Read about people who having lost their jobs became full-time Tea Party People.
While there are a number of valid points the Tea Party folks make, there’s a certain level of dishonesty about their furor. One example, the Republicans who vehemently supported nearly identical positions until Democrats supported them. Rosie O’Donnell, of all people, makes a strong case about it.
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74% of tea party members are either Republican or Republican leaning independents. The Republicans haven’t had a black senator or congressman since 2003 and only 3 ever. By 2012 white births in the US will drop below 50% for the first time.
No wonder they are nervous.
Uncle Dave’s favorite source of biased news – The New York Times.
Even Dave admits: “there are a number of valid points the Tea Party folks make”, but he has to keep digging until he finds something he can ridicule.
Classic Uncle Dave post
#2: I’ve always thought they have a certain base of valid ideas. I disagree with them on a number of issues, but as a small government supporter who believes most politicians are or have become corrupt, their anti-government stance is one I, too, support.
Unfortunately, just like the Republican party, they’ve allowed it to be hijacked by the fringe.
“there’s a certain level of dishonesty about their furor”
Oh, I thought this was a post about Obama’s recess appointments – like when he was opposed to Bush doing to appoint Bolton to the UN even though both Dems and Repubs supported the appointment, but now that he’s President, anything goes, right?
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#5 ” but now that he’s President, anything goes, right?”
There’s a difference between blocking a nominee for a position you don’t think a person is suited for and the tactics of someone like Richard Shelby of blanket blocking 70 nominations unless you get your 45 million dollar payoff.
The social dynamics of activist groups are generally all the same. The teabagger movement is no different, with the exception that Fox News actively promotes and effectively sponsors them. Without Fox, they’d be trivial and truly grass-roots groups. With Fox, the top is well-funded corporate astroturf.
Jetfire…for grins and chuckles please explain how thinning the ranks makes for a more powerful party. Keep in mind that we each get one vote, and numbers = power.
Wait until unemployment comes down, and they all have jobs. All of a sudden, the tea party’s mad hatters will disappear.
I wish at least one news outlet would find an informative tea party person. From the videos I have seen, you can not get good information about the tea party from the followers. Ask a question and the answer will be “I really never thought about it.”
You almost come to the conclusion that the tea party people have nothing better to do so why not protest. Who cares about policy. It is like watching Jerry Springer.
The one point I do not like about the tea party people is their fanaticism about the flag. Instead of devoting themselves to the constitution they worship a flag. What happens if the flag changes? In the tea party’s view, Obama might change the flag to this:
http://tinyurl.com/yf9t4pk
Some group needs to do something to get rid of the Democrats and RINOS in Congress. The spending and borrowing from China is out of control. Obama is trying for the trifecta of health care, cap and trade, and increasing taxes as a way to ruin this country’s economy and the Democrats are letting him do it.
Health care that was supposed to make health insurance more affordable does just the opposite. If your employee does contribute any amount for your health insurance, that amount is now taxable, payable by you. So much for not raising the taxes on the middle class. I don’t make that much, but this is going to cost me a lot more in taxes.
How much is cap and trade going to cost me? How much will lack of oil drilling cost me? I don’t make that much money. Let me keep a little bit of it.
You know the tea party’s claim that they are non-partisan would be more believable if they would ever criticize anyone but Democrats. And it might be more believable that they don’t want socialized medicine if so many of them didn’t have gray hair indicating that they might already be getting socialized medicine.
I feel sorry for those people who lost their jobs. They’re in a grim situation. I’ve been there in the past.
However, they are incoherent in their protests. From the article:
He and others do not see any contradictions in their arguments for smaller government even as they argue that it should do more to prevent job loss or cuts to Medicare. After a year of angry debate, emotion outweighs fact.
There you have it. These people aren’t even pretending to make sense.
I bet a lot of non political Germans joined the Nazi party to vent their anger too. Germany was broke because of a war and the citizens didn’t like feeling helpless. Watch out for some charismatic leader to take the reigns of the Tea Party.
Top 5 reasons why they join?
5. Embarrassed at being Republican and want to be associated with something new.
4. You want to say you hate having a black president but don’t want to be accused of being a bigot.
3. You’re not entirely sure what the health care bill is but joining this makes you feel ‘plugged in’.
2. Neighbors forced them to join or they won’t get invited to the next KKK meeting.
1. Wants to be associated with someone that suppose to be “smart” like Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin.
#15: I know you were being facetious, but I wonder if anyone actually thinks Palin or Beck are smart? At least anyone who has done the tiniest bit of research on them.
#- Uncle Dave — Yeah!, Let us see those birth certificates!
#6: As I’ve said, I think all politicians in Washington are corrupt. For the most part, I agree with you except I’m not a strict constructionist because there are issues that come up that didn’t exist in the past yet need to be dealt with. If Congress won’t deal with them, the courts are forced to.
The comic in today’s paper point’s out similarities of the Tea Party to the Yippies of the 60’s.
I wonder who the Tea Party sees as it’s Abby Hoffman?
They join the Tea Part to have something to do while waiting on their government check and food stamps to come in the mail.
Rosie O’Donnel, now there’s a unbiased source of reasoning…Never carries a torch, never spins information, doesn’t have an agenda…
Yep, certainly someone I’d quote.
#11, Benjy,
Health care that was supposed to make health insurance more affordable does just the opposite. If your employee does contribute any amount for your health insurance, that amount is now taxable, payable by you. So much for not raising the taxes on the middle class. I don’t make that much, but this is going to cost me a lot more in taxes.
Really? You see this is part of the stuff that attracts tea baggers. They believe it. Just because it is made up is irrelevant. Believing in this crap requires no thought process. Just faith that who ever told you didn’t lie.
I would ask you to point to the part of the bill that does that. But I know you won’t even try to back it up. Why would you? That would require some actual searching. No, it is better you ignore me and continue believing in your lies.
#16 Uncle Dave – .. the operative term is they’re “suppose” ..to be smart!
As a source I give you: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/31106408/ It is from the liberal news site MSNBC, not Fox News. Even liberal MSNBC says it, so there.
The bill is 1100 pages long. The reporters at MSNBC do a better job at parsing the bill than I.
#22 Mr Fusion said,
“Believing in this crap requires no thought process. Just faith that who ever told you didn’t lie.
I would ask you to point to the part of the bill that does that. But I know you won’t even try to back it up. Why would you? That would require some actual searching. No, it is better you ignore me and continue believing in your lies.”
#12,
If you believe the Tea Party folks only criticize Democrats, you haven’t been paying attention. It is true that the majority of the criticism is directed at Democrats, but there are several Republicans that also are in the crosshairs (ie. McCain, Graham, Snowe, Collins — at least Specter had the decency to defect).
The Tea Party is all about complaints, but I have never seen any specific solutions mentioned. “Smaller Government” and “Lower Taxes” are their answer to everything, but the NEVER give any specifics. The queen of that ideology is Sarah Palin, and I am still waiting to hear something specific.
The people in the video complain that their house is ‘underwater’… they paid too much for it, or borrowed too much against it, so please just shut up about that situation. They complain about high taxes, yet they are NOT PAYING ANY TAXES AT ALL, since they are unemployed, living off of Social Security and being treated by Medicare.
You want to attend a gathering of clueless ignorant people, go to a Tea Party rally and talk to the membership. I have just attended out of curiosity… it is truly amazing how ignorant these people are. And the younger membership is just plain nasty.
#10
“Who cares about policy. It is like watching Jerry Springer”
good one!
#15
Embarrassed at being Republican and want to be associated with something new. Dallas nails it.
#15–Dallas==classic. Well Done.
Any group has a fringe element but how many, what percentage, of a group is no longer a fringe but rather is the active leadership?
I’ve seen too many of “the leaders” of the Teabaggers be what in same times would be dismissed as the fringe===BUT THEY ARE THE LEADERSHIP!!
Case in prime–Dick Army.
Book Tv had a good show tracing this all back to Congress Redistricting themselves into safe districts where appeal to the base RATHER THAN appeal to the center is what is driving all the polarization we see today.
Fun to analyse why things are the way they are==often from totally unintended consequences==always my favorite. Here, incumbents understandably and reasonably want to do all they can to assure their re-elecctions but they create a system that requires them to appeal to the fringe.
Only the people can force a change to this two party corruption. We are doomed.
Bobbo…heard another related reason for the fringe takeover this weekend: primaries. Only the political junkies vote in these things, forcing the candidate to appeal to the edges of the relevant platform. That gets the nutters elected rather than moderates who appeal to wider audiences.
Add that factor to the gerrymandering, and we have the beginnings of a solution.
Yeah, but all that stuff was done under a white man, not a secret Muslim Kenyan here to outlaw Christianity and confiscate our guns before putting 300,000,000 people in secret FEMA camps (go ahead, laugh, but most of the Tea Party BELIEVES this stuff, they’re INSANE).
All the stealing, torturing, abuse of government power, spying on Americans, etc was ok with a white guy. But when we elected a black President who won in a landslide after campaigning for a YEAR on the idea that people in America deserved the right to see a doctor if they are sick, that makes you ANGRY!? That’s a SLIPPERY SLOPE! LOL. Dude, we were on that SLOPE a LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG time before the idea of Canada style health care (which by the way is pretty good, they are after all MORE healthy than we are, and they drink like fish).
#29–olo==I do think we are saying/recognizing EXACTLY the same mechanism.