The Gruntled Center is a web site for moderates that eschews the typical jabs and viciousness seen on many political sites. Its blogger remains anonymous – he is known only as The Author – which adds to his (or her) attempt to provide a fresh outlook.
In a recent piece about Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party movement, The Gruntled Center provides a meticulously fair and even comparison. The Author wrote this:
“The Occupy Wall Street movement is mostly theater. I don’t care for street theater myself … The main thing they are mad about is that Wall Street traders were the main cause of the collapse of the world economy in 2008. They were able to do that because they had increasing pressure to make short-term profits, and because the agencies that were supposed to keep an eye on them to prevent exactly this type of collapse were feckless and timid. In the years following the actions of government regulators have improved somewhat, but the actions of the Wall Street traders show that they have learned little from their mistakes.
“ Occupy Wall Street wants more responsible and better-regulated capitalism. So do I.
“… The Tea Party movement, like Occupy Wall Street, began as street theater. I don’t care for political street theater … The main thing the Tea Partiers are mad about is the government telling them what to do and taxing them to do things they did not approve of. I read the core of the Tea Party movement as libertarian, rather than social conservative, though there is clearly overlap. This is not a movement to limit abortion, for example. Nor is it a movement that is against large government expenditures or even deficits as such.
“The “tea baggers,” as they originally called themselves … mobilized against the expenditures to cover the costs of poor-risk mortgage holders and people with no health insurance — people the tea party regards as feckless, irresponsible, and not their problem. … The Tea Party wants the government to take less and tell citizens what to do less on behalf of irresponsible people. I think this position is not sufficient to make a good social order. But the Tea Party position is a legitimate part of the argument about how to make a better society.”
