These tea partiers are more like British parliamentarians

The tea party movement asserts that it is the strongest defender of the Constitution. This is ironic given that it is inspired by the American revolt against British rule; that the theory the party is implicitly adopting is not in the U.S. Constitution but the system in Britain.

The tea party argues that the party that won the last election has the right to make policy. In Britain, that is the case. The House of Commons is the sole governing entity. And the party that wins the majority of the House of Commons on Election Day has total governmental power the next day. There are no checks or balances.

The American system is just the opposite — by explicit design of the men who wrote the Constitution…

For them to now say that, because the Republicans won a majority of the House in 2010 — a smaller majority than the Democrats did in 2008 — they have the moral right to compel acquiescence in their policy choices from the president and the Senate is not only wholly inconsistent with their own approach two years ago; it violates both the letter and the spirit of the Constitution.