The Tea Party

[JimboUK]

@Sinophile Socialism stinks because it makes people reliant on the state rather than freeing them from it, people making something of themselves is the last thing socialists want because it makes them redundant. Socialists idea of equality is to drag everyone down to the lowest level rather than giving people the chance to pull themselves up to the highest, socialists go on about the selfishness of those on the right while at the same time bleeding people dry to keep themselves relevant.

 

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.

-Winston Churchill

[brokenergy]

Okay, I don't live in America so I don't know much about American politics (or I do know lots about American political system but it might not be correct). The Tea Party, from a foreigner's point of view is pretty much a clear threat or its leaders clearly are. When you see their demonstrations and it's leaders in the media, it reinforces that the majority of Americans (and note this is from a foreigner's point of view and does not represent all the population) are racist and backwards people. Now I know that the Tea Party represents only a small minority of middle age, older Americans in which hard line conservatives such as the face of the Tea Party, Sarah Palin use to push their own agenda but the Tea Party is clearly a threat to America's image abroad and will damage America's image even further after all the other stuff that America has done during the past ten years (not going there).

 

In my opinion, the Tea Party are clearly idealistic and naive bunch of people. They expect that people don't pay taxes, no controls over guns (I know the First Amendment) and the government not have an obligation to helps it's citizens with health care? Ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous! That's just me talking here but how do people think that governments earn their money to pay it's staff and policies? Taxes of course! I know that gun control is a hot topic in America but can't they at least be more stringent to who the guns are being sold to? I don't want to see police grade munitions going to the hands of gangs or mentally ill person who would shoot the next person they see. There should be stronger laws but it doesn't mean that the First Amendment should be thrown out of the window. Lets us not forget the health care and environmental issue. America is (or now was) the only first world nation who didn't have universal health care, and that is pretty appalling for America's part. Governments have an obligation, no are responsible for the health and welfare of their citizens and seeing demonstrations against for something that they should be glad about having is down right (I don't have a word for it). I see their concern but they should see the benefits of universal health care as they far out weight the negatives. I guess in the Tea Party's eyes Tony Abbott (he is a conservative) is a communist and Australia and the rest of Europe is under a communist dictatorship who really care for it's citizens.

 

I really apologize if I have offended any Americans in the forum. I just find the Tea Party backwards, that's all (again a foreigner's perceptive).

[ginnyfizz]

@brokenenergy, have you actually read the Tea Party Contract? Perhaps you should before making such odd assertions - here you go;-

 

'Contract From America' is the platform.

 

The Contract lists 10 agenda items that it encourages congressional candidates to follow:

 

1. Identify constitutionality of every new law: Require each bill to identify the specific provision of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to do what the bill does.

 

2. Reject emissions trading: Stop the "cap and trade" administrative approach used to control pollution by providing economic incentives for achieving reductions in the emissions of pollutants.

 

3. Demand a balanced federal budget: Begin the Constitutional amendment process to require a balanced budget with a two-thirds majority needed for any tax modification.

 

4. Simplify the tax system: Adopt a simple and fair single-rate tax system by scrapping the internal revenue code and replacing it with one that is no longer than 4,543 words -- the length of the original Constitution.

 

5. Audit federal government agencies for constitutionality: Create a Blue Ribbon taskforce that engages in an audit of federal agencies and programs, assessing their Constitutionality, and identifying duplication, waste, ineffectiveness, and agencies and programs better left for the states or local authorities.

 

6. Limit annual growth in federal spending: Impose a statutory cap limiting the annual growth in total federal spending to the sum of the inflation rate plus the percentage of population growth.

 

7. Repeal the health care legislation passed on March 23, 2010: Defund, repeal and replace the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

 

8. Pass an 'All-of-the-Above' Energy Policy: Authorize the exploration of additional energy reserves to reduce American dependence on foreign energy sources and reduce regulatory barriers to all other forms of energy creation.

 

9. Reduce Earmarks: Place a moratorium on all earmarks until the budget is balanced, and then require a 2/3 majority to pass any earmark.

 

10. Reduce Taxes: Permanently repeal all recent tax increases, and extend permanently the George W. Bush temporary reductions in income tax, capital gains tax and estate taxes, currently scheduled to end in 2011.

 

 

- They don't want for people to stop paying taxes, they want to simplify the system. See points 4, 6 and 10.

- The right to bear arms is enshrined in the Second Amendment, not the First Amendment (I'm not an American either, but I do my homework.)

 

Believe it or not, a lot of this Tea Party Contract sounds very sensible to me and much like what the Coalition Government in the UK is looking to do. And that is a Conservative/Liberal Coalition, not a rabid extremist lot by any means. And do you know why? Because the much vaunted British universal healthcare and welfare is so darned expensive that Britain is near bankrupt. The current tax system cannot support it and there is talk of a huge levy on property owners to pay for elderly care. Brokenenergy, the US people who oppose Obama's healthcare reforms are the ones who have had the brains to look at what is happening on the other side of the pond and say "No sir, not here thanks!"

 

And as for gun control, in Britain we have some of the strictest in the world, and it hasn't improved our gun crime rate one iota, since the criminals just ignore the law. You get the absurd situation where a gun owning householder would get into deep doodoo for discharging his shotgun into a burglar's ass (even if he could get it out of the gun cupboard in time), but if the burglar was armed and shot householder, of course it would be because he is from a deprived background and thus he would serve about five years at the most in a cushy prison. So I can understand that the Americans want to hang onto their right to bear arms.

[ub3rman123]

1. Identify constitutionality of every new law: Require each bill to identify the specific provision of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to do what the bill does.

 

Umm.. The Constitution has a "Necessary and Proper Clause" AKA the Elastic Clause, that allows Congress to do things that are necessary and proper. Might as well just point every law to it.

 

What I don't see is their beef with the health care system recently passed. If you don't want to, you don't have to get government sponsored health care. You can stay with your Ultra Gold-Plated Supreme Plan if ya want. It's just to get care to the people who can't afford such expensive plans.

[ginnyfizz]

Their beef with the Obama health care plans is, as I said, that they have looked across the Atlantic and seen what a bloated monster the British NHS has turned into. They know that the crunch will come and that it will not be sustainable in the long term.

[Kendo 2]

Every afternoon I sit down and read the Wall Street Journal and the Austin Daily Herald. I have an reasonably informed opinion about what is going on in this country on a day to day basis. I don't get my information from blogs, my like-minded family and friends, and certainly not from MSNBC, FOX, CNN or the major 'news' outlets.

 

I hear more and more about this particular party, not only from the internet, but from family members. It seems that the "Tea Party Movement", is gaining momentum. Quite frankly, I don't hold a high opinion of them. My question is, do they gain a lot of media attention because of their misguided and radical views, or is this a dangerous new trend in American politics?

 

THAT sums up the extent of knowledge about the Tea Party and what this thread is really about.

 

"I don't like the Tea Party. I don't know their agenda or any Tea Party Members but if I did I wouldn't like them."

 

So be it.

 

I don't like the new incarnation of the Democratic Party. They've lost the scope and vision they had in the 1960's. I know their new agenda because I've taken the time to read information from history books and Liberal and Conservative sources. I've formed my own conclusions. I know several Democrats and most of them are sound and level-headed people, though a few of them are not. The new Democratic Party is misguided. They have radical views and they are setting dangerous trends in American politics that will not be fully realized until 20 or 30 years from now.

 

It took Bush eight years to do the amount of damage Obama has done in 18 months. The Tea Party would like for the Republicans and Democrats to stop wrecking the country. I don't think that is too much to ask for.

[Vagrant0]

The bottom line is that regardless of their "official" agenda, they have not done a whole heck of a lot to make it clearly known through those major media outlets. The problem is that the one major media outlet which they have tried to talk through (FOXNews) has had a consistently bad reputation for fact checking or presenting anything in an honest and unbiased way, and has done little more than perpetuate the "racist rabble rousers" depiction of the group.

 

The fact that the group has so far done little other than disrupt political discourse and send death threats to law makers doesn't help things either.

[SpellAndShield]

I see not a single person mentioned and/or realised that the Tea Party started with Ron Paul and his 2008 campaign and have really splintered off from what he was talking about...

[ginnyfizz]

The bottom line is that regardless of their "official" agenda, they have not done a whole heck of a lot to make it clearly known through those major media outlets. The problem is that the one major media outlet which they have tried to talk through (FOXNews) has had a consistently bad reputation for fact checking or presenting anything in an honest and unbiased way, and has done little more than perpetuate the "racist rabble rousers" depiction of the group.

 

The fact that the group has so far done little other than disrupt political discourse and send death threats to law makers doesn't help things either.

 

That's a rather sweeping statement, considering that it took me about two minutes to Google the Tea Party Contract and find out what their core beliefs are, and about the same to find something on your reference to the sending death threats to lawmakers. Putting on the legal hat, from the reports I have read there is no hard evidence to link the death threats to the Tea Party per se. It seems to me that Cohen made some statements which caused the local Tea Party to request an apology. He seems to have gone on something of a rant. There is no doubt that some death threats have been made and are being taken seriously by the police. But we are talking hearsay, here.

 

If you want to talk about making threats to lawmakers, Obama is a past master at it. His administration interfered with the due process of law in a FRIENDLY sovereign state, Britain, by declaring that if certain facts relating to nefarious dealings at Gitmo, extraordinary rendition, etc, etc, were allowed to be aired in open court, intelligence sharing by the CIA would be stopped. Even if it meant refusing to share intel of an imminent terrorist attack on Britain. Sounds much like a death threat in all but name.

[Kendo 2]

The bottom line is that regardless of their "official" agenda, they have not done a whole heck of a lot to make it clearly known through those major media outlets. The problem is that the one major media outlet which they have tried to talk through (FOXNews) has had a consistently bad reputation for fact checking or presenting anything in an honest and unbiased way, and has done little more than perpetuate the "racist rabble rousers" depiction of the group.

 

The fact that the group has so far done little other than disrupt political discourse and send death threats to law makers doesn't help things either.

 

Unhuh...The Tea Party has been attacked by the Obama-loving Liberal media from day one and we all know that.

 

As far as disrupting the political discourse, which discourse are you talking about? The one where Democrats ram through their Social Justice agenda despite Obama's lie about a bi-partisan House and Senate? THAT discourse?

 

Back in the 1960's there was a little thing called the Vietnam War. Disgruntled Democrats split the party because of the politics of the war. Abbie Hoffman and the anti-war demostrations he inspired caused what you would refer to as 'political discourse' and changed the face of politics. Citizens took to the streets, demonstrated and made their voices heard. Politicians were forced to respond and LBJ failed to get the nomination for President in 1968 and resigned from the campaign. His own party got rid of him. And the anti-war protesters were depicted in the media as radicals. Hmmmm.

 

AND I would like to see some documented PROOF of a connection between a Tea Party member and death threats to politicians. Something from a REAL news source (not a blog or MSNBC) would be nice. The FBI has disproven any connections between the death threats made against Patrick Murphy and Bart Stupak with the Tea Party. That was hype fabricated by CBS News and when called on it they backed off the stories.

 

@Stardusk

I was saving the Ron Paul angle, but seeing the anti-Tea Party bias here it might be a good idea.