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zamfir

- 2 years ago

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What do you think is up with the tea party movement?

Here's my theory: White trash racists are becoming a disliked minority in America (for good reason). The population is growing more diverse and trending toward being more liberal, and these guys know their days are numbered. They're scared, is all.

What do you think?

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BTW, I'm not a racist or bigot or any other negative label that seems to fly incessantly toward tea party members. Consider myself as a "normal" peace-loving, patriotic, freedom-loving individual member of the human race and by default or design a member of these United States. I do believe that our government (federal/state/local) has become too large to sustain. I also believe that a smaller government (with common sense/technology/thoughtful design) can accomplish more with less funding.

I must say that I joined the tea party and I agree with GomerKierkegaard that it is not a party rather a collection of mostly, like-minded individuals. My reasons for joining the tea party are it is a large group with no leader per se (love people who stand up and voice their opinions whether or not I agree). Another selfish reason is that I see a possible avenue for my belief that the election process should be changed to a tax-payer funded operation only. I do not share many of the opinions that are purportedly of the tea party but that is also true of many (actually most) other groups of this world.

Hello SP family, Its been a longtime I see some familar faces, I want to apologize for a 1/2 thought statement I made yesterday, I said White Supremacy was alive, surely ALL white people dont agree with the tea party movement, see White Supremacy psychology feels that Whites were born to rule and that Blacks must never challenge that rule, Well someone forgot to tell PRESIDENT OBAMA, Ive been in and out, Excuse Me, Im still worthyofpraise...

I love tea!! I drink lots of it. So I joined the tea party awhile ago not realizing what it was all about. I read some of their e-maols and agreed with some of their tenets. The US government is too big and who the hell is running things? Certainly not the President. Big Buisiness and lobbyists. Well, then they got too right wing on me and I un-subscribed. Maybe they don't have it exactly right, but somebody, somewhere should stand up against inefficiency and waste in the government. Everybody complains about the economy and continues to give their civil liberties away in the name of stopping terrorism.

The most glaring fact about the Tea Party is that it's not a party at all. Or any sort of a cohesive movement, either.

As I was reading the thread up to this point, I found myself going, "Right...uh, huh...yeah... okay...that's true..." A party or movement, by definition (and as flash alluded to in mentioning the Rainbow Coalition), is a collection of people with a set of common beliefs or objectives. The only qualification for membership in the Tea Party is vehement opposition to the current administration and, in particular, the President.

Some of this is driven by bigotry, some by the sense of loss engendered by having the former administration's policies rejected so soundly by the electorate, some by a long-standing deeply-held anti-government belief system, a lot of it is being ginned up by members of the media for their own purposes.

The other stark reality of Tea Party politics is how far their rationale deviates from the facts and how unwilling the members of the movement are to hear and accept any facts that might contradict their opinions and beliefs. To be sure, Tea Partiers don't hold the patent on this ability, but the level of cognitive dissonance among this crowd is profound and ubiquitous. It's unlike anything I've ever seen.

So I think the Tea Party is a net in which a lot of different types of fish have been caught. In times past, these individual splinter groups would have been tiny voices in the political sea, but the media, always hungry for something to cover and looking to serve their corporate masters, have held a microphone to their lips and given them a voice bigger than their ideas or ideals can reasonably contain.

White Supremany is very much alive.....

tea baggers you say? hate 'em ALL of them they think they can get away with feeling smugly superior while having no basis for their stance or opinions tea party dogma lack more evidence than witch trials and they are hemorrhageing respect like a broken urn.

Fun fact: Tea Party'ers (you know the party about taxes) doesn't know sh*t about taxes. In a survey conducted on Tea Party members, the vast majority had little or no clue as to what was happening in our country in relationship to taxes.

The fact that the guy in the picture has heterosexual on his shirt is one of the gayest (political incorrectness intended) things I have ever seen.

Whether co-opted or genuine, the Tea Party rallied hateful bigots and sore losers. While many members might have had legitimate viewpoints, their voices were drowned out. But if the labels were inaccurate, the Tea Party was ineffective, by choice or by ability, to undo this stigma.

Frankly, I enjoy the intense fracturing, whether it's the Tea Party or the Democrats or whomever the group is. In an effort to defend our own membership into a group, we spend less effort pointing to our fellow members as examples, and more effort specifying how we don't conform to the template. They will jump up and down and tell us to see past the labels about what they themselves actually represent. They will reach for specific examples, and come out from behind their banners to have actual discussions. Even when they are not seeing clearly, at least they are engaged. And we should use that example when we conduct ourselves.

In the end, I think the most helpful delineation will be to recognize those who believe that a group can co-opt their identity, and those without such belief. The members who realize that the Tea Party isn't quite right will leave, taking with them the parts they thought were good, and eschewing the parts that they couldn't stomach. This is exactly the sort of critical thinking that we want to have happen.

And when it does happens, the Tea Party will have done good.

To much of a generalization to call them all racists. Poor term actually. Most are libertarians that are turning that way. People fed up with big government. This has nothing to do with Obama being black because most tea party couldn't stand Bush's spending either. Believe or not, Bush's stimulus 1 at the end of his term is what started the fire

It's mainly the fact that the US is spending money to the point it's unrealistic it will ever get paid back. Even Timothy Geither says this. People that aren't concerned about this are likely not one who are going to be part of the ones under the burden to pay it back, BUT, cuts are coming to. All these cuts will start to ignite the low-middle class as well.

Try seeing past the labels. Just like any movement, there are bound to be ones that love to join simply for the act of being "part" of a movement because it's the "new" rebellion. But I actually agree with a lot of things they are saying.

The more debt equals nothing but a further road into slavery under the government. The more you depend on the government, the bigger you are a slave and subjected to the "rules" on the government.

Trust me, I see it everyday. Patients are denied treatment under state systems.all the time If you really think the government cares for you. well.......someday, you're going to see that it doesn't nearly the way you think it does.

At the heart the Tea Party just wants the government to do what it was originally meant to do and not be the Grand encompassing "mother" it's becoming. Washington is becoming a huge Nipple.

Yes and no. While there is certainly the white trash, racist element (and yes, I believe that a lareg percentage of them are racist, if not always blatantly so) I think that the tea party is a reaction by the "majority" to no longer being the majority. The status quo in which they think they have a chance of climbing the latter just by virtue of their sex and skin color is changing and it scares the sh*t out of them. They're no longer able to force people to pray to their god, keep their women at home barefoot and pregnant and the "ethnics" in line through violence and they just can't handle it.

Haha I really, really hope that your theory is right. I think that it's always been easy for old conservatives to get mad at nothing without much of a thought process. They would flock to a group that calls that a political party.

What baffles me the most about the tea party "movement" is that the Republican party actually supports them through many of their leaders. I mean, hell, Republicans and Conservatives fund them. It's not really that grassroots at all. My question is, what do Conservative leaders see in this misspelling-ridden movement?

Team SP

The Tea Party's message was co-opted in a blink of an eye by the neocons. All you have to do is ask them this simple question to test how much they hate 'big government':

How many of the 700 military bases in 120 foreign countries do you think the US gov't should close in order to cut spending?

And here's a bonus question: how far should the Pentagon cut its own budget in order to cut spending?

Ron Paul has been the only Republican of note who calls them out on this blinding fact: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/08/27/a_tea_party_foreign_policy

I think that T shirt makes a better target than the series of concentric circles we used to use...

as*holes of the world like to gather in little groups - feeling that they have been done wrong to by some power or other....

@zamfir Kansas City, Missouri

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What do you think is up with the tea party movement?

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White Supremany is very much alive.....

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tea baggers you say? hate 'em ALL of them they think they can get away with feeling smugly superior while having no basis for their stance or opinions tea party dogma lack more evidence than witch trials and they are hemorrhageing respect like a broken urn.

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I think that T shirt makes a better target than the series of concentric circles we used to use...

as*holes of the world like to gather in little groups - feeling that they have been done wrong to by some power or other....

What do you think is up with the tea party movement?

White Supremany is very much alive.....

tea baggers you say? hate 'em ALL of them they think they can get away with feeling smugly superior while having no basis for their stance or opinions tea party dogma lack more evidence than witch trials and they are hemorrhageing respect like a broken urn.

I think that T shirt makes a better target than the series of concentric circles we used to use...as*holes of the world like to gather in little groups - feeling that they have been done wrong to by some power or other....

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I think that T shirt makes a better target than the series of concentric circles we used to use...

as*holes of the world like to gather in little groups - feeling that they have been done wrong to by some power or other....