Ironically for a president who advocated change but never understood it, America has changed.

During recent years, the size of government has ballooned out of control. Under Presidents both Republican and Democratic and under Congresses led by both parties, the number of government employees has risen in direct proportion to the rise in government deficits and in inverse proportion to the number of good, private sector jobs.

The Republican solution was to bail out the banks. The Democratic solution was to increase the size of government by taking over the banks and the entire health-care system as well.

It was then, to the chagrin of a chief executive who called for "change," that it actually occurred. Yet it was not the way he envisioned. In January 2009, the President saw "change" as a return to the unfinished policies of Franklin Roosevelt. A bigger and more powerful government was ready to become the "nanny" to a previously free -people. This was not "change." It was "deja vu."

America wanted real change. So, in a way that is unique to a free people, Americans organized for change without the necessity of a "community organizer." In actuality, it was a revolution. It was a social and political movement called the Tea Party.

The Tea Party was a rejection of the status quo of deals and graft which, from time to time, has been practiced by both political parties. Its popularity came from its honesty. It was a challenge to all politicians to be equally respectful to the plain and the powerful.

And, to that end, Tea Party became a synonym for an unspoken promise that votes would be cast for those who respected a free people by releasing them from the constraints of governmental power.

In essence, the Tea Party movement was no less than the embodiment of Lincoln's promise of a "new birth of freedom." It was a demand for government "of the People, by the People and for the People." The Tea Party movement was the manifestation of the irony that the liberal demand for "power to the people" was a conservative reality.

The spirit of the Tea Party movement was uniquely American. It reasserted the divine rights enshrined in our Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal," i.e. that the rights of a plumber named Joe are to be respected the same as that of a union boss.

"That they (the people) are endowed by their creator (not government bureaucrats) with certain unalienable rights."

Hence, "Whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these ends," (tries to impose a government planned economy of taxes and regulations in place of the free exercise of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness), "It is the right of the People to alter or to abolish it and to institute new government." The Tea Party movement was the peaceful embodiment of that revolutionary right.

In essence, the Tea Party movement was the definition of speaking truth to power. The truth is that power was only on loan to be used for the protection of liberty against enemies foreign and the expansion of personal freedom to the consternation of enemies domestic. Anything less is tyranny.

Yet the response to actual "change" by the "Democratic" Party was much less than revolutionary. It was at first ignored; and then, when it could no longer be ignored, was explained the way reactionaries have always rationalized true social movements from abolition to civil rights.

According to Obama, Pelosi and Reed, such was "orchestrated." It was not "grassroots," but "AstroTurf." In other words, according to Democrats, the Tea Party movement was the result of outside agitators making folks "uppity."

The reaction of the Republican Party was different. It embraced the Tea Party movement. With their Tea Party members, Republicans re-examined their past liberal appeasements and charted a new future. A Republican future was to be one in which the Tea Party movement, would become part of a conservative resurgence to take back freedoms lost and preserve freedoms threatened. From the ideal of smaller government to the demand for lower taxes, both would join forces and both would change America.

On March 13, 2010, the Republican Party of Moore County had as its featured convention speaker Dee Park, chair of Moore Tea Citizens. It was a proud day for the Republican Party and all conservatives. Yet it was only the local manifestation of climactic national change.

Barack Obama saw a desire for change and tried to harness it. But like the lady riding a tiger, he has found himself inside her, a tiger embraced by the very people Obama sought to have the tiger eat. The Tea Party movement is a monument to democracy.

The irony of the modern "Democratic" Party is that its members have left it for Republicans to embrace the "democracy" after which their party was named. We have accepted our newest mission and gladly embrace both the Tea Party movement and Moore Tea Citizens.

Robert M. Levy is chairman of the Moore County Republican Party. Contact him at Law52@Prodigy.net.