Why Is the Obama Administration Seizing Our Tea Bags?

In the midst of an unprecedented economic tidal wave, the U.S. government has chosen a most peculiar form of "big government" shakedown. From across the country, we are hearing that Congress is collecting our tea bags.

The lower classes and uneducated swarms seem to be the primary target for this "collection by coercion," in which the Senate and House of Representatives have dug in their heels and embarked on a crusade to take all the tea bags from our most humble citizens.

This, I am sure, smacks of an unconstitutional power grab. If the government can take our tea, what will they take next?

Our homes? Our jobs? Our 401ks?

When will this madness stop?

The stories in our better newspapers, as I've understood them, involve a bizarre government demand sent "under the radar" to the poorer people via AM talk radio and the right-wing medium of blogs, such as the Drudge Report.

Instructions? They could not be more plain: "Send all of your tea to Congress, care of your representative or senator."

It's almost as if some terrifying replay of the Boston Tea Party is happening, before our eyes, but this time through the U.S. Mail.

That the government -- this travesty of government as envisioned by Barack Obama, a literal child when compared to most of us -- would play this sort of trickery upon an unsuspecting population is, at worst, immoral.

While the upper classes enjoy almost unlimited access to the most expensive teas and tea-making accessories, for many Americans of less extravagant means, that dusty box of Lipton teabags up there in the pantry with the Hamburger Helper and scone mix is the closest thing to luxury they will ever experience. These are people who, for the most part, spend their days slurping a bitter black brew from the unemployment office urn -- they are, to be frank, meager coffee drinkers.

Tea is, to wit, an urbane and sophisticated beverage. I particularly enjoy "a little cup o' Lipton" when perusing the great books I keep in my personal library. There is nothing quite like reading the prose of our finest authors while sipping daintily from my Queen Elizabeth Jubilee tea mug, which I purchased so many years ago In England, not far from the storied "Abbey Road" recording studio owned by the Beatles.

I simply do not care for coffee.

I am, today and always, a teabagger. And I stand with the other teabaggers, as our nation struggles through very, very dark times. It will not be the first crisis for America -- I remember previous problems. I remember.

But if we stand firm, and refuse to send our tea to the government, we, too, shall prevail.

Ken Layne is the syndicated op-ed columnist from Wonkette, in Washington DC.