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Tea Party on

Tea Party on

From A.F. Branco (reprinted with permission):

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Comments

That guy looks like a mean old crank.

What’s up with that…???

    currently in reply to Ragspierre. | August 3, 2012 at 1:46 am

    He looks like my me.

    I’m terribly offended.

    Midwest Rhino in reply to Ragspierre. | August 3, 2012 at 6:10 am

    yeah, I think they were going for a beleaguered old guy, almost worn out but not quite, still struggling along, in significant numbers but with waning fortitude.

    But I see a more powerful and vibrant Tea party, with a less furrowed brow. The real Tea party guy/gal has been the vibrant private sector energy of the American economy. He and she are now having to direct some energy toward cleaning up the slime that have taken over our “public servant” class, and turned it into an “on the dole, this thing is fuckin’ golden, entitlement” class.

    (for those that don’t know, the effin golden line is from now imprisoned ex IL gov Blago, on his power to sell the Obama senate seat)

    To me, the tea party is as much about fighting corruption as it is about limited government, though the two go hand in hand. The Tea party is the white knight. “He” is underdog in the halls of congress, but represents the super majority. Maybe he is Batman, except rather than gadgets, he has truth and justice, with blogs as a major “weapon”?

    And it may be better to have a woman, or both man and woman with kids, to represent the real Tea party. Dem’s want to claim all classes except white males, as part of their divide and conquer strategy. But Palin was Tea Party, McCain is tired old establishment.

    Locally a woman had a blog that had part of her personal mission being to take down Phil “I don’t really care about the constitution” Hare. Besides the guy that caught him on camera saying that, I’d give her a big part of the credit. (she, since that victory, escaped IL and moved to TX)

    And on this virtual site, there are many strong women voices. The tea party has real women, not women that fake Cherokee heritage and recipes to gain academic leverage. Tea partiers overcome those phony scammers, and succeed despite government bureaucracy.

    In other words, I agree … “we” are not scowling and aging, but vibrant and growing. Growing mighty, to the pulling down of strong holds. 🙂

      Ragspierre in reply to Midwest Rhino. | August 3, 2012 at 10:06 am

      Think of Ronald Reagan or Milton Friedman!

      NONE of the people I’ve encountered in the TEA Party movement were scowlers. We are allllll about hope and a rebirth.

      Shoot, the signs people bring show they are youthful people with great humor and real values (even if some of us are housed in “vintage models”).

    Try “TAXED ENOUGH ALREADY” rather than mean old crank.

Love it! 🙂

First there was the Gadsden ‘Don’t Tread on Me’ Flag, and now there’s the Red/White-‘C’ banner…

Can almost imagine scene from Gettysburg, instead of Stars and Bars storming hills flying Old Glory…there will crowds flying the Yellow Banners with Gadsden’s snake, and Red/White Chicks, marching against crowds flying Rainbows-flags, “P*E*A*C*E” bumper Stickers and the One’s “O”.

DocWahala
Maybe it won’t it come to that…. but November’s lookin mighty interesting.

    Ragspierre in reply to DocWahala. | August 2, 2012 at 11:12 pm

    Doc, I tried you on Facebook…but I really don’t know how it works and don’t trust it.

      DocWahala in reply to Ragspierre. | August 2, 2012 at 11:38 pm

      Wonder if the good Prof would maybe be willing to help out – chuckle.

      DocWahala
      Am wondering why we’re not seeing ‘The One’ win any gold at the Olympics? who says he needs to participate? That didn’t stop the Noble committee

Hey, I think it is high time to get to the bottom of these “Harry Reid is a pederast rumors”. He needs to be brought up on charges.

And, while they are sweating him, he needs to detail his role in covering up for the source of the personal tax info on Romney.

    Doug Wright in reply to Ragspierre. | August 2, 2012 at 11:34 pm

    Please no rubber hoses or water boarding, that would just be too cruel! Just sweat’im with the facts, he won’t be able to withstand that for long. 😉

    Juba Doobai! in reply to Ragspierre. | August 3, 2012 at 1:07 am

    Did you hear the one about Reid’s connection to the Penn State guy?

Just out of curiosity, if the TEA Party is purely about lower taxes and limited government, what do they have to do with chick-fil-a?

    Part of limited government is that a businessperson has the rights to their opinions free of government interference (such as threatening to withhold a business license).

Jusuchin (Military Otaku) | August 2, 2012 at 11:57 pm

Now this is merely amusement.

[…] Legal Insurrection) Like it? Share it! var addthis_config = […]

Awing, glad to explain for you. You’re going to need to learn what limited government means.

One small but important example of Limited Government is when a Mayor doesn’t have the power to block you from opening a business, merely because he and his constituents don’t like your personal views.

    Midwest Rhino in reply to zen. | August 3, 2012 at 7:27 am

    true, but the real significance is not “personal views”, which are the same as Obama officially held just months ago. The real motive here appears to be the coordinated (with Obama’s campaign) effort to target particular individuals or businesses, as a threat to any that stand against “The Party”.

    When government power was used to cost Boeing millions, for going to a right to work state, they not only (apparently) extracted union favors from Boeing’s other plant, but they let other business know that Obama would use his office to punish them for not bowing to the union.

    This Chick-fil-A attack appears to be a coordinated effort by certain Democrats to threaten and intimidate individuals, as a sort of public beating to chill the speech of others, just prior to the most important election in our time.

    IANAL, but I read that racketeering includes “interference with commerce, bribery, or extortion”. These coordinated efforts by the left to shut down businesses that do not bend their knee to the left would seem to leave the realm of political debate and free speech, and may be bordering on racketeering?

Juba Doobai! | August 3, 2012 at 1:09 am

We’re here! Rightward steer! Get used to it!

I agree and I disagree. As pointed out here( http://rantpolitical.com/2012/08/01/what-the-ted-cruz-tea-party-of-texas-wants-rinos-and-cinos-to-know/) a majority of Texas GOP voters do NOT consider themselves Tea Party. (1/2 specifically distance themselves from the title). But the massive enthusiasm of the minority made up for the indifference of the majority and continues to strike fear into the hearts of GOP establishment types everywhere. We are small but we are mighty.

Neither Nature nor the People will be denied.

It is amazing what an accurate sense of reality you get by NOT watching television, or watching or listening to the the democrat ‘news.’

Those of us who don’t, understand these broadcast people are living in their own malignant fairyland, working feverishly to manipulate the rest of us into joining into their delusions. At this point, most of us don’t, and are fed-up to the point of wildly cheering anyone who voices the obvious. (Can you say Chick-fil-A?)

It is a great shame Romney’s ridiculous marginally-competent campaign heads don’t understand this. It’s a greater shame the hacks running the GOP don’t understand it, either — or are too corrupt to care.

    Very astutely put. Stopped watching the Big 3/CNN quite some time ago. I don’t even really watch Fox anymore. I liken it to the difference between watching a battle unfold at ground level vice being at altitude. You gain and lose a bit at both, but the net effect overall of being above it is one of significantly broadened situational awareness.

    For the last 20 years, I have watched as the Socialists completed their take over the Democratic party (Clinton was the last stop before Sheer Insanityville), yanked the wheel over hard, HARD left, and the collective MSM breathed a huge sigh of relief because they thought that finally, after decades of laying the ground work, the Socialist Paradise(TM) end times were nigh. They could finally drop that ridiculous cloak of impartiality and start the full-on cheer leading.

    Only, things aren’t working out as they’d planned (as all of you stupid fucking rubes are clearly screwing it up; JUST SHUT UP AND DO WHAT WE TELL YOU TO DO ALREADY! After all Socialism has worked totally awesomely everywhere it’s been implemented!) and they are now in 100%, full throated, total and complete panic mode.

    Turn the map around and look at it from their point of view: if they don’t pull this off now, with a second term for the Anointed One, if they don’t some-how some-way get him reelected so that the national re-education can continue, if the chattel manage to come to and the fog clears from their frontal lobes prior to November, then all those years, decades, nearly a century of work will be for nothing. They know it’s now or possibly never. So yeah, they are panicking, and panicking huge.

    The worst part is yet to come though. Once Mitt is elected, Jesus, if you thought that they were out to get GWB, hell, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

theduchessofkitty | August 3, 2012 at 2:34 am

Idea for a good bumper sticker [Must Credit Yours Truly!]

“TODAY WE EAT, TOMORROW WE VOTE!”

With the Gadsden Flag on the left and the Chick-fil-A symbol on the right.

i didn’t think the cfa thing was tea party, per se.

i mean, i don’t consider myself a tea partier but went to cfa yesterday because it’s so g$%$amn tasty NOM NOM NOM

I think what he is really saying is…”I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!”

Where are all the Tea Party commenters? Nothing but party over principles Republicans again.

The biggest obstacle for the Tea Parties is the very enemy they formed to fight: Assistant Republicans. There should be hundreds of comments on this thread but…..

I think there will be some very disappointed Republicans after Romney wins the WH when we TPers continue the fight against the corrupt one-party system. This isn’t about restoring Republicans to power. It’s about breaking up the entrenched criminal class. We were fighting this battle before Obama showed up.

    BTW Professor, that is something you should think about. Why is it that when the Tea Party scores big victories the Tea Party message is lost? It’s always a REPUBLICAN victory. There is an important distinction being lost that takes what should be a transformative victory into a victory for the status quo.

    If we can’t adhere to our own narrative, we lose. We are losing. Even Michelle Malkin’s threads are completely dominated by nose-holding Republicans who vote party over principles. For “conservatives”, it’s never the right time to do the right thing. We always seem to allow establishment Republicans to crash our victory parties and throw us out.

      CalMark in reply to Pasadena Phil. | August 3, 2012 at 11:24 am

      So…we should vote third party? (That seems to be what you’re stealthily implying without saying it.) In other words, get Obama a second term and the Dems majorities in both houses by splitting the non-Dem vote, then patting ourselves on the back for our ideological purity?

      That’s a STRATEGY? If not that, what’s your solution?

      The GOP Republicrats have been in power since the New Deal. They are utterly unprincipled and control a lot of money and power. They won’t be vanquished overnight.

      As for starting another party…it has to happen spontaneously; try to “fix” it, and you get a re-run, 100 years later, of the Bull Moose party (which put Woodrow Wilson, America’s first Commie President, into office, if you’ll recall). If Romney loses (a very real possibility owing to Obama’s abuses of power and evil ruthlessness), you might see it then. Hopefully, it won’t happen.

      Bottom line: politics is a messy, difficult business. Everything takes time.

      Henry Hawkins in reply to Pasadena Phil. | August 3, 2012 at 12:20 pm

      Ask Dick Lugar and David Dewhurst if they were defeated by Republicans or the Tea Party.

      Assistant Republicans are the “very enemy” the Tea Party formed to fight? News to me and speak for yourself. The Tea Party is a nationally inseminated idea, not an organization, though across the nation there are thousands of Tea Party groups organized. The Tea Party idea is limited government, lower taxes, and governance in accordance with the US Constitution, with a bull’s eye on the backs of ‘Assistant Republicans’ only to the extent they stand in the way of limited government, lower taxes, and governance in accordance with the US Constitution.

      “Why is it that when the Tea Party scores big victories the Tea Party message is lost? It’s always a REPUBLICAN victory.”

      It’s because the Tea Party isn’t a political party. The victory is Republican because the local Tea Party support was given to the Republican in the race. It is a rare thing for local Tea Party people to support a Democrat candidate. A typical news article will read something along the lines of: “Republican House candidate John Q Smith’s victory attributed to Tea Party support”, meaning both the GOP and the Tea Party are given credit. In no race has Tea Party support been the sole factor responsible for a Republican’s election victory.

      As Calmark alludes, there is no knock-out punch for the Tea Party to take. This is a chip away at the boulder situation, wherein the Tea Party supports candidates and slowly but surely increases the number of incumbents who act in accordance with Tea Party values of limited government, lower taxes, and governance in accordance with the US Constitution. In time, and assuming continued successes, there will come a tipping point where TP supported incumbents not only influence governance, but come to control it. This will take time because of the innate dishonesty of so many politicians who will create the following dynamic, for example:

      Out of every 100 politicians who win office running on Tea Party values and with Tea Party support, a certain percentage will prove to have merely pretended it to gain office and will revert to general RINOism, say 20 of them to pick a number at random. So, we’ll have to work to unseat these renegers as well as continue to elect newbies.

      As more and more Tea Party-valuing pols get elected, more and more TP governance will occur, and if TP-ers are correct, it will work to improve all aspects of our country’s being. Each noted instance of it working makes TPism easier to promote, and hopefully a snowball effect occurs. But this isn’t going to happen anytime soon.

        Well said. A good illustration of this is how the anti-slavery forces in the 1840s, from both the Democratic and Whig parties, first formed the Free Soil party (which didn’t win any elections) and then, several years later, the Republican party, which went on to displace the Whigs as the opposition to the Democrats (and to have its candidate, Abraham Lincoln, elected six years after it wsa formed, and indeed carry out their platform).

I don’t necessarily agree that the Tea Party had anything to do with the showing at Chick fil A on Thursday. Its a movement entirely driven by economic issues, driven equally or more-so by libertarian sentiments, rather than conservative ones.

Having attended Tea Party rallies and considering myself active in the cause, I still consider myself a text-book conservative first, I can say that no part of the Tea Party message has to do with foreign affairs, or social issues. It’s all about fiscal issues, and too much spending and taxes too high, despite certain social conservatives trying to co-opt the message, Santorum, Huckabee.

    Henry Hawkins in reply to quiznilo. | August 3, 2012 at 12:24 pm

    The ‘limited government’ and ‘accordance with the US Constitution’ aspects of the Tea Party agenda bring both foreign policy and social issues into play in ways that are not hard to discern.

      I’m not sure there’s a limited government or a constitutional answer to things like same-sex marriage.

        Henry Hawkins in reply to Awing1. | August 3, 2012 at 4:25 pm

        I was speaking to the blanket assertion that Tea Party ideas do not address foreign policy or social issues, which is simply untrue.

        To be sure, there is a constitutional answer to every question or issue under the sun, if the SC decides to address it. It doesn’t mean it’s correct or appropriate however.

        As for same-sex marriage, a TP-er might say it’s wrong to use government to redefine the traditional American concept of marriage.

          As a general rule I suppose there may be some social issue that the Constitution addresses, but I don’t believe it addresses marriage in any way. I would say it’s as wrong to assert that the Constitution protects the traditional idea of marriage as it is to assert that the Constitution gives a right to gay marriage. It’s a purely political issue, the society should decide it with a vote.

          Henry Hawkins in reply to Henry Hawkins. | August 3, 2012 at 5:14 pm

          You’ve taken where I said using government to impose same-sex marriage would be an example of an overreaching government and plugged in ‘constitution’ in place of government.

          The state by state referenda on same-sex marriage, all 32 (is it?) of which have gone down to defeat by citizen vote, is the proper way to address that social issue. In other words, society IS deciding it by vote, as most TP-ers would hope. However, a congressional act in defiance of citizen wishes (like Obamacare), or a presidential executive order, would be wrongful overreach of a government to the TP-er, who would want that power limited.

          I didn’t plug in anything, I was separating the issue out into a Constitutional issue and a political issue because you used the blanked “government” which covers both. Regardless, we agree on what the appropriate way to address the issue of marriage is, so that’s what counts.

          Henry Hawkins in reply to Henry Hawkins. | August 3, 2012 at 7:44 pm

          The constitution is a piece of paper. The government is something totally different. It is the governing apparatus that is supposed to follow what is written in the constitution. I cannot believe that explanation was necessary.

          I’m beginning to see why other posters often give up trying to discuss anything with you.

          From you:

          “To be sure, there is a constitutional answer to every question or issue under the sun, if the SC decides to address it. It doesn’t mean it’s correct or appropriate however.”

          You just dwell on that, real long and hard, then read my response. If you don’t get it, there’s nothing I can do to help you.

Yep, dingy harry was as correct as he usually is : “the Tea Party is dead” !

dingy-harry’s head is shoved so far up his “bill-maher” that he has not the slightest inking of reality.