I try to get to church every Sunday.  Increasingly, that puts me in a very tiny minority among Canadians.  However, that’s okay, I’ve always preferred to keep my Christianity private.  I have many Muslim, Hindu and agnostic friends whose beliefs I have a deep respect for.  So it was a few weeks ago while sitting in church I heard a description of the United States, which I found particularly intriguing.  The minister called the United States without naming it, the pious Republic to the south.  He was obviously saying it tongue-in-cheek chafing on the large constituency down there which prides itself on being conservative and Christian.

My minister friend has a deep respect for the United States but I know some of the “Christian activity” down their drives him crazy.  His idea of Christian ministry is feeding the poor or holding the hand of a loved one who has just lost a family member.  So when he is grouped in the same category as some right-wing, Koran burning American preacher who wants to be on television, he knows it doesn’t do his Christian franchise much good.  Of course when it’s mixed in with politics it’s even worse.

I bring this up because of the ongoing political revolution in the United States called the Tea Party express.  There is no particular leader of the tea party in the United States and there is really no particular policy of the tea party either.  It seems like everybody has a beef against the Democrats or the establishment and finds some type of sympathy with the tea party movement.  Simply getting up on stage and feeling outraged might qualify you as a tea party member.

From a Canadian perspective, I find it fascinating peering into the American tea party movement.  In Canada there could never be the same type of populist conservative movement, which would have any royal jelly.  It’s mainly that way because we are a much smaller country and at the same time much more liberal country.  So conservative movements tend to get short shrift in this country.  In the United States on the other hand, it’s a much bigger country and the conservative segment is much larger and therefore much more buoyant.  They have their First Amendment rights and they also have something that is in short supply in Canada.  Their individual liberty is sacrosanct in the United States, much more than any other country I’ve ever been to.  Protecting their liberty as conservatives is a birthright to Americans.  Ditto for all other political persuasions in the United States.

You see this in all parts of American society but I have often witnessed it on the ground with American police.  Simply put, when Americans confront their police they are much more aggressive, knowing they have individual rights and not being afraid to tell them.  I have often seen this at sporting events in Detroit when fans confront police.  There’s been many episodes I’ve seen which I believe would’ve led to arrests in Canada.  However, in the United States it’s not so.  Is just another expression of individual liberty.

When you combine our American friends individual liberty with their traditional Christian religion some strange things can come from it.  The same rural preacher who was threatening to burn the Koran would not have got the same play in Canada.  In fact he would have been ignored as fringe before some human rights commission or hate law came after him.  In the United States he actually had a fairly large constituency.  He would have been on the fringe of mainstream religious conservatives but he still had those First Amendment rights, to say whatever he wanted to.

So there is much gnashing of teeth in the United States right now about how the tea party movement will affect the midterm elections in November.  There is also a huge concern by traditional Republicans of the tea party movement taking them too far to the right.  The concern boils down from the Republicans once being the party of the rich who wanted less government to now being the party of the far right, wanting less government and a little bit more God.  With a “Mama Grizzly”  in the name of Sarah Palin  the de facto purveyor of this movement, it has galvanized much of the opposition to the Democrats in the United States.

In my mind the tea party is fascinating to listen to.  However, I’m thinking they are simply going to split the vote with the Democrats.  In many ways it’s like the NDP and Liberals in Canada.  As the NDP gets stronger, the Liberals get weaker and the Conservatives come up the middle.  As I see it in the United States, the tea party makes the Republicans weaker and will at the end of the day help elect Democrats.    It might be a pious Republic down south, but something tells me the tea party is a flash in the pan.  One famous American once said “give me liberty or give me death.”   In the case of the Tea party, I’m sure they’ll get both.