Tea Party vs War Party

[Ziggurat]

Democracy in action was what put Obama in the White House.

Yes, it is. There's no contradiction there. Democracy is a constant struggle.

 

[154]

How would you describe the Tea Party to non-US residents?Are they really a threat to US democracy?

Ordinary citizens opposed to the entrenched oligarchy of professional politicians which compose a government run amok contrary to its Constitutional constraints.

Simple.

Who opposes that and them?

Those that have a vested interest in Big Government.

"The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen." - Dennis Prager

The tea party has quite a few white politicians in its sights as well, white establishment politicians. You say that the tea party is afraid of change, and yet change is exactly what they're demanding. Not just a change from this administration, but a change from business as usual in Washington.

Precisely.

 

[Upchurch]

Ordinary citizens opposed to the entrenched oligarchy of professional politicians which compose a government run amok contrary to its Constitutional constraints.

Simple.

Who opposes that and them?

Those that have a vested interest in Big Government.

I question the source of your information and your definition of "Big Government".

 

[SezMe]

When your primary criticism of a movement with such massive popular support is that they're racist (based mostly on their race), well, you don't have a strong hand. As Obama himself said, he was black before he got elected.

Huh? I didn't even mention racism so how in the world could it be my "primary" criticism. And since I didn't criticize, how could it be criticism? You're a bit defensive here, Zig.

I question "massive" support but let's go with it for the sake of the discussion. I do seriously question your logic, however. You're saying the strength of a critic's comments depend on the size of the movement being criticized. So in earlier days critics of very popular racist and homophobic movements had a weak hand?

For you, Zig, that's an awful lot of boo-boo in one paragraph.

 

[SezMe]

You say that the tea party is afraid of change, and yet change is exactly what they're demanding. Not just a change from this administration, but a change from business as usual in Washington.

One of their most consistent themes is "take our country back". Back to the 50s when life was simple. They overly venerate the founding fathers and want to get back to those good ol' days. They consistently call for the government to "get off my back" ... back to the times when the rugged individual tamed the prairie.

So what you call "change", I call "reversal". But that won't happen. Globalism, for example, is irreversible. Big cities are the future. Corporate farms are the future. Nation states being secondary to global corporations is the future (if not the present).

We're not going back and the Tea Party doesn't have much of a future.

 

[Upchurch]

Ya, that does nothing to disprove my point. You either want the government to enforce change in marriage laws or you want the government to prevent gays from getting married.

How is not preventing people from doing as they please intrusive?

 

[Chaos]

How is not preventing people from doing as they please intrusive?

Because it prevents anti-gay bigots from enjoying a world they do not have to share with gay married couples? Terribly intrusive, that.

 

[Virus]

Democracy in action was what put Obama in the White House. The Tea Party and its backers don´t like the results of such democracy,

They don't have to like it.

(they only want the people to have power when the people have the correct opinions

So they're no different to every other person on the planet.

and skin color),

Prove it's about race.

so they´re clamoring for him to be removed.

By elections. Which is their right to do.

 

[Towlie]

("Are they really a threat to US democracy?") Nope. They are democracy in action. Lefty and his ilk like to portray them that way because they don't like the results of such democracy (they only want the people to have power when the people have the correct opinions).

Strictly speaking, they're not a threat to democracy itself, they're a threat to the capability of democracy to deliver its intended results. That's because the theory behind democracy does not adequately provide for unconscionable psychological manipulation of voters through hatred, fear, and outright lies. Democracy pretty much depends upon at least some degree of honesty in political campaigns, as well as news media that actually deliver news instead of flagrant propaganda. Once those principles are abandoned by one side, and the people are too weak-minded to care and to think for themselves, that side seizes power and the intended result of democracy is lost.

In that sense, yes, the Teabaggers (not "Tea Party" - that name belongs to a great event in American history that runs contrary to everything the conservative Teabaggers stand for) are indeed a threat to American democracy.

 

[Piggy]

On a related note, there's Tom Friedman's recent piece regarding the "Tea Kettle Movement":

The Tea Party that has gotten all the attention, the amorphous, self-generated protest against the growth in government and the deficit, is what I’d actually call the “Tea Kettle movement” — because all it’s doing is letting off steam.

That is not to say that the energy behind it is not authentic (it clearly is) or that it won’t be electorally impactful (it clearly might be). But affecting elections and affecting America’s future are two different things. Based on all I’ve heard from this movement, it feels to me like it’s all steam and no engine. It has no plan to restore America to greatness.

The Tea Kettle movement can’t have a positive impact on the country because it has both misdiagnosed America’s main problem and hasn’t even offered a credible solution for the problem it has identified. How can you take a movement seriously that says it wants to cut government spending by billions of dollars but won’t identify the specific defense programs, Social Security, Medicare or other services it’s ready to cut — let alone explain how this will make us more competitive and grow the economy?...

The issues that upset the Tea Kettle movement — debt and bloated government — are actually symptoms of our real problem, not causes. They are symptoms of a country in a state of incremental decline and losing its competitive edge, because our politics has become just another form of sports entertainment, our Congress a forum for legalized bribery and our main lawmaking institutions divided by toxic partisanship to the point of paralysis.

The important Tea Party movement, which stretches from centrist Republicans to independents right through to centrist Democrats, understands this at a gut level and is looking for a leader with three characteristics. First, a patriot: a leader who is more interested in fighting for his country than his party. Second, a leader who persuades Americans that he or she actually has a plan not just to cut taxes or pump stimulus, but to do something much larger — to make America successful, thriving and respected again. And third, someone with the ability to lead in the face of uncertainty and not simply whine about how tough things are — a leader who believes his job is not to read the polls but to change the polls.

 

[GreNME]

On a related note, there's Tom Friedman's recent piece regarding the "Tea Kettle Movement":

Oh, well done. Thanks for that link. I don't even agree with everything the author prescribes, but it's well-put.

 

[Ziggurat]

Strictly speaking, they're not a threat to democracy itself, they're a threat to the capability of democracy to deliver its intended results. That's because the theory behind democracy does not adequately provide for unconscionable psychological manipulation of voters through hatred, fear, and outright lies.

Want to see real fear, hatred, and outright lies? I have just the example for you.

Democracy pretty much depends upon at least some degree of honesty in political campaigns, as well as news media that actually deliver news instead of flagrant propaganda.

Indeed, the media's portrayal of of the tea party is full of flagrant propaganda.

Once those principles are abandoned by one side, and the people are too weak-minded to care and to think for themselves, that side seizes power and the intended result of democracy is lost.

Nothing says "I love democracy" than accusing the population at large of being weak-minded and easily manipulated. It warms my heart to see the contempt in which people are held by those who claim to be their advocates. I'm just surprised you didn't call them "sheeple".

 

[zaphod2016]

I have read about the Tea Party (a lot from this site), but in my European papers, they seem to range from the 'humourus' eccentrics to the next 1st World Nazi party.

Now isn't that ironic?

The "Tea Party Patriots", in all their vitriolic opposition of socialism, and in comparing Obama to Hitler, have been perceived internationally as something akin to the National Socialists of the 1930s.

And you know what's really scary? You may have a point.

On paper, ideologically, the Tea Party movement is opposed to federalism, socialism, and is fighting for a "small government" platform that would decentralize power- in theory the exact opposite of the NAZIs.

However, in practice, most members of the Tea Party are overwhelmingly militaristic, and support aggressive foreign policy. And since the U.S. military is a shining example of American collectivism, socialism and raw centralized, Federal power, most Tea Partiers are total hypocrites.

Fun fact: most Tea Partiers protesting socialism collect social security benefits. Oh baby, the irony is killing me.

Zap's Prediction: the Tea Party will bring about the death of the "Christian Conservative"-branded GOP by radicalizing the party and scaring away the moderates. In the end they will be marginalized again, and the GOP will re-brand itself as something more libertarian, something more aligned with the social policy of Goldwater, or to a lesser extent, Eisenhower.

Or, those nut jobs actually get elected. In which case, may Zeus have mercy on us all.

 

[Towlie]

Want to see real fear, hatred, and outright lies? I have just the example for you.

I won't bother watching the video. Maybe if you show us where that same video is offered with favor on a reputable liberal website then I might grant that it suggests something bad about liberals in general.

I did, however, take enough of a glance at the website to see that it promotes denial of global warming. Apparently you think that global warming is an outright lie, which tells me all I need to know about you.

 

[Loss Leader]

As with everything Pat Buchanan says: 80% of it is right and 20% is Hanibal Lecter crazy. The real problem is that the crazy is so completely mixed in, it makes the sane part useless.

 

[Ziggurat]

I won't bother watching the video. Maybe if you show us where that same video is offered with favor on a reputable liberal website

Dude. Pay attention. The video was created by liberals, namely the 10:10 project. They took it OFF their own website because of public outrage over how disgusting and hateful it is. They want it to got down the memory hole. If you won't watch it because of the site that it's now hosted on is conservative, well, there's a term for that: willful blindness.

then I might grant that it suggests something bad about liberals in general.

I'm not trying to suggest something about about liberals in general. Only the liberals involved in making the video. You're the one, not me, trying to smear vast portions of the populace because they disagree with me politically.

 

[Towlie]

You're the one, not me, trying to smear vast portions of the populace because they disagree with me politically.

Sorry, I completely lost you there. I guess we're not communicating. I thought you were defending the Teabaggers, and I would therefore never try to smear anyone because they disagree with you politically.

 

[Piggy]

Want to see real fear, hatred, and outright lies? I have just the example for you.

Hatred and lies?

Fear, yeah, but I don't see the other.

Despite the fact that the whole thing was horribly bungled and whoever handled that project should be fired because they have no clue about marketing, the underlying message -- if you can see it through the disgusting imagery, which most folks won't bother to, nor should they -- is that helping to reduce carbon emissions doesn't require extreme amounts of sacrifice, but failing to do anything is life-threatening.

No one is saying they'll go out and kill people who don't comply.

They're saying that if we do nothing, people will die.

But they've said it so badly that their message is not likely to get across.

I chalk that one up to hiring the wrong ad agency, and not having the sense to understand how others would see the film. Which means it's not hateful, just stupid.

 

[Ziggurat]

Hatred and lies?

Fear, yeah, but I don't see the other.

The people in the film advocating the 10:10 program are lying when they say "no pressure", and they're killing people who don't toe the line (or more precisely, people who don't at least pretend to toe the line). How is that not hatred? Now you can claim it's just fiction, but the portrayal of environmentalists, by an environmentalist group, shows all three: fear (the screams from the crowd as people explode), lies (the false promise of "no pressure"), and the hatred (murdering children). Maybe the folks at the 10:10 project don't actually feel this way, but that's still what they portrayed themselves as.

No one is saying they'll go out and kill people who don't comply.

They're saying that if we do nothing, people will die.

I hate to break it to you, but that is NOT the message the film actually conveys. No such message actually exists within the film.

But they've said it so badly that their message is not likely to get across.

They've said it so badly that it's not in there at all.

 

[uk_dave]

Which means it's not hateful, just stupid.

Just like 'Love actually'