Stigma of the Tea Party?

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There is very little difference between Bush and Obama honestly. Obama is like the UberBush imo. Would John McCain have passed that "healthcare" monstrosity? Maybe, If he could get the Republican base to buy into it I think he would. Remember the bill was based off Romneycare. The corporations win in the end either way by keeping the status quo or making out like bandits under the guise of "reform".

Uh.....not really. Plenty of people go "that was some luck on our side to pull off our victory" or "that was too close" or "how did we survive/win that?"

EDIT: also. Teabagger jokes

If I were in the US no doubt I'd support the movement. We have the Tax Payers Alliance (TPA) here in the UK.

We should try next election to get an Independent as President
The government is corrupt now days and is a slave to corporate america.
Government is a necessary evil. But sometimes I think that a nanny socialist state wouldn't be so bad due to the huge amount of sheeple in this nation that cannot think for themselves.
BTW Government Healthcare is not a bad idea. It actually lowers the costs. Already done in the UK,Scandinavia,most of the EU and Japan Korea, and Taiwan.
It's just the scary thought of the AMERICAN government running health care


As for the Tea Party most of them are Ultra Right Winger Ignorantamous rabble.
I saw one of them holding up a sign saying "Kick out the Immigrants!"
Well, your an immigrant too unless your a native american. So kick yourself out.

QFT!

To be baldly honest, the stigma to me about the Tea Party is I strongly disagree with the direction they'd rather take the country. While they're screaming their heads off about socialism and the federal debt, I'm still waiting for most of Obama's progressive agenda—all the stuff he campaigned under like getting us out of Iraq—to materialize. I see their efforts as obstacles against making these things happen.

Has anyone taken a look at the new tea/Republican party platform for Maine?

What are they planning to do? Shoot anyone who speaks French?

This is a summary with a link to the actual contents.

http://www.mainepolitics.net/content/ma ... y-platform

The "stigma" of the Tea Party appears to me to be the perception of a movement that has, at its core a legitimate public policy issue, to with, "the scope of government represents a constraint on productivity, prosperity and individual freedom. However, it has attracted to it all manner of social conservatives, conspiracy theorists and wing nuts.

A political party cannot hope to be taken seriously if its poltical program is a bunch of agitprop and aphorisms. If the Tea Party casts out the social coservatives and returns to its roots as a small-government, libertarian movement, then it will have much greater respect. But, of course, it's the wing nut positions that get it air time, column inches and, most importantly, corporate support. So who cares about respect?

All it will succeed in doing, for the moment, is securing Democratic control of Congress by splitting the right.

That is hardly a surprise. The media which are largely liberal and statist biased will choose the most ridiculous and ludicrous instances of protest to discredit the protest in toto.

ruveyn

I like most of the platform listed in Maine. Some of the items are a bit to conservative, but getting rid of corporate collusion in government is a good place to start fixing most of the problems.

there are a couple of points that are just whacked:
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/joan_ ... y_takeover
quote:
Just a few examples:

The old document is certainly conservative, with commitments to lower taxes and rein in spending as well as support for marriage as involving a man and a woman, and a stated belief in "the sanctity of life." But there aren't a lot of mentions of divisive, let alone fringe issues. Maine Republicans even expressed support for "public and private" conservation efforts, like preserving the Maine Woods, as well as a "comprehensive energy policy" that will "encourage alternative sources and conservation."

The new document, by contrast, commits the party to a long wish list of fringe ideas. And it doesn't entirely sidestep divisive issues like abortion; where the old platform committed the party to "the sanctity of life," the Tea Party version added, "including the rights of the unborn," to make it more crystal clear the party opposes abortion. (So much for sidestepping those issues, Jim!) Here are a few of the other new planks in Maine's platform:

* "Asserting our 10th Amendment sovereignty rights" (the obsession of the "tenthers," who believe healthcare reform bill was unconstitutional)
* "Reject the U.N. Rights of the Child Treaty" (the U.S. and Somalia are the only nations who haven't ratified this global commitment to reduce unsafe child labor, stop child sex trafficking and prevent kidnapping kids to conscript them in state armies, a failure President Obama has called "embarrassing.)
* "Discard political correctness, make public the declaration of war [Jihad]"
* "Investigate collusion between government and industry in the global warming myth"
* "Prohibit any government funding of advocacy groups like ACORN"
* "Return to the principles of Austrian economics" (?)
* "Repeal and prohibit any participation in efforts to establish a one world government."

I don't think any of those are crazy.

I wouldn't so much call it a "stigma", but there is a definite liability in being affiliated with the Tea Party due to the wide range of people and issues that are involved. Because it's not a centralized movement, just about anyone can show up and claim to be representing the values of the group, and so it becomes very easy for political opponents to claim that fringe elements with questionable positions and motives represent the core of the movement. Leftist anti-globalization protests in the 90's suffered a similar problem with masked "anarchists" showing up at their events and causing violence and vandalizing property, giving the whole protest a black eye in the process. It's an unfortunate reality that having a "big tent" style of political movement often exposes people who have legitimate grievances to dishonest pigeonholing based on whatever "questionable" elements may show up, but it seems to be a cherished tactic of both wings of the political spectrum.

I like this. The government is spending too much. Government needs to have a reasonable budget that we can afford to pay. It is our money not theirs. I agree that these two issues are personal and should be taken up at the state level. That way people have a choice and can move where they like the policies. Comprehensive energy policy and conservation efforts have been used in the past to drive up energy costs and deny us the use of our natural resources. I call “Progressive Double Speak” BS on this line of debate – Call it what it is – Forced choice between continued dependence on foreign oil or paying the giant corporations extortion money for alternate energy. The unspoken part of this policy is about moving our “polluting manufacturing overseas” so corporations get cheaper labor at the cost of American jobs. I think these ideas are mainstream to most people. Following our own constitution is a fringe idea? The United States is a bunch of states united by the federal government. It was never meant to be a giant government split into states for management sake. I reject this treaty, not because of the good things you list, but because of the bad things you don’t. I want to have my kids raise their own kids, instead of the government telling them what is acceptable and not acceptable. I want parents to be able to choose a schools that teach their kids to think instead of being indoctrinated in the government schools. I don’t want the government to choose what religions kids are and are not allowed to learn about. Read the treaty, it silences the voice of parents in favor of the UN.
How do you fight the enemy if you can’t say their name? Jihadists murdered 701 people in the month of April across 18 different countries and left thousands injured.
A webstite that follows the radical side of Islam
As for political correctness, George Orwell said, “Don’t you see that the whole aim of politically correct speech is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.” If you follow the global warming money, it goes in circles from political donations to corporate benefits. Who gets rich from it and who gets fleeced? If it is not a myth, why fear the inquiry? Do you really want government funding lobbyists? What about government funding people that have views opposite your own? Why not use taxes to fund the campaigns of one party and not the other? Austrian Economics is a school of thought that is associated with little government interference in the marketplace and the primacy of property rights. In other words, the government needs to let business succeed and fail on their own instead of using taxpayer money to bail out, or give bonuses to their friends and families. The one world government is what is coming with corporations controlling all of the labor and taxes. You didn’t really think the progressive agenda was going to make life better for the average American did you? America was the exception to the world of royalty and serfdom. The progressive agenda is aimed at destroying that exceptionalism. The progressive agenda will bring developed nations down to the level of third world countries. The corporate elite will be the royalty, and the rest of us can live in hovels and eat boot leather.
This is the United States. We should look out for the interest of the US citizens. We don’t need to have corporations ship our jobs overseas because they have cheaper labor. We should be using tariffs to keep manufacturing here, and make foreign products more expensive. Other countries put tariffs on our products, but we don’t do it in return causing us to have a trade deficit. Learn history and look around at what is happening now.