Pioneer Tea Partiers

Unsilenced Cal asks what lesson can we learn from the epic path of the pioneers to Oregon called the Overland Trail? Answer – the typically American belief in the free exchange of goods, services and ideas. 350,000 people migrated, 20,000 pioneers died; 5000 in a single year. Enough of the trail’s dauntless adventuring has been recorded to keep its achievement fragrant and marvelous in memory. Let us not forget them. Free market adventurers, manufacturers and farmers alike wanted to buy and sell to make themselves prosperous. In a little more than a half century, the path of humanity westward accomplished what the Old World did not achieve in 60 centuries. Is this a great country or what? Let’s fight to keep it this way. The Oregon stampede was labeled an ‘insanity,’ but it does not equate with the insanity the Tea Party sees today emanating from Washington.