Tea Party Goes International

June 17, 2010 at 9:00 pm

Proof if proof were needed that laissez-faire capitalism, low taxes and fewer regulations do indeed cross boundaries. The Tea Party phenomenon has started to go global.

As Tea Party protests pop up in places like Moscow, Tel Aviv and the Hague, Americans may question whether the Tea Party platform can cross international and cultural borders. For activists outside the U.S., the answer is a resounding “yes.”

“I think the message of the American Revolution is global. The message of natural, unalienable rights, the message of opposition to tyrannical government — that’s not just well-known, that’s universal,” Boris Karpa, organizer of the Israeli Tea Party, told The Daily Caller in an e-mail. “As you know well, many countries have based their founding documents on the U.S. Declaration of Independence or other American documents.”

The first person to spot an article along these lines and as positive as the Daily Caller on the BBC wins an egg.

As the movements grow, organizers hope they will coalesce into a transnational organization, especially in Europe, where much the political and decision-making power rests with the EU.

“More and more European parliamentarians want to introduce a European-wide tax system. We already gave up our immigration — the EU decides who gets into our country and who doesn’t,” Hofkamp said. “The Italian Tea Party and our party have good contact and we hope that more countries will follow. We are working on ideas to unite soon in Brussels, in front of the EU-parliament.”

It may be a slow and painful process, but people are re-learning that popular movements are not the exclusive domain of the Left.

Links to the Tea Party sites: Israel, Russia, Holland, Italy (news article).