THE TEA PARTY

[Duchess]

In your opinion, who are they & what do they want?

I just read that Bill Maher called Sarah Palin a cunt & a dumb twat and those comments somehow revolve around her association with the Tea Party. I looked for a definition for TP but no two are the same. How do you define them?

[Maggot]

The Tea party people are a conservative group when they hold a rally they clean up after themselves and do not call the liberals "cunts" or "fucktards"
Compare that to the occupied movement that the liberals did where they shit on the streets and destroyed parks and basically had no message except calling conservatives assholes and you have the answer.
The likes of Maher are pissed that the tea party people are still around defending the constitution. His use of explicit words are a sign of his exasperation with anything conservative. So he resorts to this when he doesn't get his way and it just proves his lack of understanding of the people that actually work for a living.
Name one thing that the tea Party people have done that is trash talk and derogatory. They are still around because their basic theme is what the majority of people are thinking.
Imagine what America would look like if everything liberals wanted was implemented.

[HairOfTheDog]

Bill Mahr is a politically engaged liberal entertainer. Ted Nugent is a politically engaged conservative entertainer, Tea Partier.

Mahr called Palin a cunt and dumb twat. Nugent called Hillary Clinton a worthless bitch and he called Obama a subhuman mongrel.

I've seen and heard President Obama called and likened to a lot of very negative things by Tea Partiers, including a "terrorist".

IMO, the most extreme conservatives and the most extreme liberals are equally guilty of name calling and childish behavior toward the other. I don't care too much about that, especially when it comes from entertainers.

What I care about is the fact that the most vocal and sometimes influential elected leaders on both sides often refuse to consider the other side's points and what's in the best interest of the American people as a whole; they don't seem willing to even consider cooperating or compromising very often anymore. That pisses me off. They have a job to do which, by necessity, requires working together within the system.

I see Tea Partiers as ultra-conservative Republicans. I agree with some of their views, particularly in regards to minimizing federal regulation and laws, and also when it comes to fiscal policy.

However, I don't necessarily agree that Tea Partiers are mainly fighting to maintain constitutional rights. Many times, when they're screaming about something, it sounds to me more like they're trying to interpret the constitution from a religious or moral-majority mindset. I don't like that. I obviously disagree with the majority of Tea Partiers who oppose gay marriage and would like to see abortion deemed illegal again.

[Maggot]

I agree with your points. I do not like late term abortions though and wish a limit of 4 weeks at most for abortions. Ted nugent should not have said what he said it only denigrates things. Today it seams there is a war between the two factions hard liberals and ultra right wing. I believe most of the population is between the two. The other day when I was getting a haircut at "the dudes place" a girl came in that was dressed as a guy and acted like a guy but you could tell she was a girl. That did not bother me it was just different. You don't see much of that around here. But she was accepted and got her hair cut.
The times they are a changing. I just hate when things like that are shoved in my face with little room for opinion. You watch these talk shows and everyone's yelling at the same time. THAT drives me nuts.
I wish that liberals would go by the constitution and not bypass the framework that has set our country apart from the rest of the world.

[Duchess]

I don't like late term abortions either. Personally, I think it's too late for an abortion once the child is viable enough to live on its own. I don't know what month that would be.

I don't like big government, me, my friends and many of the people I associate with on a daily basis don't need babysitting. Sometimes I think the government only exists for those who are too fucked up to care for themselves.

I don't like that those in Washington usually refuse to work with each other. They work for me & you and I want them to fucking work, work like I do, work like you do. If I had any power over their situations I would fire them in a nano second. I think they are pretty much worthless and I don't view them any differently than I do the guys in the poor 'hood who stand around drinking out of brown paper bags all the live long day.

[cladking]

Simple enough.

The republocrats started worrying people would notice we have a one party system that gives us lower taxes (for the rich), higher taxes for everyone else, and increased spending as the economy is being destroyed to support the poor and new groups of rich to spread the new money around. Americans are mostly libertarians with liberal social ideas and are a little isolationist so they have to hide from us the fact that the government actually represents the wealthy and foreign interests to the exclusion of Americans. The tea party was created to make conservative ideas look foolish and untenable like many of their leaders.

Look at the libertarian party. These guys would win every election if they ran a politician or a statesman but mostly they run idealists who want to dismantle the military or some other inane idea. Meanwhile the republocrats always seem to manage to get the rich richer and the UN stronger while America falls behind. They can't seem to work together except to get everything they want.

Hope and change is just heapin' helpins' of the same ol' same ol'.

[username]

I wrote a fairly thoughtful response to this and then my computer went pfft.

In short, I view the rabid Tea Party members as stupid as those that occupied Wall Street for awhile. The Tea Party may offer up a good point or two and then they keep talking and they sound like extreme nuts.

They are absolutely ripping apart the Republican Party right now. There's no center; either you're with us or you're not.

[Cynical Ninja]

Its a shame that so many people identify with just one thing, liberal or conservative, black or white, right or wrong. I'm a believer in the many varying shades of grey that some people choose, for whatever, to completely ignore.

I'm liberal about some things and conservative about others. Sex? I'm liberal, I believe consenting adults should be able to do anything they like sexually in the privacy of their own home as long as its fully consensual, legal and between adults.

Crime?, I'm conservative, I believe in long punitive sentencing and I am for the death penalty and think prison should include enforced hard labour.

People are sometimes too reactionary, they've already made their mind up about an issue or topic before they've given themselves time to actually think about it. To some people Obama can just do nothing right....ever. Even when he nailed Bin Laden some people were critical “its the previous work of the Bush administration that got Bin Laden!”

No! Bush jnr said, and I quote “where is Osama Bin Laden? Quite frankly I don't care!” Luckily “Barry” did care. But do I disagree with everything Bush did in office? No I don't I agree with some stuff he and his administration did. Do I agree with everything Obama has done in office? No I don't I disagree with some stuff he and his administration has done.

[Cynical Ninja]

Also the claim that the tea party speak for what most ordinary Americans think is bullplop. Only people on the far loony right support the tea party the same way only those on the far loony left support the occupy movement.

They are both at the polar opposite extreme ends of the political spectrum. Just because the tea party clean up after themselves and the occupy movement don't doesn't make them any less batshit crazy.

[Cynical Ninja]

Oh and the idea that only liberals fling shit is also bullplop. For every liberal pundit flinging shit at conservatives I can name you a dozen conservative pundits spewing hateful bile at liberals.

The idea of a “liberal media” is a right wing construct, an urban myth. Talk radio in the US is dominated by conservative right wing bile and the conservatives have fox news spewing forth anti liberal bile 24/7.

Its evident here in mock, lots of members moaning about liberals very few moaning about conservatives, and that's not because there are more consevatives its just because conservatives are more vocal more loud more aggressively forthright and confrontational.

Conservatives moaning about being controlled by the government then trying to tell women and gays what they can and can't do. Oh hypocrisy thy name is conservative! A hateful self defeating paradigm of shameful wanking.

[username]

I believe the vast majority of us are in the middle but there's no money for the politicians to be in the middle. Conservatives need the right wing, religious nut money and democrats need money from the unions and everybody with their hand slightly out. Until we take the money out of politics/campaigns, it will remain a two party country. The addition of the Super PACs just added to the complete lunacy. It's all about money and the foxes are guarding the hen house. Nasty business.

[Adub]

I tend to agree with this think tank.

http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-...-tea-party

Many people on the left still dismiss the tea party as the same old religious right, but the evidence says they are wrong. The tea party has strong libertarian roots and is a functionally libertarian influence on the Republican Party...

[HairOfTheDog]

I tend to agree with this think tank.

http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-...-tea-party

Many people on the left still dismiss the tea party as the same old religious right, but the evidence says they are wrong. The tea party has strong libertarian roots and is a functionally libertarian influence on the Republican Party...

There is definitely a libertarian strain in the Tea Party (also, to a lesser degree, in the Republican and Democratic parties). No argument there.

There's an interesting piece in the LA Times this morning about the diminishing strength of the Tea Party and its plans/agenda to regain and increase its influence.

Snip:
Its candidates stumbled in two Texas primary races. Supporters in Congress failed to block bipartisan deals to increase government spending and raise the debt ceiling. And a high-stakes bid to defeat Obamacare led to an unpopular government shutdown that sent tea party approval ratings to new lows.

Five years after it emerged as the most potent force in conservative American politics since the Reagan revolution, the tea party is at a crossroads — and some critics have declared the movement all but dead.

Insisting that they've learned from the setbacks, however, stalwarts are vowing to reinvent their defiant brand of politics to ensure they stay part of the debate in Washington and particularly in the Republican Party.

"We've definitely matured and have gone into what many of us call 'tea party 2.0,'" said Amy Kremer, chairwoman of Tea Party Express, one of the largest national groups to spring out of the movement. "We no longer have protests in the streets, but we're working to elect people and affect legislation and do the things that really have to be done in order to effect change."

A glimpse of that strategy was on display at a recent anniversary celebration hosted in Washington by the Tea Party Patriots, a group that claims 15 million supporters. (Tea Party Patriots) co-founder Jenny Beth Martin outlined goals and ideas that tea party groups will be rallying around in the coming year.

At the federal level, they plan to push for the so-called penny plan, which would require annual cuts of 1% in government spending until the budget is balanced.

They will seek a constitutional amendment to replace the tax code with a single fixed rate, ending a system of write-offs — including corporate loopholes and mortgage interest deductions — enjoyed by millions.

And they plan to take the fight to repeal Obamacare to the state level, pushing legislatures to enter into interstate health compacts that they say would allow states to ignore federal regulations and enact their own reforms. Though dismissed as a long shot by some, proponents hope the strategy will render the Affordable Care Act inoperable in those states and give compact members control over federal healthcare dollars.

The tea party, Martin said, has come a long way since it emerged out of the boisterous anti-tax protests on April 15, 2009. What began as "being upset and yelling at the TV" is evolving into a savvy operation, she said.

"They've had an election cycle now where they've seen wins," Martin said. "They've had one where they have seen more losses than they'd like to. And they've seen how the games in Washington are played."

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-tea-...z2wsxM2XS7

[Maggot]

I have to admit I have seen them at the beginning and said "They don't seam so bad" and have not really looked at them in the past year.
I should check and see all the bad things they have done, or at least dbl check them and whatever facts are out there now about the movement.