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Well, the maddening thing about all of it is just that: there is no centre. It's all a reaction to a generic disdain for taxes and spending, and beyond that is a mish-mash of variables that fits under that umbrella.
Bear in mind that the whole feel to the movement is that it is a reaction against something, rather than a movement supporting something. It's a negation that way.
The movement is named after a high-profile piece of American history that involved sabotage and vandalism, an event that was one of several leading up to a revolutionary war.
That's the background context we're dealing with: a reactionary outrage against order based on the perception that people are being treated unfairly and unjustly. Except this time around, it's debatable as to whether that's true.
Regardless, I don't think the Tea Partiers of today can declare they're being taxed without representation. I think they're just tired of the way the American Dream is crumbling before their very eyes. The world's last remaining superpower is going broke, and this is what it sounds like.
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Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön
Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot
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