Regardless of accuracy or intellectual honesty. I think Fox News is hiring, lucky for you. Clearly, I would like to see supportive data for any of your nonsensical tea party gossip and so-called policy. Please provide some. Ah, the typical "you're close-minded" reverse accusation (*sigh*). Please, what truth am I missing?
How many times do I have to explain? Because there is no "Tea Party," there is no unified "policies and principles" handbook. Instead, there are literally hundreds of tea parties, each with its own subset of goals and values. And that's the truth of it. What I wrote applies to me and generally to the tea parties with which I have worked.
Wherever you live, one or more tea parties are nearby. Find one and share your thoughts and ideas. You will be surprised how many similar and opposite ideas exist within them. A key is civility, which I am sure won't be your problem as it is for some. I think you'll have fun and meet some interesting people along the way.
It was incredibly shrewd when they drew up this Tea Party product. When something controversial or negative goes down - 'Um, I don't know much about that group, we don't really associate much with each other. In fact, we have nothing in common!' When something goes right - 'Our message is loud and clear! We the Tea Party have spoken and driven our voices have been heard! We're getting bigger and bigger every day.'
It is a benefit when the membership / leadership is difficult to identify and round up if government goes bad, but everybody can take credit when we succeeed.
Thanks, thumbs. Yeah, I'm not kidding at all, actually. Since the GOP is decidedly anti-science in its current construction, I'm hopeful that some Tea Party people might see what good science and technology have done the USA over the last 200 years.
I stopped reading after that. Going down that road accomplishes absolutely nothing. In fact, it only makes things worse.
Yes they were motivated and I hope they do get more experience. That said in your own words they were motivated by something vague. This is why the Tea Party seems unfocussed, I mean you yourself make a strong argument for less government but then defend Medicare, and frankly goofy at times. Anger can win elections but it isn't a good basis to govern. For what its worth, I also criticized the Obama campaign and Obama supporters for the vagueness of "Hope" and "Change" and I am not surprised that many Obama supporters are upset now as those terms were so vague that all sorts of things were endowed into them that wasn't going to happen.
If smug replies were worth votes, we wouldn't have lost the House, because it's all we do these days, make condescending and derogatory comments about people who's votes we need in order to promote a progressive agenda. We are mostly to blame for losing the House. It's on our shoulders, but we'd rather whine about the tea party than to change our strategy and approach, even though we're getting our ass handed to us. Liberals have been smearing tea party voters as deluded bigots for months. They just laughed in our face and voted to transfer control of the House to the GOP. Our response to this might be a re-evaluation of whether constantly bashing the tea party is the right approach, since our current strategy isn't working out too damn well. Or to put in in simpler terms, every time a liberal public figure smears the tea party, or White people who vote Republican, Dick Armey has an orgasm. How obvious does it freaking need to be that attacking tea party voters stupidly counter-productive?
I know it doesn't speak for the country as a whole, but there's new Texas House member from Deep East Texas, just West of Jasper. He ran on eliminating property taxes, teacher accountability, and had significant support from the Tea Party. Meet the first Republican that anyone can remember from the Texas House District 12, James White:
Are schools funded by property taxes in the district he comes from? How are you going to hold teachers accountable while taking away all their funding at the same time?
He intends to replace it with an expanded sales tax. It's a popular academic conservative idea right now. I like the idea from tax policy stand point, but I worry that it would lead to less local control over school funding.
When the GOP starts making inroads among Gays & Lesbians, and begins to see Republican minorities getting elected, especially Asians, you damn well better believe it's time for Democrats to get a new game plan.
