan is higher ground. A debate that compared the Medical Savings and Loan to insurance would show that our health care woes are the result of attempts to use a group funding mechanism for individual consumption. Such a debate directly attacks the mandates of Obamacare and can serve as a basis for showing why these health exchanges are such a horrible idea.
The best, if not only, hope the Medical Savings and Loan has is for people in the Tea Party to take interest.
The activist/agitation model was developed by progressives. Progressivism is an extremely ugly and divisive way to undermine real discourse. Progressives developed other techniques such as framing and projection. When the Tea Party uses the activist/agitation model, it allows progressives to project the ugliness of their methodology onto their opponents.
Although it is fun to use the techniques of progressives against progressives, the technique ultimately fails because it allows progressive to project their techniques onto the opposition.
For the Tea Party to prevail, it must find a different path.
I booked a room at an Extended Stay Hotel to give myself time before and after the meeting to develop contacts with the hope that I can find someone in Arizona who wants to move in a positive direction.
From now to the Summit I will be working on ways to pay for the trip and on an outline for a Medical Savings and Loan Conference, as I think that might be the best way to introduce the idea.
My heart goes out to those hurt in the Tucson shooting and pity to those set on using the attacks in their agitation efforts. Anarchists kill to stop discourse.
I hope and pray that the Tea Party kicks its fascination with agitation and becomes an organization dedicated to the ideas of liberty and not simply the partisan grub for political power.