(Tea Party) Constitutional fundamentalists are wackos

Isnt the Tea Party a grass roots group who was started as anti establishment conservatives who then got co-opted by the republicans and now are a main line republican group?

 

It's probably hard to make any generalized statements about who became a part of the tea party movement but I would believe that they did have some generally common backgrounds. Most were unquestionably conservatives, probably members of the Republican Party to begin with. They were generally fiscal conservatives and it was the accumulating national debt that was their initial concern. Along the way though the also attracted the typical extremists like racists, Islamophobes, anti-Semites, homophobes and others that generally are not a part of mainstream America. These were basically "univited guests" to the movement but they did influence it and, to some degree, corrupted the message. Judson Phillips is the most visable IMO as he created the Tea Party Nation that hosted the 2010 Tea Party Convention with Sarah Palin as the key speaker. The Tea Party Nation has been identified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. We've also seen racism sneak its way into the Tea Party Movement by the endorsement of promenate members such as Michelle Bachmann that signed a pledge that inferred that African-America children were better off being raised as slaves as opposed to free people. Whether Michelle Bachmann knew she endorsed this is debateable but her signing of a pledge that carried this allegation is undeniable.

In 2010 the Tea Party Movement carried political clout but that has greatly diminished in the last two years. Many of their positions have proven the be based upon hypocracy or ignorance. For example they generally support a huge military industrial complex costing hunderds of billions of dollars annual which is paid for to a large degree with deficit spending that increases the national debt but oppose Social Security and Medicare that, to date, have never contributed a dime to the national debt. They support tax cuts but not tax increases when to balance the US budget both are required. They believe that cutting funding for welfare instead of addressing the problem of the need for that assistance. If we reduce the need that results in a lower expendature so that must be our focus. We can't through retirees and women raising children under the train just to reduce a government expendatures. They generally support the most unfair tax loophole for millioniares (capital gains tax rates) that allows their income to be taxed at less than half the rate of a small business owner.

As I've also previously noted they don't generally support strict interpretation of the US Constitution but only compliance with the parts they like. This is not uncommon in political circles of course. To my knowledge only the Liberatarian Party actually supports all parts of the US Constitution.

 

It's probably hard to make any generalized statements about who became a part of the tea party movement but I would believe that they did have some generally common backgrounds. Most were unquestionably conservatives, probably members of the Republican Party to begin with. They were generally fiscal conservatives and it was the accumulating national debt that was their initial concern. Along the way though the also attracted the typical extremists like racists, Islamophobes, anti-Semites, homophobes and others that generally are not a part of mainstream America. These were basically "univited guests" to the movement but they did influence it and, to some degree, corrupted the message. Judson Phillips is the most visable IMO as he created the Tea Party Nation that hosted the 2010 Tea Party Convention with Sarah Palin as the key speaker. The Tea Party Nation has been identified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. We've also seen racism sneak its way into the Tea Party Movement by the endorsement of promenate members such as Michelle Bachmann that signed a pledge that inferred that African-America children were better off being raised as slaves as opposed to free people. Whether Michelle Bachmann knew she endorsed this is debateable but her signing of a pledge that carried this allegation is undeniable.

In 2010 the Tea Party Movement carried political clout but that has greatly diminished in the last two years. Many of their positions have proven the be based upon hypocracy or ignorance. For example they generally support a huge military industrial complex costing hunderds of billions of dollars annual which is paid for to a large degree with deficit spending that increases the national debt but oppose Social Security and Medicare that, to date, have never contributed a dime to the national debt. They support tax cuts but not tax increases when to balance the US budget both are required. They believe that cutting funding for welfare instead of addressing the problem of the need for that assistance. If we reduce the need that results in a lower expendature so that must be our focus. We can't through retirees and women raising children under the train just to reduce a government expendatures. They generally support the most unfair tax loophole for millioniares (capital gains tax rates) that allows their income to be taxed at less than half the rate of a small business owner.

As I've also previously noted they don't generally support strict interpretation of the US Constitution but only compliance with the parts they like. This is not uncommon in political circles of course. To my knowledge only the Liberatarian Party actually supports all parts of the US Constitution.

 

This thread is over 500 posts. You are welcome to start another, hopefully with a less flaming title.

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