But as Gainor says, this isn’t about numbers and logic for a lot of these folks, it’s about fear. Fear, as we all know, is the mind killer. But of all people, conservatives should get this. Many of us have a real (and I’d say a justified) fear that the point of no return is out there on the horizon. Not tomorrow or next month, but visible in the distance like that famous wide shot from Lawrence of Arabia. We simply can’t keep spending and borrowing like this forever…

Remember back two years ago when the left was mocking and abusing the nascent Tea Party for speaking up about where we seemed to be headed? I didn’t consider myself a Tea Partier then, but I was furious at the treatment they received from the left. The charges of racism and extremism and rage and all the rest were so clearly unfair to the core of what the Tea Party was about, i.e. limited government and lower spending. The more the left ridiculed the Tea Party the more I felt sympathetic with them. The more we were told it was a fringe movement that would die off any day, the more I wanted to see them prosper.

Well, that cuts both ways. These kids on the street might be latching on to some really simplistic ideas about the 1% not doing their part, but that’s not what it’s about. It’s about fear. Fear of maybe not having a job, maybe not for years. Fear of drowning in personal debt. Fear of being in a situation over which they feel they have little or no control, i.e. lobbyists and corporations have all the power and they are caught up in the machine. I’m not saying it makes sense only that it probably feels like it does, maybe to a lot of people who aren’t out there…yet.