The Tea Party

[Irvine511]

amazing.

YouTube - Gather Your Armies

 

[bigjohn2441]

im all for a "tea party" movement, HOWEVER, the one we have now consists of religious, ignorant, stupid people that focus their energy on ridiculous "issues" when they should be focusing on the REAL problems that are fucking up this country such as big business, banks, and government corruption/inefficiency.

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

Oh, good lord...*Puts head in hands, sighs exasperatedly*.

That guy will be such a charming addition to our Congress should he win. No, these people aren't downright terrifying. Not at all.

Angela

 

[Diemen]

amazing.

YouTube - Gather Your Armies

Charming.

 

[DrTeeth]

All these Founding Fathers shticks are getting very old.

 

[bigjohn2441]

amazing.

YouTube - Gather Your Armies

that guy is pretty bad at acting to be pissed off

 

[Knuckle]

im all for a "tea party" movement, HOWEVER, the one we have now consists of religious, ignorant, stupid people that focus their energy on ridiculous "issues" when they should be focusing on the REAL problems that are fucking up this country such as big business, banks, and government corruption/inefficiency.

I completely agree. The tea partiers need a "constitutional convention" of sorts, but it already may be too late. The way I remember it, the tea partiers formed (or at least became notably significant) in the early days of the Wall Street meltdown. People had a lot of anger that the architects of that greed had, with the help of lobbyists and politicians, rigged the system to make unbelievable amounts of money with no cosequences. When it all bombed, average taxpayers bailed them out. They never even said thank you. They just told us that if we didn't give them a trillion dollars, without even an accounting of how they'd spend any of it, we were all doomed.

I think that the tea partiers, at their core, are really grappling with the realization that the boy scout and Norman Rockwell notions of America that they were raised on, and fully want to believe still matter, may really just be a quaint notion for suckers. The real America they now see appears to be much more gangster after all. They are frustrated at the realization that such honest truths as pledging allegiance the flag, learning about our founding fathers, working hard, voting, etc may really be just for the "little people" who haven't figured out what it's really all about. So, for now, and after being compromised by political elements who want to make sure that the tea party's energy remains aimed at the wrong targets, tea partiers revolt against big government (with an undercurrent of probable racism, homophobia, etc -- you know, the usual distractions). I hope they can pull themselves together and figure out what really ails them.

 

[BVS]

I completely agree. The tea partiers need a "constitutional convention" of sorts, but it already may be too late. The way I remember it, the tea partiers formed (or at least became notably significant) in the early days of the Wall Street meltdown. People had a lot of anger that the architects of that greed had, with the help of lobbyists and politicians, rigged the system to make unbelievable amounts of money with no cosequences. When it all bombed, average taxpayers bailed them out. They never even said thank you. They just told us that if we didn't give them a trillion dollars, without even an accounting of how they'd spend any of it, we were all doomed.

I think that the tea partiers, at their core, are really grappling with the realization that the boy scout and Norman Rockwell notions of America that they were raised on, and fully want to believe still matter, may really just be a quaint notion for suckers. The real America they now see appears to be much more gangster after all. They are frustrated at the realization that such honest truths as pledging allegiance the flag, learning about our founding fathers, working hard, voting, etc may really be just for the "little people" who haven't figured out what it's really all about. So, for now, and after being compromised by political elements who want to make sure that the tea party's energy remains aimed at the wrong targets, tea partiers revolt against big government (with an undercurrent of probable racism, homophobia, etc -- you know, the usual distractions). I hope they can pull themselves together and figure out what really ails them.

Good post.

I think there are three things the Tea Party need to learn:

1. First and foremost quit with the cultural war bullshit, it just makes you look stupid to the whole world.

2. Really, truly inform yourself about the Constitution, it's up to interpretation just as much as your Bible, and it will evolve and was designed to do so.

3. You can still believe in your Boy Scout notions, and I hope that you do, but when systems become so big and intertwined it only takes one or two to bring it down. Regulations are not evil. Not believing in capitalism without oversight is not giving up on man, nor is it socialist.

 

[Moser]

Tea Party:

People who all of the sudden know what the word freedom means when their wallets are pinched, and a black man is elected. Perhaps, they should ask the true meaning of freedom from the 5,478 mothers of dead youngsters overseas who served their country to the end.

 

[BVS]

amazing.

YouTube - Gather Your Armies

You know you're screwed when GLENN BECK denounces you and calls you "the dumbest Republican"...

 

[deep]

If Glenn Beck is against him

then I am voting for him.
(absentee ballot)

 

[Irvine511]

the issue was, you know, foreign taxation without representation. and that's what the real Boston tea party was actually about, not domestic taxation with representation. but whatever. it's just history.

until this movement comes out and explains just where they were under 8 years of Bush/GOP spending as well as a comprehensive plan to reduce spending on entitlements and especially defense, i'm just going to continue to assume that they're ignorant racist crybabies who just want another damn $300 a month.

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

the issue was, you know, foreign taxation without representation. and that's what the real Boston tea party was actually about, not domestic taxation with representation. but whatever. it's just history.[/B]

And with the new editions of the Texas school books out there, I can only imagine how much more skewed that history will be .

That's been exactly my point, too, I've often wondered just how many of these people knew even what the hell happened at the original Tea Party. They claim to be so supportive of the founding fathers and the Constitution and all that stuff, and I get the feeling they don't really understand.

until this movement comes out and explains just where they were under 8 years of Bush/GOP spending as well as a comprehensive plan to reduce spending on entitlements and especially defense, i'm just going to continue to assume that they're ignorant racist crybabies who just want another damn $300 a month.

Same here. It's very frustrating, because in terms of financial issues there may be some actual merit, but I can't look to them to solve these problems because most of the people just seem angry at best, insane at worst.

Angela

 

[BVS]

And with the new editions of the Texas school books out there, I can only imagine how much more skewed that history will be .

This literally scares the shit out of me.

I grew up in this state, and as backwards as we come off to the rest of the country, and I admit we are very backwards at times socially. We're not nearly as bad as we come off, and we're not nearly as bad as some of the "true" southern states.

We actually have a pretty stellar record, or at least did when it came to education, so much in the sense that Texas has often proved the testing ground and standard for text book changes. This fact alone scares me.

 

[martha]

Texas has often proved the testing ground and standard for text book changes. This fact alone scares me.

Because you guys buy so damn many of them.

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

This literally scares the shit out of me.

I grew up in this state, and as backwards as we come off to the rest of the country, and I admit we are very backwards at times socially. We're not nearly as bad as we come off, and we're not nearly as bad as some of the "true" southern states.

We actually have a pretty stellar record, or at least did when it came to education, so much in the sense that Texas has often proved the testing ground and standard for text book changes. This fact alone scares me.

I don't blame you for that . I feel bad for you that those sorts of stories are what people think of when they think of Texas, that's not fair to people like yourself that don't agree with that sort of thing. Is there anything being done or anything that can be done to try and stop that, to fix that?

I know what it's like to live in a state that gets misunderstood by the rest of the country. People make jokes and stereotypes about Iowa all the time, too. Not nearly as bad as the kind Texas gets, but still...

Angela

 

[Knuckle]

I don't blame you for that . I feel bad for you that those sorts of stories are what people think of when they think of Texas, that's not fair to people like yourself that don't agree with that sort of thing. Is there anything being done or anything that can be done to try and stop that, to fix that?

I know what it's like to live in a state that gets misunderstood by the rest of the country. People make jokes and stereotypes about Iowa all the time, too. Not nearly as bad as the kind Texas gets, but still...

Angela

Boo hoo. Sniff, sniff. Gee that's terrible guys. People shouldn't pick on Texas and Iowa like that. You must get so tired of defending the misunderstood places that you live (especially from people who have never been there). Perhaps you could come visit me (in New Jersey), and we can start our own support group.

 

[Knuckle]

The above was meant to be a joke. In hindsight, a bit too sharp.

 

[melon]

The Two Faces of the Tea Party | The Weekly Standard

“Socialism and fascism,” the author writes in Glenn Beck’s Common Sense, “have been on the rise for two administrations now.” Beck’s book Arguing with Idiots contains a list of the “Top Ten Bastards of All Time,” on which Pol Pot (No. 10), Adolf Hitler (No. 6), and Pontius Pilate (No. 4) all rank lower than FDR (No. 3) and Woodrow Wilson (No. 1). In Glenn Beck’s Common Sense Beck writes, “With a few notable exceptions, our political leaders have become nothing more than parasites who feed off our sweat and blood.”

This is nonsense. Whatever you think of Theodore Roosevelt, he was not Lenin. Woodrow Wilson was not Stalin. The philosophical foundations of progressivism may be wrong. The policies that progressivism generates may be counterproductive. Its view of the Constitution may betray the Founders’. Nevertheless, progressivism is a distinctly American tradition that partly came into being as a way to prevent ideologies like communism and fascism from taking root in the United States. And not even the stupidest American liberal shares the morality of the totalitarian monsters whom Beck analogizes to American politics so flippantly.

Read and watch enough Glenn Beck, and you realize that he is not only introducing new authors and ideas into public life, he is reintroducing old ideas. Some very old ideas. The notion that America’s leaders are indistinguishable from America’s enemies has a long and sorry history. In the 1950s it led Robert Welch, the head of the John Birch Society, to proclaim that President Dwight Eisenhower was a Communist sympathizer. For this, William F. Buckley Jr. famously denounced Welch and severed the Birchers’ ties to mainstream conservatism. The group was ostracized for decades.

But not everyone denounced Welch. One author, the Mormon autodidact W. Cleon Skousen, continued to support the Birchers as he penned books on politics and the American founding. And Skousen continued to believe, despite all evidence to the contrary, that American political, social, and economic elites were working with the Communists to foist a world government on the United States.

Glenn Beck is a Skousenite. During the “We Surround Them” program, he urged his audience to read Skousen’s 5000 Year Leap (1981), for which he has written a foreword, and The Real George Washington (1991). “The 5000 Year Leap is essential to understanding why our Founders built this Republic the way they did,” the author writes in Glenn Beck’s Common Sense. More controversially, Beck has recommended Skousen’s Naked Communist (1958) and Naked Capitalist (1970), which lay out the writer’s paranoid scenarios in detail. The latter book, for example, draws on Carroll Quigley’s Tragedy and Hope (1966), which argues that the history of the 20th century is the product of secret societies in conflict. “Carroll Quigley laid open the plan in Tragedy and Hope,” says a character in Beck’s new novel, The Overton Window. “The only hope to avoid the tragedy of war was to bind together the economies of the world to foster global stability and peace.”

Where's another Buckley to put these clowns back into the dredges of history where they belong?

 

[martha]

Where's another Buckley to put these clowns back into the dredges of history where they belong?

Buckley's vocabulary and complex sentence structures marked him as an educated man elitist. Not only would no Tea Party clown be able to understand him, they would deride him and his multi-syllabic commentaries as socialist/fascist.


After spending in my teen years in Orange County in the 70s, I didn't know until recently that the John Birch Society was marginalized. It was still reasonably popular here as far as I could see.

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

I honestly had never heard of the John Birch Society until Rachel Maddow started mentioning them and their history on her show . My parents certainly remembered them, though.

Good question, melon. Once again, we expect the moderates to denounce the extremists everywhere else, so come on, Buckleys of the world, stand up, it's your turn yet again.

I just want to know how people like the John Birch Society or the really extreme people in the Tea Party or people of that sort manage to get through their daily lives? With the way they seem to look over their shoulders and rant and rave about how everyone's out to get us, you'd think they'd just never get out of bed. It must be interesting to be that delusional and paranoid.

Angela

 

[maycocksean]

Buckley's vocabulary and complex sentence structures marked him as an educated man elitist. Not only would no Tea Party clown be able to understand him, they would deride him and his multi-syllabic commentaries as socialist/fascist.

This sentence alone reveals your true commie nature.



Seriously though. I really feel the lack of, or drowing out of, thinking conservative voices in this country (and dare I say, in this forum) is truly sad.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Press play.

Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues

Well, I was feelin’ sad and feelin’ blue
I didn’t know what in the world I wus gonna do
Them Communists they wus comin’ around
They wus in the air
They wus on the ground
They wouldn’t gimme no peace . . .

So I run down most hurriedly
And joined up with the John Birch Society
I got me a secret membership card
And started off a-walkin’ down the road
Yee-hoo, I’m a real John Bircher now!
Look out you Commies!

Now we all agree with Hitler’s views
Although he killed six million Jews
It don’t matter too much that he was a Fascist
At least you can’t say he was a Communist!
That’s to say like if you got a cold you take a shot of malaria

Well, I wus lookin’ everywhere for them gol-darned Reds
I got up in the mornin’ ’n’ looked under my bed
Looked in the sink, behind the door
Looked in the glove compartment of my car
Couldn’t find ’em . . .

I wus lookin’ high an’ low for them Reds everywhere
I wus lookin’ in the sink an’ underneath the chair
I looked way up my chimney hole
I even looked deep down inside my toilet bowl
They got away . . .

Well, I wus sittin’ home alone an’ started to sweat
Figured they wus in my T.V. set
Peeked behind the picture frame
Got a shock from my feet, hittin’ right up in the brain
Them Reds caused it!
I know they did . . . them hard-core ones

Well, I quit my job so I could work all alone
Then I changed my name to Sherlock Holmes
Followed some clues from my detective bag
And discovered they wus red stripes on the American flag!
That ol’ Betsy Ross . . .

Well, I investigated all the books in the library
Ninety percent of ’em gotta be burned away
I investigated all the people that I knowed
Ninety-eight percent of them gotta go
The other two percent are fellow Birchers . . . just like me

Now Eisenhower, he’s a Russian spy
Lincoln, Jefferson and that Roosevelt guy
To my knowledge there’s just one man
That’s really a true American: George Lincoln Rockwell
I know for a fact he hates Commies cus he picketed the movie Exodus

Well, I fin’ly started thinkin’ straight
When I run outa things to investigate
Couldn’t imagine doin’ anything else
So now I’m sittin’ home investigatin’ myself!
Hope I don’t find out anything . . . hmm, great God!

>>>>>

 

[deep]

Tea Party gets another victory in South Carolina.

 

[Irvine511]

4th black Republican congressman ... ever.

 

[coolian2]

i like to think it means the tea party has less influence than the wang chest beaters think they do.

 

[maycocksean]

4th black Republican congressman ... ever.

Does that include the ones from the Reconstruction era?

 

[Irvine511]

Does that include the ones from the Reconstruction era?

i believe so. that's what i remember NPR telling me this morning.

just GOP congresspeople. the Dems have had plenty more.

 

[maycocksean]

i believe so. that's what i remember NPR telling me this morning.

just GOP congresspeople. the Dems have had plenty more.

Now that I'm on summer break I don't have a morning commute. I miss my NPR My son is more partial to the "car car" song and the elephant DVD, so not much chance of listening at home either.

Hard to believe that there was a time when the Republican party was THE party of black folks (not that it mattered post-Reconstruction when it came to elected officials).

 

[deep]

Hard to believe that there was a time when the Republican party was THE party of black folks (not that it mattered post-Reconstruction when it came to elected officials).

I hear this all the time, they go back to Lincoln and reConstruction,

well back then the blacks knew their place.

and if Lincoln had his way, MLK jr would have been born a slave.