Tea Party The New Civil Rights Movement?

[TRoaches]

You have a very cynical way at looking at American politics if this is how you feel about them.

My cynicism is justified by the history of American politics.

 

 

I honestly don't see social issues as illusion when they personally effect the nation as a whole when legislation is passed. Federal government has always played a roll in social progress from upholding a persons freedom of religion to outlawing slavery in America.

 

But thats just it....they do not affect the nation to nearly the extent that our politicians want us to believe. There are very few, if any, examples of true social progress being forced through legislation. The law is not capable of ending racism or sexism or any other -ism in our society. It has never worked in the past, and there is no reason to be optimistic that it will work in the future. All it does is drive such social ills deeper underground, and in the process solidify the beliefs in the minds of those who hold them. Repression always breeds resistance. When the civil rights act was passed it did not mean that everyone was suddenly ready to accept people of all races into society. A black father in the deep south did not read the news the day after the act was passed, turn to his wife, and say "Awesome! Get the kids ready because we're going to have a nice meal at that previously whites-only diner down the street, now that our equality is guaranteed by law!". If anything, in the immediate aftermath of the act's passage they would have been in more danger that week because of the emotional backlash among the people who did not like the societal shift that was being forced on them by law. The only reason that the diner in question eventually accepted non-white customers was because the old man retired and left his diner it to his children, who were more progressively-minded than he was and were willing to provide service regardless of race.

 

True progress towards diversity and inclusion is not about making sure that every group is recognized as a homogenised unit, but rather about abolishing the idea of default allegiance to an ideology group based on superficialities like race or gender. It makes me angry when I hear journalists or politicians talk about the "female vote", or the "latino vote", or the "black vote" because it implies a lack of political diversity within those groups. Such talk promotes the idea that all people within those groups share the same beliefs, which is insulting.

 

 

If social issue do not matter to you, would you really be apart of a political party that makes you feel like a 2nd class citizen if the party fits your fiscal, foreign, and military policies needs?

 

Your point is moot because no political party is capable of making me feel like a 2nd class citizen. I know my rights, and am confident enough in my beliefs that I do not need them to be affirmed by a politician or a party. If a political candidate focuses on social issues to any significant extent they will not receive my vote. If a citizen or journalist focuses on social issues when voting, writing, interviewing, or asking a question during a debate I think they are doing more to hinder progress than aid it, and will most likely disregard what they are saying as irrelevant when compared to the issues that truly matter.

[sukeban]

@social issues

 

Pre-1960s these issues were just swept under the rug by both political parties. This was a) convenient for our political process because it allowed the parties to debate over more traditional issues like defense and fiscal policy, but b) immensely unfair to those who were actually being victimized as a result of that inaction. Those days might look appealing to some in retrospect, but we would also do well to remember that these traditional arrangements were fundamentally authoritarian and reinforced tremendous inequalities between various social groupings, principally between men/women and various minorities/the majority.

 

Were fighting over these things a smoke screen in the 1960s and 70s? I would say no--in most cases--as they were in many cases inequalities created and reinforced by the very government under which we were all presumed to be equal. There is, however, most definitely a limit as to how much progress government alone can make in this direction, and changing people's minds about racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. are items that are not included among them. Those types of opinions (and most political opinions, for that matter) are created growing up and, by and large, never change--unless a drastic situation (like Dick Cheney and his daughter) forces a reevaluation. Waiting for such retrograde opinions to die out in a society literally means waiting for entire demographic cohorts to die off, taking their opinions--and their ability to each them to others--with them. Simple as that.

 

In many cases, government can help change minds by simply not getting in the way. Social evolution is taking place before our eyes, in the US and in Europe. The younger you are, the more likely you are to know and be friends with folks who are a minority, are gay, are foreign, are some different religion, etc. and, of course, when you're friends with someone and have a positive opinion about them, it is exceptionally difficult to generalize in a negative way about other people like them. That is the best way to develop a more tolerant society--to simply allow people to connect with each other and become friends. Older generations weren't "bad" for not doing this--it's more that they never really got the opportunity.

 

To wrap up, righting wrongs where people are unequal under the law is most definitely an admirable goal and is one that we should all celebrate; but Democrats attempting to demonize the Boy Scouts over their scoutmaster policy or Republicans endlessly advancing rearguard anti-abortion/gay marriage laws definitely qualify as smoke screen material, as they are either things best decided by the private changing of minds or matters that have already been decided in the favor of equality under the law.

Edited June 27, 2013 by sukeban

[Lord Garon]

 

 

Okay, demographics are what they are. Right now, this very moment, I'm trying to make the Tea Party more popular by "recruiting" a 36 year old, mixed race female. A seemingly impossible task. How can I accomplish that? What Tea Party values which have been expressed in this forum disenfranchise you? Not current political system failings (Republicans riding on the coattails of our platform), but values?

 

We are trying to change the system to make it more equitable. We believe in personal freedom not overly constrained by government. We have no particular social agendas, other than those which might directly follow from the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Citizens are citizens. Period. We, at least I, believe the "system" is at the root of your expressed concerns, and we want to change that.

 

Don't go away without telling me which values and precepts we promote are responsible for alienating the very people we aspire to help (which is everyone, from our perspective).

 

<edited for brevity> <snip>

 

Fiscal issues are important but if your trying to recruit people when the tea party is just a branch of the modern republican party, most likely the 36 year old mixed raced female you are trying to recruit will feel like a 2nd class citizen, because where the republican party as a whole currently stands socially.

 

 

Okay, thanks.

 

No, you probly won't see the Tea Party advocate for those issues, primarily because they are a symptom, not the disease. Most Tea Parties are fairly focused on some primary issues which, we believe, will promote the greatest needed changes.

 

BTW: Congrats. I believe the Supreme Court just ruled in favor of the same sex marriage advocates. I'm not sure of all the implications of that ruling, but it seems DOMA is history. Score one for the little guys.

[colourwheel]

@TRoaches

 

You are right, racism and sexism or any other prejudice can not be solved by social legislation alone. But in order for things to change about racism or sexism or any prejudice, social policies have a direct influence to society and how people start to view each other in the social community. Just because civil rights act was passed didn't mean over night everyone would accept Blacks as equals in the nation, it's obvious it would take generations for prejudice to dissipate over time for people to start to view other who are not like them as being just as equal. Just because social policies won't immediate effect the way people think doesn't mean social progress is not worth fighting for when it comes to and rights and equality. Without social legislation like abolishing slavery and passing the civil rights act there would be no social progress to begin with.

 

 

 

... no political party is capable of making me feel like a 2nd class citizen.

 

This here lies the problem, you can't seem to understand how it is to be treated like a 2nd class citizen. Whether it's for a lack of empathy or the way a person is raised, the only way to truly enlighten those who can not possibly understand is through social progress in changing social policies through government legislation... Change won't happen over night and might not even effect or change the way a person think or view things. But it will definitely effect future generations and how they think and view things, from your children to your childrens children and so on....

 

Cultural change and acceptance takes time to grow...

 

 

BTW: Congrats. I believe the Supreme Court just ruled in favor of the same sex marriage advocates. I'm not sure of all the implications of that ruling, but it seems DOMA is history. Score one for the little guys.

 

Score one for the little guys? I think this is a score for the Nation! This supreme court ruling will eventually flow into other states that don't have same sex marriage legal. If a couple is married in one state then moves to another state where the state laws do not recognize a the couple as married, that is a very strong law suit to take to the supreme court. They can't just all of a sudden unmarry a couple and deny them the same rights as other married couples when it maliciously hurts the relationship. Gay marriage will soon be legal in every state in the Nation after reviewing at how the Supreme court ruled both suits today.... At this point this social progress for LGBT rights is at a cultural all time high.

Edited June 27, 2013 by colourwheel

[Lord Garon]

<snip>

 

 

BTW: Congrats. I believe the Supreme Court just ruled in favor of the same sex marriage advocates. I'm not sure of all the implications of that ruling, but it seems DOMA is history. Score one for the little guys.

 

Score one for the little guys? I think this is a score for the Nation! This supreme court ruling will eventually flow into other states that don't have same sex marriage legal. If a couple is married in one state then moves to another state where the state laws do not recognize a the couple as married, that is a very strong law suit to take to the supreme court. They can't just all of a sudden unmarry a couple and deny them the same rights as other married couples when it maliciously hurts the relationship. Gay marriage will soon be legal in every state in the Nation after reviewing at how the Supreme court ruled both suits today.... At this point this social progress for LGBT rights is at a cultural all time high.

 

I had thought, perhaps naively, you were actually interested in a "debate" concerning the Tea Party. I asked in a previous post, which of the values that "we" espouse were responsible for your apparent dislike of the Tea Party. All you provided were nebulous references to "perceptions" (yours, apparently) and some invented similarities to Republican social consevatives. Nothing at all concerning the points asserted by myself and others. You aren't even listening enough to present a single core value back to me ("fiscal issues" does not qualify, sorry).

 

You continually rant about Tea Party social agendas after having been told repeatedly that the Tea Parties are motivated by political change. I am not dismissing the issues you are concerned with, everyone here is sympathetic to your cause. They simply do not apply, the Tea Party is not a "civil rights" movement. I rather suspect that you believed there would be a chourus of like-minded posters singing the apparent hypocrisy of the Glenn Beck/Tea Party Civil Rights Movement, rather than what you got.

 

Thank you ladies and gentlemen, it was interesting at times.

[colourwheel]

 

I had thought, perhaps naively, you were actually interested in a "debate" concerning the Tea Party. I asked in a previous post, which of the values that "we" espouse were responsible for your apparent dislike of the Tea Party. All you provided were nebulous references to "perceptions" (yours, apparently) and some invented similarities to Republican social consevatives. Nothing at all concerning the points asserted by myself and others. You aren't even listening enough to present a single core value back to me ("fiscal issues" does not qualify, sorry).

 

You continually rant about Tea Party social agendas after having been told repeatedly that the Tea Parties are motivated by political change. I am not dismissing the issues you are concerned with, everyone here is sympathetic to your cause. They simply do not apply, the Tea Party is not a "civil rights" movement. I rather suspect that you believed there would be a chourus of like-minded posters singing the apparent hypocrisy of the Glenn Beck/Tea Party Civil Rights Movement, rather than what you got.

 

I was never advocating any animosity towards the tea party And I am sorry if you feel this way. Honestly you have never really clearly advocated "values" espouse to anything other than limiting government. But limiting government to what end? Also your "perception" on how you view your party is obviously going to be different than how I perceive it. Maybe list out these "core value" one by one that you aspire to would be a little more informative knowing your probably one of very few reasonable tea party members I have ever conversed with in my experience that is not a total bigot.

 

The reason why I continually rant about Tea Party social agendas is because of knowing where actual tea party delegates stand on social issues since your party has no clear platform on social issues. I apologize If you think this is unfair of me to do so but I guess you can think of it just like how people always blame Obama for anything and everything that happens in this country just because he is the current president.

 

Michele Bachmann is a member of the Tea party. Congresswoman Bachmann put out a statement yesterday that essentially said that the decision on ruling of gay marriage in the supreme court can not undo God’s word. Whatever that is suppose to mean and honestly who cares...

 

I have already come to realize Glenn Beck's hype to rally the Tea Party as The New Civil Rights Movement was just a ruse. I totally apologize if I have misunderstood what the tea party is really about but as long as the tea party is just a branch of the republican party, It no different to me personally because I care about social issues just as mush as anything else that is important to people when it comes to politics.

Edited June 27, 2013 by colourwheel

[Mandamus]

I wanted to post a belated thank you to TRoaches for his explanation on page 3. I have a question, though, which I think has been raised before in this topic but not quite answered; if the fiscal conservatism and the general platform of the Tea Party are at odds with the Republican party (which, from what you say about the origins of the movement in the Bush era, appears to be the case), wouldn't the movement be better off operating as a full fledged independent party? I know that in a 2 party system it can be hard to survive for a smaller party, but wouldn't it be better in the long run? The dissociation from Republican social conservatism would be more obvious to the public eye, the focus on smaller government clearer.

Edited June 27, 2013 by Mandamus

[TRoaches]

The association between Republicans and the tea party is mostly the result of unpopular Republicans attaching themselves to the movement in an effort to seem more connected to the "common" people than they really are. Sadly, it is an effective tactic. The tea party started out as quite an intellectual and principled group, but has generally been dumbed down a bit as it has grown in size, and at this point a person referred to in the media as a tea party candidate may in actuality stand on a platform that is quite oppositional to the movement's principles. The same phenomenon can be observed in the Occupy Wall Street movement: What started as a protest against bad fiscal policy was co-opted and derailed by a combination of its own growth, which managed to transform the message into a crazy hodgepodge of social justice issues, and the self-attachment of politicians who publicly advocate for the movement while continuing to support the very policies that the movement was intended to protest. Politicians love any chance for face time with a populist movement.

 

As far as being an independent party there have been some efforts, but the sad fact is that the two major parties actively work together to discredit any potential threat to their current duopoly. This can best be seen by looking at the consistently negative treatment of Libertarian candidates. They are always marginalized as "crazy", and are denied access to debate time. Democrats only want to debate Republicans, and Republicans only want to debate Democrats, and they only want to have these debates via a moderator who is sympathetic to maintaining that duopoly.

 

This video is probably the most accurate satire I have ever seen about the American political duopoly. Honestly, its just about perfect.

 

[Lord Garon]

I wanted to post a belated thank you to TRoaches for his explanation on page 3. I have a question, though, which I think has been raised before in this topic but not quite answered; if the fiscal conservatism and the general platform of the Tea Party are at odds with the Republican party (which, from what you say about the origins of the movement in the Bush era, appears to be the case), wouldn't the movement be better off operating as a full fledged independent party? I know that in a 2 party system it can be hard to survive for a smaller party, but wouldn't it be better in the long run? The dissociation from Republican social conservatism would be more obvious to the public eye, the focus on smaller government clearer.

 

First off, I'll thank TRoaches, as well; some very lucid posts. Thank you.

 

Its difficult to appreciate precisely how hard it is to get a Tea Party, or any "3rd Party", candidate on a viable ticket. And by "viable", I mean with even a distant chance of success. More often, it is understood by all involved that getting our message out and generating increasing percentages of the vote is whats important. It takes a considerable amount of motivation and dedication to work for a campaign which simply wants to "get better" and for which losing to one of the BIG TWO is almost a forgone conclusion.

 

Then, when your candidates do start getting a few percent of the votes, things really get ugly. If you get close to the traditional DEMGOP win/loss percentage in an area, you have enough votes to significantly influence a DEMGOP race. Not actually win your own race, by a large margin, but simply influence the DEMGOP race. You show up on the radar. In sometimes unbelievable ways, the Democratic and Republican machines show up to either squash or co-opt your efforts. Democratric efforts tend towards squashing as most Tea Party values promote small government. GOP efforts tend towards co-opting for the opposite reason. Its about money. Two Tea Party reps walking around the district knocking on doors can't compete with a (relatively) large, televised event at the local park/school/church/whatever. Candidates do not win elections in this country based upon statesmanship. Those who win had the best, most expensive advertising campaign.

 

Tea Party candidates, and many other 3rd party candidates as well, usually do very well in debate/discussion settings with other candidates. But the only debates which make the news are the ones where the DEMGOP candidates make some desireable point (media is all about ratings), OR where the DEMGOP candidate appears to be beat up on by the others (media is all about ratings).

 

There is a direct relationship between voter preference and platform breadth. The more narrow the platform, the fewer the voters who adopt it. People have myriad interests and the party(s) which make appeal to the broadest range of those interests (whether in good faith or not) will garner the most voters.

 

Unfortunately, that is anathema to good federal government. Federal government was not designed nor meant to address every concern of every citizen. That is an impossible task and it only dilutes federal attention and effort away from the issues it was meant to address. The Founding Fathers wished to restrict Federal power and move most governmental authority closer to the citizens, ie, to state and local government. Electing politicians to office, rather than statesmen, has resulted in the current state of affairs; a powerful federal government trying to address every issue known to society, and a populace who finds it easier to let someone/something else do things for them.

 

Good ideas are powerful and can "subvert" the big political machinery, for a short time. I think Ross Perot is the best example of that; he got pretty far on a single good issue. But the big machines adapt quickly and your initial popularity must be utilized to the best extent possible. The Tea Parties didn't really use their initial popularity to the best extent possible. That's because the Tea Party is NOT a homgeneous entity; we are a diverse collection of dissatisfied citizens seeking a remedy for an implausibly large federal government. Taxed Enough Already was a popular saying in the early days and federal taxes are certainly a major concern of most Tea Parties. And Americans in general. But, and this is important, excessive taxation is only one symptom of big government. If you visited ten different Tea Parties, you would probably find ten different priorities at the top of their lists of things to change, but I would wager that all those things involve the federal government.

 

Reducing taxes is popular. How that can be done, well, not so much. Let me pick an example and see how it might be perceived. If I were King, I would eliminate the Federal Department of Education; it serves no function that is not already established in every State of the Union. Local school policy should be set locally, according to community needs and community economies. ED simply bloats the federal government and requires taxes for upkeep. Now, I'm certain some readers are smiling and others are aghast. Its easy to buy into "lower taxes", not so easy to buy into their solutions.

 

Its easy for coattail grabbing Republicans to latch onto Tea Party voters, not so easy for them to actually promote Tea Party ideals. So why bother? Just talk about social issues; that has broad appeal and will make for good sound bites.

Edited June 28, 2013 by Lord Garon

[rizon72]

The TEA Party had one main element, government spending and getting it under control. Under Clinton and Bush II, Democrats would have embraced that cause. But because it went against current spending put forth by democrats, it was villianized. I had been against government spending since Reagan, so I did latch onto it, and was highly surprised when many of my friends, especially my liberals ones, who had screamed and shouted about spending, attacked the group. Looking back on it, I am no longer surprised, their total devotion to Obama and his policies made it impossible for them to see a larger picture.