Time to stand up to Tea Party, GOP

If you think compromise is a bad thing or consider yourself a Tea Party person, you need not read any further. If you are a Republican and you are still reading, then this article is for you.

Our democracy requires a two party system of checks and balances, but the Tea Party along with big money has put the Republican Party and our democracy in serious trouble. (No person or group can be right 100 percent of the time, and democracy does not work under tyranny.) If you agree, then you should be in a quandary because you understand that if any House representative dare think on his own, he or she will find themselves voted out of office.

David Brooks, a conservative with The New York Times, wrote an excellent article titled "The Republicans' Incompetence Caucus" published Oct. 13. Brooks writes "this new Republican faction regards the messy business of politics as soiled and impure. Compromise is corruption. Inconvenient facts are ignored. Countrymen with different views are regarded as aliens. Political identity became a sort of ethnic identity, and any compromise was regarded as a blood betrayal." I strongly suggest you read the article in its entirety.

If you agree with the above, your major question should be: what can I do about it? A great start would be to contact your local Republican representatives and let them know you have their back if they will commit to standing up to the Tea Party, specifically it is OK to engage in dialog with the opposition, compromise is not a dirty word, and voting to shut down the government over issues is not diplomacy, it is an act of tyranny.

John Wolaver

Glen Ellyn