The Tea Party and the Republican Party

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Movement conservatives and Tea Party zealots are trying to consolidate control of the Republican Party and dictate ideologically pure conservative candidates in the 2010 elections. They are the diehards who have been pushing Republicans to use scorched-earth tactics against Barack Obama and key aspects of the Democratic agenda like health-care reform, cap-and-trade, and financial reform. Teabaggers see any compromise with Democrats as a weakness and stress that any Republican who has defied the party line is a RINO (Republican in name only). Teabaggers tend to perceive the Bush administration as somewhat an aberration because George W. Bush did not do enough to shrink the role of government and its regulations. In this sense, they may impress as libertarians, but I do not think they much support things like gay marriage, legalization of marijuana, legalization of prostitution, and other civil-libertarian positions.

The thing is, overall, their opposition to health-care reform, environmental concerns, and regulation of commerce puts them further to the right than the "mainstream" Republican Party; this they believe is a strength. From what I've encountered, much of the frustration with Democrats and Obama is they haven't done enough (but I perhaps travel in more liberal circles). Are they going to make the Republicans an even greater laughingstock than during Bush, or does their hardcore conservatism actually have broader appeal?

Bigotry, Guns, Religious Insanity, and Survivalist Pseudo-Libertarianism is a dangerous combination.

These people are a bunch of hypocrites.
They oppose Obama, a man who essentially is doing everything Bush was doing.
Wars, big spending, privacy intrusion, economic intrusion, "war on drugs", bailouts, ect..............

I think the idea is the Tea Partiers are opposed to what George W. Bush did too.

Isn't any more scary than Obama/Pelosi/Reid

Tea Party protesters are against rampant govenment spending. 60% of the federal budget is manditory spending, with all but interest on the debt and Medicare drugs pit there by Democrats. These programs grow every year and will never go away. And they will eventually cause the US economic system to collapse. The Democrats of today are trying to add more, like the public option of health care or the eventual goal of single payer health care. The government dependance class keeps growing, government keeps growing and rushing us towards the collapse. It has to stop. Bush was part of the problem although much less than the Obama, Reid, and Pelosi crowd.

That is essentially the goal of the Tea Party movement. I am not here to debate the merits, just to inform. And remember, you can automatically discard any information about the movement given out by anyone who uses the descriptor "teabaggers.".

That's what I'm saying... Where were them when Bush was doing what Obama is doing?

And yeah, time changes, people change, and they could have "waken up", but legitimize the Republican Party? And conservatism(w/e that is). That's counterproductive to their cause of freedom.

Conservatives, by nature, defer to a considerable degree to authority they perceive to be legitimate, and they perceive a Republican authority as legitimate, so their criticism of George W. Bush was somewhat muted; once a Democrat was elected, they believed that, since Democrats are "tax-and-spend liberals," things would get much worse, and since he's not one of their own, they feel no need to hold back their criticism.

I share your criticism that not enough has changed since Barack Obama became president.

That is why I called them hypocrites.


I don't see their cause as counterproductive though(just temporarily).
These people picked up on these ideas of individual liberty recently, and their numbers have been increasing.
It is just a matter of time till they meet other individuals who are more "awake" than them and perhaps they will be able to break through their self-denial barrier.

An example of something similar to this can be seen here on WP, skafather, got involved with Ron Paul supporters who initiated him into the world of alternative thinking.
The man used to ridicule people who said 911 was an inside job every time he had a chance. Today, he's a changed person.

Yeah, that’s the real problem. Most of the tea partiers are angry-white-man-glenn-beck-nutjobs who see libertarianism as a license to be selfish, amoral scumbags.

The founders (real libertarians, mostly) understood that only a virtuous people (a society willing to put the common good before personal gain) can be free. Last time I checked, greed and zealotry weren’t virtues…

Even great republics don’t last without civic virtue. It took the Roman republic half a millennium to fall, American won’t make three centuries.

I've tried to think of something to say regarding this thread - too depressing and too grim really for me to even share what I think or how I feel about it.

To the people who are slating the 'teabaggers' - these people are insane, backward, stupid sheeple, as opposed to who or what exactly? What group exactly is the essence of wisdom and the great beacon of light and hope for human advancement? The one that's bent on spending us into third-world oblivion?

I consider myself a Left-Libertarian (anti-corporate, anti-Nanny State Liberal) and these teabaggers are just whack. They are full of racists, too. That is not to say that I'm not a critic of Obama's pro-corporate decisions (I voted for a Dean and got a Clinton, grrr...), but the BS spewed by the Teabaggers is complete BS.

[quote="techstepgenr8tion"]I've tried to think of something to say regarding this thread - too depressing and too grim really for me to even share what I think or how I feel about it.

To the people who are slating the 'teabaggers' - these people are insane, backward, stupid sheeple, as opposed to who or what exactly? What group exactly is the essence of wisdom and the great beacon of light and hope for human advancement? The one that's bent on spending us into third-world oblivion?[/quote]Maybe you need to get your head out of Ayn Rand's rear end.

Personally, I'd be all for libertarian socialism if it were politically feasible. Somewhat more practically, I'd support a single-payer, nationalized health-care system like they have in Canada, the United Kingdom, or France, for example; people could optionally buy expanded insurance coverage, but everyone would get the basic coverage by default (the savings in reduced paperwork and marketing alone are enormous); such a health-care system hasn't bankrupted any of the aforementioned countries yet. Another thing is that one of the best ways a society can ensure its future prosperity is to invest in education and research and development; we're not doing enough there. The initial losses are more than made up for in the long run with increased wealth—and a wider spread of the wealth as scholarships make higher education an option for more people.

In the telecommunications industry, I'd like to see more government action to break up the duopoly we see in most parts of the country for broadband Internet access and the poor quality thereof (compare with Europe, Japan, or South Korea). The cell-phone industry definitely also needs to be looked into (20¢ for a single text message is a joke).

Of course, the banking and financial industry needs a serious examination.

Well, the American ideal is to gouge where you can.

Yes, many corporations have an ethos that is decidedly anti-consumer (and presumably anti-labor). A company that is willing to maximize profits by treating the consumer like crap is an unwelcome phenomenon, to say the least. Hypothetically, competition will force them to provide the most for the lowest price, but in reality, competitors often seem to conspire to keep prices high and maximize profits for each other (e.g., the cell-phone–service industry). The attitude that a business should be about the pursuit of profit and nothing besides is one I have absolute contempt for. A business should be proud of providing a high-quality product or service at a great price while treating its customers and employees well—being a respectable pillar of the community, in other words.