...tea party members “acted like terrorists” in the way they stood against attempts to raise taxes and force spending reductions as part of the debt-ceiling deal.

Apparently tea party critics are constitutional illiterates. The Preamble to the U.S. Constitution begins, “We the people.” Rights come from God, not politicians who think they are God. We grant power to our leaders to serve us. We are not their slaves.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell acknowledged there would not have been a deal in which taxes are not raised and spending curtailed had it not been for tea party members. He is right.

What we are witnessing in America is a re-awakening to the idea that the people own the power and do not have to sit idly by while the country they love and often sacrifice for is torn apart by irresponsible political leaders who wouldn’t have their jobs if the rest of us weren’t paying their salaries and benefits.

...how about closing the Department of Education, which does not educate, the Department of Energy, which produces no energy, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which builds no homes?

Far from being a spent force, as many predicted, individual citizens are rediscovering a power many may have thought they no longer possessed. Heading into the 2012 election, this renewed sense that the power to make or break a nation does not reside in Washington, but rather in the hearts and minds of its citizens, will add to a sense of hope that real change is about to happen.

While tea party critics are re-reading the Constitution, they should also consult the Declaration of Independence. That philosophical foundation of the Constitution reserves the right of the people to change their government when it no longer serves the interests of its citizens. The Declaration outlined the proper relationship between government and citizens, noting that government derives its “just powers from the consent of the governed” (and) “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

The British no doubt considered those who wrote and believed such things “terrorists.” We call them patriots. And those patriots just might force the vice president and his boss out of a job next November. That is their right. They have it in their power.

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