Recently I read a post by someone -- a liberal -- who had a very negative attitude about the Tea Party. As part of this, they also insinuated that this was not a new organization but an old organization dressed up in new clothes. Note that NOTHING explicitly was said: the unspoken message was that the Tea Party was absolutely dispicable. I found this pretty amazing. Can anyone explain this to me?
I do not specifically know what the Tea Party is all about. My guess -- only speaking as an outsider, not very attentive observer -- is that their main issues are (1) controlling federal spending (reducing federal spending, reducing the federal deficit, reducing the federal debt -- kind of all different manifestations of the same concern, I imagine) and (2) requiring government to respect the limitations set forth in the US constitution. These are, I expect, the big issues that everyone in the Tea Party agrees on. Oh, sure, I suppose -- just as in any political party -- there are some folks that have additional issues they care about, but these are the common, main issues. What could be other issues? Maybe managing our borders to prevent illegal immigration, maybe managing illegal aliens inside the country. I don't know. What else? Does the Tea Party have any particular view on foreign policy?
So what is the big deal? What do these people think the Tea Party is guilty of?
I saw John Kerry and David Axelrod demonize the Tea Party as the sources of the Moody's downgrade. Well, that is preposterous. As I understand it, the Tea Party largely drove the "Cut, Cap, and Balance" legislation that passed the US House two weeks before August 4; this was not even brought to a vote on the floor of the US Senate; Moody's said if this legislation would have passed into law they would have been satisfied and not made the downgrade. How then can the Tea Party be seen as the cause of the Moody's downgrade?
I know the Democrats are britches-sh1ttin' scared of the Tea Party, because they are moving and shaking stuff and creating change that can be believed in. Is this why the bad rap is out on the Tea Party?
Why would the democrats be scared? They are all about change.
They are scared because their power is on the wane. THat 4+ trillion spending spree is about to be capped. Most INTELLIGENT people realize we could have avoided the S&P downgrade if the democrats had voted on the Boehner plan in the Senate. But the democrats played brinkmanship, showed no inkling of spending cuts, and show intent to continue destructive spending. The "CHANGE" they have promised, has precipitated into:
+ 9.1% unemployment on the books, with an actual rate closer to 20%
+ a jobs outlook unchanged or even worse than 2008
+ 4+ trillion MORE in debt in just 3 years
+ an unconstitutional government medical mandate which is estimated
to cost an additional 2 trillion dollars
+ a first-in-history credit downgrade....seems the housing crash happened on the democrats watch (dodd and frank), and now the credit downgrade from AAA to AA+ on the democrats watch, and DIRECTLY ATTRIBUTABLE to democrats
+ a much more racially divided society
+ a society much more politically polarized.
Oh I thought this was about the tea party head shooting the nonunion business owner in Toledo the other night.
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John Adams “The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.”
Ronald Reagan: 'Everybody that is for abortion has already been born'
"I never said I was worth it. I only said I wouldn't do it for less " William F. Buckley Jr.
I see the potential for sweeping changes ... huge republican victories, taking both houses and and oval office. Once they're in control, they MUST be effective, they MUST not let dems thwart their initiatives, and the MUST NOT pass up any opportunity to show the American people what a bunch of scurrilous scumbags the democrats are.
I see the potential for sweeping changes ... huge republican victories, taking both houses and and oval office. Once they're in control, they MUST be effective, they MUST not let dems thwart their initiatives, and the MUST NOT pass up any opportunity to show the American people what a bunch of scurrilous scumbags the democrats are.
I would guess that the Democrats are just assuming blacks will vote very heavily for Obama. What if that doesn't happen? How could I suggest such a radical thought? Well, I have no shame. I am unafraid of being wrong. That's some part of the explanation. But there is another part. The blacks, as a group, are suffering substantially worse from Obamanomics than the average. There is nothing like economic hard times to focus the intellect and make you think twice about who your friends are. They also probably tend to remember things like "If we pass this stimulus package, unemployment will not go higher than 8%!" They saw that this didn't happen and in fact they were the biggest losers. Also, this is a new thought I haven't heard others throw out there, didn't a lot of the stimulus money Obama and the Democrats throw out there go into the pockets of wealthy white men? They bailed out the wealthy white men running Chevrolet. They bailed out the wealthy white men running GE. They bailed out the wealthy white men running Chrysler. I haven't seen any black CEOs in those companies, have you? How about Harry Reid's $8 B train boondoggle (I don't know where that has gone to -- maybe the public attention to that coerced them to scuttle that plan)?
So suppose Rick Perry ends up being the Republican presidential candidate. He has a strong economic and jobs record. You can make attacks at this, but basically you are just going to dig deeper into this and make points for Perry. Texas has been over performing in job creation for a long time, for longer than the recent oil price bubble, and through the oil price bust (there was a substantive price drop in the mid 2000s -- 2005? 2006? -- in case you forgot, starting just about when George Bush lifted the off-shore drilling moratorium). Texas has been over performing in job creation back into the early 1990s. No, Perry was not there then, but he has governed a state that has got the right angle on business-government relationships. He himself has done some of the pro-business things that we need to do to encourage business. If you sling an arrow at him on one economic issue, he will use that to one-up you on one of these other economic points (and it isn't a negative that the Texas economy benefited from oil price increases -- other states didn't benefit from this because of their anti-hydrocarbon mining stance).
Could blacks swarm to Perry, a proven job creator, manager of sound government-business relationship? Stranger things could happen. Totally speculative, I acknowledge. I hear Obama is really afraid of Romney. If I were him I would be more afraid of Perry. Maybe he is afraid of Romney because Romney is borderline RINO and certainly shares many of the same liberal social positions with Obama.
The more Americans know about the Tea Party, the less they like.
The reason?:
Tea partiers want to their leaders to make decisions by asking some imaginary guy in the sky. "I invaded Iraq because God told me to" is A-Ok for Tea Partiers but downright frightening for sane Americans.
And you say your one of the smartest guys on this site......HD you don't have a clue what the Tea Party is about......NOT A CLUE.....
The more Americans know about the Tea Party, the less they like.
The reason?:
Next to being a Republican, the strongest predictor of being a Tea Party supporter today was a desire, back in 2006, to see religion play a prominent role in politics. And Tea Partiers continue to hold these views: they seek “deeply religious” elected officials, approve of religious leaders’ engaging in politics and want religion brought into political debates.
Tea partiers want to their leaders to make decisions by asking some imaginary guy in the sky. "I invaded Iraq because God told me to" is A-Ok for Tea Partiers but downright frightening for sane Americans.
As a holder of a masters degree in engineering from a Northern University, Hockeydad, I know you will appreciate that the above reasoning does not evince the same standard of rigor as Euclid's Elements (mostly what we studied in High School geometry, you know, axioms, theorems, corollaries, proofs).
The statement that tea partiers want their leaders to make decisions by asking some guy in the sky is colorful but does not stand up to examination.
Is there a correlation between being a Tea Party supporter and wanting religion to play a prominaent role in politics? What kinds of correlations might I find with voting for Barrack Obama in the Democratic primaries and, oh, for example, desire to implement European style social programs in the US? Could be? Maybe? Other correlations, like maybe a correlation with people who think the US government itself blew up the twin towers? Possibly? Stranger things have been known to happen? Notwithstanding whether there is or is not a correlation, it doesn't provide much insight in my judgment. Further, precisely what is meant by "religion play a prominent role in politics" and how was this belief established?
Glib statistics don't reveal much. Relative to the fact that more people dislike the tea party than formerly, that could just mean that the mainstream media -- which controls the dialog for most people -- have consistently misrepresented the tea party.
Nevertheless, possibly you are right about the role of religion in the tea party. I stated what I thought the fundamental premise of the tea party is. If the tea party is morphing away from the two key points I named in my initial post and are incorporating other things -- such as a specific view of the role of religion on politics -- that is going to go negatively for the tea party, in my opinion. That is going to rob them of support and it is going to minimilize them as a fringe group -- my prediction. Still, it is a question whether this is an inherent position of the tea party or just the incidental belief of some within the tea party.
Tea Party crimes
