The bewitched, bothered and bewildered miss the point when writing-off the tea parties and tax protest movements as just a flash in the pan or like a fireworks display, a huge bright starburst that flickers down to political power nothingness. The "movementeers" do not need to become mainstream political parties to be momentous, or to alter the outcome of elections.

Coincidental or not, it's often claimed, for instance, that both the Democratic Party and Republican Party by the 1950s adopted most of the major planks of the 1928 Socialist Party platform, although only two self-proclaimed socialists have been elected to Congress.

It's also undeniable the minor Libertarian Party has leveraged the Republican Party (and, to a lesser degree, the Democratic Party) with many Republican candidates at least giving lip service to libertarian principles.

You hear TEA (Taxed Enough Already) rumblings across all 50 states. The rumblings emanate not only from the tea parties, but anti-establishment Democrats, anti-government Republicans, Ron Paul Libertarians and most pro-conservative organizations.

They range from advocates of Tim Cox's "GOOOH" (Get Out Of Our House) and Eric Epifano's The 21st Century American Patriot, both dedicated to getting rid of all 435 incumbents in the House of Representatives; to the Abigail Adams Project, Liberty Alliances and numerous tax protest groups. People are fed up with their elected officials as never before. Only 10 percent of voters say Congress is doing a good job, an all-time low according to a Feb. 24 Rasmussen Poll.

Those attending tea parties and similar gatherings, for their part, seem to think all that's needed to get back on track is get rid of all the current members of the House, Republican and Democratic. The result they feel would be a newly representative government.

So far they haven't explained why the new office holders will be any different from the incumbents. Why the newbies won't be seduced by the same trappings of power, ego gratification, million-dollar pensions or beset by the same celebrity deficit syndrome. The fact is that democracy simply means majority rule for good or ill, regardless of who's elected. Milton Friedman often said we have the right people in office; the trick is to get them to do the right thing.

F.A. Hayek wrote a chapter in his 1944 Road to Serfdom, dedicated to "Why The Worst Get on Top." He opens with Lord Acton's "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Hayek writes, "It seems to be almost a law of human nature that it is easier for people to agree on a negative program ---- on the hatred of an enemy, on the envy of those better off ..."

What emanates from our government today? Anti-capitalism with its envy of the rich, the vilification of oil companies, insurance companies, health care providers and the profits of any company, corporation or person that doesn't kowtow to Congress during one of its "show-trial" hearings. Undefined and indefinable terms such as "Universal Health Care," "The Community," "Common Good," "Public Good," "Public Interest" or "Good of Society" are used with abandon.

Terms used by people who crave power. These terms are all inclusive ---- meaning the good of every man, woman and child. Realistically, what programs can honestly meet this criterion? Hayek elaborates, "There is literally nothing which the consistent collectivist must not be prepared to do ... because the 'good of the whole' is to him the only criterion of what ought to be done."

There's no room for an individual's pursuit of happiness, when everyone is a mere a cipher in an all-overriding "greater purpose" to spread the wealth.

This at heart is what the tea parties, self-proclaimed patriots and anti-tax movementeers are protesting: Being sacrificed for a "greater good" through higher taxes, humongous deficits as far as the eye can see, ever more regulations, subsidies for politically connected banks, corporations and unions.

The majority of elections are decided by margins of less than 10 percentage points of the vote. President Barack Obama won by a margin of only 7 percentage points.

The "movementeers" reject the premise that 50 percent plus one gives any political party a 100 percent say over universal issues. Or that 49 percent must be happy losers until the next presidential election. There's but one way to control government beyond the chains of the Constitution. That's by limiting taxation (taxation which is necessary to fund every conceivable Democratic or Republican self-serving program).

The "movementeers'" real, tangible power is in leveraging their 10-plus percent voting bloc to elect politicians who will restore the American free market, private property, limited government principles that have provided more for ever more people in the past 200 years than in the previous 2,000 years.

FRED SCHNAUBELT lives in Rancho Bernardo.