To hear Carla Arango tell the story, the Tea Party members of Congress are extremist, close-minded (sic), antiquated, and uncompromising. Given the vitriol that permeated her editorial, you might imagine she also thinks they are evil, beat their children, and eat little puppies. What was most disturbing about the editorial wasn’t that it lacked any facts to back up her ad hominem attacks, but rather that it lacked even a modicum of understanding that the policy positions held by Tea Party members might be both intellectually defensible and superior to her own.

Her attack on Tea Party positions were factually incorrect. They don’t oppose federal spending, they oppose the levels of spending. They don’t oppose all taxes, they think we are Taxed Enough Already (hence the name), and while some members may not support certain reproductive health services, the biggest complaint is that taxpayers should not be forced to fund certain elective procedures, and that religious institutions should not be forced to abandon the tenets of their beliefs just to fund contraception.

Even in a topic as politically charged as abortion, where both sides are so absolutely convinced of their own righteousness, the true intellectual evaluation is much more complex. For those of you who see only black and white, consider the following question. “When during the development of the fetus does he/she obtain the necessary characteristics to be guaranteed equal protection under the 14th amendment?”  If you believe that you alone can answer that question with utter surety, then you must certainly be “anointed”.

Ms. Arango also needs to quit playing fast and loose with the truth. She criticizes the Tea Party for allowing the sequestration, without once mentioning that sequestration was proposed by President Obama and his budget director, passed by a Democrat controlled Senate, and signed by President Obama. Anyone with a hint of intellectual honesty can hardly blame the Tea Party for sequestration.

For all of you that believe as she does, that there is only one legitimate side to these complex issues, I offer some advice. Find classes where the central theme is not anti-capitalist, anti-male, social activism. Find instructors that might actually challenge your beliefs, and your reasoning. Watch something other than Comedy Channel or MSNBC to get your news. In the end, you may not change a single belief you have, but you will hopefully come away with a better idea of the strengths, and particularly weaknesses, of  your arguments and the “facts” being used to support them.

Scott Peterson, Math Instructor,     De Anza College