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Tea Party Platform

tyr_13

Penultimate Amazing
tyr_13
Joined
Aug 8, 2008
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18,095
After trying to read through some of the recent threads on the 'Tea Party' (aka, tea baggers), I became more confused. I'm sure there is a useful discussion to be had somewhere in there, but it's difficult to find where.

What is the 'Tea Party Movement' platform? As far as I was able to tell before, the tea party platform was 'democrats and Obama specifically are bad.'

After some research, I'm beginning to understand that I was fairly right with what their unifying ideology actually is. From reading some of the local tea party pages, it seems that they are basically libertarian, except for when it comes to gay rights, abortion, and religious rights. They call for a lot of the classic libertarian things, like calling for the withdrawal of all US troops from all foreign countries (including allies).

But then I found out that there seem to be several competing tea parties! Oh the joy. For some reason some cites list the Bill of Rights as their platform.

teapartyrevolution.com actually states that the platform is currently being 'refined'. They don't know what they're on about either.

It seems that they do want to reverse Roe vs Wade, are against environmental reform, secure the boarders, education reform, energy indepedence, and something about the 10th amendment. But then it only seems that way. After some more reading, it turns out that they don't even agree on those. Actually it does seem they agree on those, but don't agree they should be in the platform.

Can anyone sort this out? So far, all I'm left with is, 'pick and choose libertarianism and Dems are bad.'
 
Platform #1.

-it shall be a violation to bring Peppermint tea, to a Tea Party event, for Peppermint tea..is not really tea.

:)
 
It seems to broadly be a number of R social stances and Libertarian domestic and foreign policy ideas with free market economics/deregulation. From what I have seen it looks like the second coming of the Ron Paul revolution. If Ron Paul wasn't so old he could almost be the poster child for the TP. If they start talking about the gold standard then we know Paul is secretly pulling the strings.
 
tyr_13 said:
...it seems that they are basically libertarian, except for when it comes to gay rights, abortion, and religious rights.
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I wouldn't say they are libertarians at all. They are better described as right-wing populists: http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/populism-its-all-right-wing-rage-the

If you are looking for a platform, gaze in horror at the 1984 Populist Party's platform. (This party name is periodically revived by new groups, but doesn't have too much historical continuity.) You can read the platform at Google Books, in the online pages of Extremism in America: a reader by Lyman Tower Sargent, pages 18-23. It has many similarities to what the Teabaggers are saying, including the weird juxtapositions that are confusing you.

In this case, the populists are not like libertarians because the former like tariffs and oppose gay rights. These planks might not seem to make sense together, but for the kinds of people who still want to live in the 1950's/1850's, both appeal to their sense of future shock.

You'll find similar beliefs in the Constitution Party, although they have a more explicitly Christian emphasis.
 
It seems very despotic what with Earl Gray and all.
 
GreyArea said:
I wouldn't say they are libertarians at all. They are better described as right-wing populists: http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/populism-its-all-right-wing-rage-the

If you are looking for a platform, gaze in horror at the 1984 Populist Party's platform. (This party name is periodically revived by new groups, but doesn't have too much historical continuity.) You can read the platform at Google Books, in the online pages of Extremism in America: a reader by Lyman Tower Sargent, pages 18-23. It has many similarities to what the Teabaggers are saying, including the weird juxtapositions that are confusing you.

In this case, the populists are not like libertarians because the former like tariffs and oppose gay rights. These planks might not seem to make sense together, but for the kinds of people who still want to live in the 1950's/1850's, both appeal to their sense of future shock.

You'll find similar beliefs in the Constitution Party, although they have a more explicitly Christian emphasis.
Click to expand...

It seems that I was conflating a survey on how people in Boston's Tea Party self identified with being what they actually were. It's a very stupid, basic mistake on my part.

The Constitution Party is pretty scary, and when a group has a weasel word as it's name, you know you're in for some fun. For those unfamiliar, the 'Constitution' party would be better named the 'anti-Constitution' party.

For the Tea Party I'm still left with the platform of, 'conservatives who hate Obama' more than anything else. It's mighty confusing, but then again, I just started more research into Beck's part in this all. :boggled:
 
Platform, the third: the third plank of the platform is always to follow the secend plank but precede the fourth plank.
 
headscratcher4 said:
Platform, the third: the third plank of the platform is always to follow the secend plank but precede the fourth plank.
Click to expand...

...unless you've got a younger brother who is going out this weekend as the guest of another boy, in which case, collect his note before lunch, put it in your letter after you've had your hair cut, and make sure he moves your third plank down onto the fourth plank for you.
 
Can anybody confirm this.

I have heard that the 'Tea Party' has strong demographic support amongst females aged 4-12.
 
cwalner said:
Can anybody confirm this.

I have heard that the 'Tea Party' has strong demographic support amongst females aged 4-12.
Click to expand...

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"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time... with my wee-wee. Wake up sheeple!"
 
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