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**The Lineage of Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party movement back to Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence** On July 4th, 1776 Thomas Jefferson and Congress sent the Declaration of Independence to King George III. The thirteen colonies were submitting to the King a list of grievances and usurpations, and claiming independence from England and forming the United States of America. To have colonies outwardly go against the king in the 18th Century was blasphemous. After a war, King George III agreed to letting the colonies become their own independent nation.

 In modern society, we have two groups that have formed from the same ideals that Thomas Jefferson laid out in the Declaration of Independence. However, these groups, the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street, have conflicting ideologies of how our country should be changed and structured in order to preserve those founding beliefs. According to Thomas Jefferson, “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 affect their Safety and Happiness.” (Jefferson) Both Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party movement are instituting their natural right to express their opinions and grievances with our Government, and find solutions to such problems. However, it is interesting to see the different perspectives and beliefs these groups see our government as it is, and how they wish it was.

The Tea Party was brought to attention in 2009, when the party began supporting political candidates for the upcoming elections. According to the party, “they believe freedom //from// government allows entrepreneurs to try new things, [to] see what works and discard what doesn’t.” (Tea Party) The focus of the party is to restore America to its former greatness by being fiscally responsible and limiting governments by state power instead of centralized. The party believes that usurpations such as “imposing taxes without our consent” have become synonymous with our government today. (Jefferson) To be closer to the original foundation of America, our government needs to control spending and cut taxes. The Tea Party associates with conservative beliefs, allowing Republicans to accept their beliefs and solutions such as “erasing the fiscal damage from the Obama-Nancy Pelosi stimulus.” (Wall Street Journal) Left leaning Democrats do not see the Tea Party in the same light. According to the Huffington Post, the Tea Parties “most essential commitment is to personal liberty as a universal good.” (Huffington Post) To the liberal view, Tea Partyists are using personal liberty to act as foundation to our government, when they believe that a universal personal liberty would destroy itself. By acting alone, a society cannot achieve absolute liberty and that “liberty is the byproduct of a just society.” (Huffington Post) From the middle standpoint, the Tea Party is primarily focused on “the idea of big ideas, a longer view.” (NPR) The middle leaning media are the most objective because they shed light on successes and failures of each proposed idea.

Occupy Wall Street is a much younger movement, only beginning in September 2011. According to a mission statement, Occupy Wall Street focus on “corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments.” (WordPress) The Occupy Wall Street movement also has strong lineage back to the Declaration of Independence, forming off of the beliefs that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. – That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” (Jefferson) The movement is based off the belief that the government is no longer run by the citizens of America, but by the large corporations that are only after monetary benefits. The middle leaning media claim the organizers are “protest[ing] greedy bankers, inept politicians, government austerity, the growing gap between rich and poor, and above all, the system that runs the global economy.” (NPR) With the government being run by large corporations, the safety and best interest of the citizens are not priorities. In fact, the liberal point of view claims that these corporations will go as far to harm their customers in order to create more profit for their personal interest. The conservative beliefs are not as understanding of Occupy Wall Street because of their opposing beliefs. Fox News has claimed that “behind the current Occupy Wall Street protests is a ‘red army’ of radicals seeking no less than to provoke a new, definitive economic crisis, with their goal being the full collapse of the U.S. financial system, with the ensuing chaos to be rebuilt into a utopian socialist vision.” (Fox News) The right wing media and viewpoint is that government should limit spending, while the organizers of Occupy Wall Street do not want to cut from social programs, but to redistribute to the wealth to every American, instead of the 1% their statistics have shown to have acquired the wealth. Occupy Wall Street is focused on equality for all Americans, claiming they are the 99% of citizens that are unfairly treated when it comes to wages, taxes, and debts. Occupy Wall Street has a focus for helping the depleting middle class, and lower class citizens.

The Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street have opposing views on how our nation’s government should be structured, and what the problem of our nation as it stands is. Although both movements have lineages back to Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, their interpretations of the same document changes with their personal viewpoints of our government. The variation of interpretations is astounding considering they are both founded from the same document. It is evident that the natural bias of political parties influenced how these interpretations were conceived. The conservative belief of fiscal spending is strong, and it is clear that when they read the Declaration of Independence they focused on their beliefs are connected it to certain aspects to verify their opinions. The liberal viewpoint is to help our nation through social welfare, and distribute the wealth among the people. Therefore, it is easy to see where they interpreted parts of the Declaration to form their beliefs. While both movements are trying to create a perfect government to fit their priorities, it is evident that both have legitimate arguments and valid reasoning behind their views.

Lists: Working: Concept Needs Improvement: Coherency of thoughts and ideas, a separate paragraph to specifically compare and contrast the movements, editing the paragraphs to being about what they stand for and different opinions, REMEMBER 75/80% Analysis, 25/20% Quotes