The Freedom Movement is the greatest thing happening on the political landscape

Tea Party needs to do a much better job distinguishing itself from the birthers, the deportation fantasists, etc., if they want to be taken seriously. Fair or not, the Tea Pary is conflated in many people's minds with the racist haters who have had it in for the President since before he was elected.

WMVF wrote:

Tea Party needs to do a much better job distinguishing itself from the birthers, the deportation fantasists, etc., if they want to be taken seriously. Fair or not, the Tea Pary is conflated in many people's minds with the racist haters who have had it in for the President since before he was elected.

I agree with this. In reality, I really feel the Tea Party movement is a call against the existing Republican party more than the current administration. The small government people normally had the Republicans to turn to, but after the previous administration and the resultant governmental bloating, they had nowhere else to turn.

The tea party is the Republican party's Frankenstein. The Republican party used to be the party of the wealthy, the banker, the business owner, the investor, the executive and so on. Starting with Reagan, the Republican party sought to expand their power by trying to appeal beyond their traditional base. The Republican party did this by going after social issues (religious right), affirmative action (unions), and entitlement programs (Reagan's cadillac driving welfare mothers). The Republicans built a media machine (Fox, Limbaugh, etc) and took power in 2000. But then came W and the market crash. The Republican party of old (bankers, investors .. .) knew that the only way to avoid economic armageddon was to have a massive government bailout. The new Republicans (lower/middle class Fox/Limbaugh followers) couldn't stand the idea of government bailouts and formed the Tea Party. The problem is that the Tea Party brought with them all the Limbaugh/Beck crazy right wing positions that Republicans just used to get votes, but never would actually do anything when in office (like abortion, immigration, gun control). Add to all that the racial tension of having the first black president elected, and you have a Republican party that has seen its creation, the Tea Party, come to life and run amok. The result, wherever the Tea Party shows up, Democrats will win by default as the Tea Party splits the Republican vote. It is just like what Ross Perot did in 1992 and 1996.

I <3 the Tea Party wrote:

They are simply exposing their true character. The left has nothing and is totally impotent to bring about any real change or improvement of any kind..... They rely on disingenuinity, such as meritless charges of racism, to destroy the reputations of those who are truly good.

Yes, isn't it entirely disgusting and horrible and outrageous when people call another racist, for no good reason, in order to destroy that persons reputation? Yes, this is incredibly offensive, I am sure you agree. And I am sure that is why you hate Glenn Beck and Mark Williams, Tea Party big wigs, who within months of Obama taking office were calling him a "racist" who hates white people. Right???

It only took a few months of a black president to be in power for those clowns to start playing "the race card" that they supposedly detest so much. Stunning. Can anyone take those idiots, and thus their followers, seriously, when their put their hypocrisy so fully on display like that? Apparently the answer is, sadly, yes.

Now let's see you try to weasle out of this hypocrisy by, to use your own word, disingenuously, defending Williams' and Beck's (and MANY, MANY other tea partiers) charges of racism against Obama while simultaneously decrying the charges of racism against the Tea Party. Should be entertaining.

FreeDumb: we are all free to be as dumb as we want, and you are exercising that right to its fullest extent.

And really, can you imagine any future where the Tea Party doesn't get co-opted by the Republicans and absorbed back into the mainstream?

WMVF wrote:

Tea Party needs to do a much better job distinguishing itself from the birthers, the deportation fantasists, etc., if they want to be taken seriously. Fair or not, the Tea Pary is conflated in many people's minds with the racist haters who have had it in for the President since before he was elected.

The "tea party" is not actually a political party with an official membership. As such, no participant has any control over who else associates with the movement. Many people who participate in tea party events are not even of the freedom movement. By and large, most people in the freedom movement are not racists and do not want to associate with racism. But the individuals leveling these charges of racism are not even willing to make the simple distinctions between actual racists and good people who just want their freedom. The conflation is intentional. These people are liars, purely and simply. They are not the ones we are trying to reach and their opinions do NOT matter. They are the dinosaurs who need to go extinct before the world can move on.

Sir Lance-alot wrote:

Now let's see you try to weasle out of this hypocrisy by, to use your own word, disingenuously, defending Williams' and Beck's (and MANY, MANY other tea partiers) charges of racism against Obama while simultaneously decrying the charges of racism against the Tea Party. Should be entertaining.

I know your post wasn't directed at me, but the word "disingenuous" was used by me first, so I will respond.

I am not defending anyone who cries racism. Those within the Tea Party who do so are wrong, as are those who are against the Tea Party.

I believe a majority Tea Party members are not racist, and simply believe in small government. I think it is wrong to judge a majority or a group by a vocal minority within the group.

Your post is reasonable, and yes, I was not directing mine towards you.

But don't don't you agree (as you appear to), that is quite ironic and hypocritical for those individuals who seem most offended by having themselves and their followers labeled as racist to immediately label the first black president (who is actually 1/2 white and raised by whites) a racist who hates all white people?!?? Apparently it is okay after all to play the "race card" and the "victim", as long as it is white people who are the ones doing it.

Which Tea Partyers are not racist ? As far as I can tell, every one of them is.

Sir Lance-alot wrote:

Your post is reasonable, and yes, I was not directing mine towards you.

But don't don't you agree (as you appear to), that is quite ironic and hypocritical for those individuals who seem most offended by having themselves and their followers labeled as racist to immediately label the first black president (who is actually 1/2 white and raised by whites) a racist who hates all white people?!?? Apparently it is okay after all to play the "race card" and the "victim", as long as it is white people who are the ones doing it.

Yes I think it is very hypocritical of those individuals. I think they are individuals, however, and should be treated as such. I don't think their idiocy should cast a shadow on an entire group of people or an idea. Overall, it appears we agree.

another Klan wrote:

Which Tea Partyers are not racist ? As far as I can tell, every one of them is.

At a party I was at the other day, I was talking to a family friend who identified himself as a Tea Party supporter when the topic of politics came up. His reasoning was that he was in favor of a smaller government and he felt our current government spending was unsustainable. Neither reason came across as particularly racist to me.

Only the most disingenuous smear artist defending the most untenable position would find it necessary to mention pundits in a philosophical debate about the proper role of governemnt. I don't adopt Gleen Beck's statements as my own, don't have to answer for anything he says, and have never even heard of Mark Willims in my life. Unless you have proof of a racist statement coming out of MY OWN MOUTH (or from my own keyboard), then YOU ARE A FUCKING LIAR and you have no valid complaint against me.

That's racist unless qualified with more information. "smaller government" is a common KKK code word for "fewer Blacks in government" or 'fewer investments in Black neighborhoods"

another Klan wrote:

That's racist unless qualified with more information. "smaller government" is a common KKK code word for "fewer Blacks in government" or 'fewer investments in Black neighborhoods"

I know I'm feeding the troll by responding to you, but feel compelled to do so anyway. Well done.

A conversation was had on the topic, so there is more information to qualify this. Areas where he'd like to see a decline in government spending included military spending and the war on drugs.

I <3 the Tea Party wrote:

I fully expect Obama to win re-election in 2012, but this time the voice of true liberalism will be so loud that it will be impossible for the media to censor, and by 2016 there will simply be nothing left for the parasitical advocates of big goverment to destroy and the country will have no choice but to move back in the direction of sanity, lest a truly destructive revolution occur or we lapse into a never-ending dark age.

I'm not going to pretend to know exactly what the Tea Party stands for, but from what I understand, they are just harder core Republicans. They are certainly not the "voice of true liberalism." If they were, they would be in favor allowing free immigration between the US and Mexico to enhance labor mobility. They would want to greatly reduce the size of the military. They would also want to increase the roles of government that actually increase economic activity, like increasing unemployment benefits, having universal health care, and improving infrastructure (basically everything Obama has been trying to do). Read Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman. Obama is not a liberal but I'm sure he has more in common with Friedman than Palin does. Neither the Republicans nor the Tea Party (nor the Democrats) have a coherent ideology. They're all just pandering.

Independent thinker wrote:

Their overwhelming message seems to be "less taxes, smaller government, balanced budget".

Okay, reasonable message.

What is the movement's plan to achieve these three initiatives in tandem? I'm looking for specifics.

A strong response to this post would begin along the lines of, "If the Freedom movement were to successfully inherit political power tomorrow, it would make advocate for the following changes...In order to remedy the nations existing problems of..."

Please, I am very interested in what you guys have to say.

It's hard to take you seriously when you reference South Park with a straight face and talk about how inspired you were by Ron Paul.

But anyway I see the Tea Party as a group of poorly informed Americans who don't actually hate "big government", but rather a specific group of entitlements. We see them protesting the health care reform bill as if it will remove freedom, railing against death panels. But there are no death panels. There will be no loss of freedom. And they're not even protesting Medicare!

They also aren't protesting farm subsidies, oil subsidies, or the biggest example of corporate welfare in history: the defense industry. If you want to talk about waste tax dollars, talk about defense. Iraq and Afghanistan have already cost more than any other war except WWII, and show no signs of stopping soon. We pour money down the drain in other countries and on the newest super-jets, while complaining about how there's no money for education or health care. Well, it's one or the other, and the Tea Partiers have evidently chosen war spending.

Government, especially federal government, isn't the only, or main, thing that could threaten freedom. Why is this hard to understand.

There is no similarity between the American Revolution and the Tea Party. You should google "Shay's Rebellion" and "Whiskey Rebellion" and see what the founding fathers thought of rabble-based "freedom" movements. We aren't a nation of yeoman farmers anymore.

Do the tea-partiers idolize Nat Turner and John Brown (actual revolutionaries for actual freedom?) Not on your life.

"parasitical advocates of big goverment"

Whatever. Without government as a watchdog, you are going to be stepping and fetching for the rich and grabbing your ankles for big business and their bought and paid for local government enablers.

you've been caught being a racist again. if your friend cares about reducing military and war on drug spending then he isn't Tea Party material.