The Tea Party Thread

If you dont live in the U.S., you may not know who these people are, but we have this political party called "The Tea Party". You may have heard of the U.S. government shutting down recently. Yes, that was their doing.

Here's one of them now! Applauses everyone, applauses!

This is why we cant have nice things.

Feel free to share your thoughts, feelings, and anything else you want on this topic.

Damn, I know this is random as hell, but...at first I was like.. "This is about Tea Parties? lulwut?"

Then I was like "Oh, that musical group that plays on Disneyland, right?"

And now I'm like.."I'll never try to guess what a thread is about again."

>_>

I was expecting some kind of online thread regarding which teas go with which crumpets or muffins; or when to use lemon instead of cream... Im no good at guessing...i guess.

You are going to piss off a lot of conservatives with this.... Oh, well:

@wolverine08: True, but it's impossible not to offend people in a politically driven thread. Just gotta roll with it.

@willpayton:

Couple of thoughts:

1) I'm sure he appreciates you helping him to "get it out".

2) To say he is representative of all the Tea Party is intellectually dishonest.

3) While I am embarrassed by his rhetoric and vitriol I happen to agree with his concerns over the growing power of the Federal Government. With the power granted to the FedGov through the Patriot Act and other subsequent similar legislation combined with modern technology we have never been closer to Orwell's vision than we are at this moment. And that extends to the developed world due to extradition agreements with the USA. All one needs to do is look as the government's response to "Sam Bacile", Assange, Manning, and Snowden to see where our blessed First Ammendment really stands and just how far one has to run to get away.

4) When Texas secedes I will apply for citizenship. Texan's are bad-asses.

5) Starting to make fundamental changes to my family's lifestyle to be more "off the grid".

6) Today, when all looks safe I am "paranoid". But tomorrow when society breaks down I will have been "prudent" and "prescient".

EDIT- regarding thought 2... perhaps not "say" but "imply" would be better

@kuonphobos said:

Thanks for your comments. I dont mind helping him get his word out. This guy is a paranoid nutjob, and I fully believe in letting these people reach out to as many as possible so we can see who and what they are. Daylight is the best disinfectant.

I see what you're saying. But, I also see enough of this guy that he seems like he represents a large part of the "Tea Party". Even if he's not a large part, he certainly represents a large vocal part. And, given recent events, he also represents a large influencing part. He's the type of guy that makes a big stink and contacts his local Tea Party rep with his nutty views, therefore causing that rep to ignore the 90% of his constituents that dont contact him. Result: That rep ends up voting to shutdown the government and not raise the debt ceiling.

Someone could express concern over the Federal government in a more rational and sane way. This just doenst happen to be what I see from the Tea Party. Unfortunately, this guy and the Tea Party in general acts in such a way so as to make such concerns seem unwarranted. It's hard to take people seriously when they're this far detached from reality, and even if they have good points those tend to be drowned under all the crazy.

Yeah, that's what they think. In general, however, Texas isnt that great. They have huge problems with education and lack of healthcare. Also, this paranoid fantasy that some of them have about "seceding" will never come true. And, if it does... Austin will certainly not want to come along for the ride.

Full disclosure: I lived in Austin, TX for 5 years.

Yeah, well, good luck with that.

Alan Grayson Backing Florida Tea Party...

Just another lying, hypocrite in politics.

Any politician caught not representing the people like they should, need to be thrown in jail.

Eb enog amabo

After watching it, I still can't tell if it was a parody or if he was actually serious.

I'm not sure how you arrived at the conclusion that Grayson was backing the Tea Party from that video.

Did you mean "bashing" the Tea Party?

curious....

@kuonphobos:

All you have to do is look around.

Alan Grayson Backing Florida Tea Party

Politically driven people scare me, and so does that 'applauses' guy in the video the OP posted.

@cezar_thescribe:

Your second video makes sense.

Your first video didn't demonstrate Grayson supporting (backing) the Tea Party in fact it was the opposite.

With the two videos taken together I can understand your point about hypocrisy (assuming the second one is accurate).

I thought you meant the British tea party of the the 1700's.

*sigh*

@willpayton comrade cant you see that you have the same sickness that your enemy does? Bizarro-WillPayton is somewhere right now talking about obama ruining america. you are better than this

Eh... They aint that bad I reckon.

@dernman i made a thread similar to "Religion... What do you think?" called "American Politics... What do you think?" hoping to head off the endless hacky political topics you could make. all in vain i suppose.

I get what you're saying about consolidating the "politics" threads, but then also sometimes it's good to have more focused ones. I guess people will decide... they can post here or there.

Everytime I think of the Tea Party... I think of Men in White Sheets, Burning Crosses, and the statement : Make A Stand... Join The Klan ! White Powah !

Take 1 unhinged person, give him a gun, add in some fanaticism, and what do you get?

Did somebody say tea party?

Don't be late now. And don't forget to bring Alice!

@willpayton:

Well you have a Party that was founded by corrupt greedy rich aholes that use fear, propaganda, and hate to denounce anything left leaning or pro government, be it true or in most cases complete bs. I am for a smaller government in many places and for getting rid of the corruption in Washington which is in both democrat and republican elected officials. The problem is that many of the louder voices in this Tea Party and many of it's figureheads are just as corrupt or worse than what was in government before they got into it... Many of these supporters are more aching to anarchist than actual conservatives and while they blame the federal government for all the problems going on they don't even notice that they are just causing as much harm if not more and those that believe there should be no government do not have a full understanding of the reprecussion it would cause for the majority of USA citizens... Many of these conservitive states that have a big Tea Party group would actually be the most damaged by having no federal government since the fed give more money to that state than the State gives back so that State would be bankrupt in no time... People need to fix their own dam state before they blame the federal government on things that are not even their fault. Texas is one of the major exceptions though since it can sustain it's self more than any other state and pays about twice into each dollar that comes in from the fed.

Those that say government is bad and are elected in to government and just keep spouting that mantra and believe it are just as much the problem for they are purposely assuring the goverment to fail instead of actually fixing the problems...

No... I don't like the Tea Party and there are definetly people like that in the party, but the majority are not racist or want to see the government be completely destroyed. There are more ethnic and religious groups than just caucasian and christians in the Tea Party, but they are for sure in the minority of the whole Tea Party movement. Most are just misleaded people that truely have a ideal belief in smaller government, balanced budget, and following the constitution. None of those things are bad in it's self but the party is lead by nuts and corrupt people wanting to line their pockets or actually overthrow the government...

the easiest way to consolidate all your political topics would just be "The Obama Appreciation Thread"

I pretty much agree with this. Both liberals and conservatives (and those in the middle) should be trying to fix and improve government, not shut it down and destroy it. People seem to have a short memory and are blind to all the things government has and continues to do for them. No government = destroyed environment, no child labor laws, no defense, no national infrastructure, no space program... and I could go on for pages.

One correction, though. The ratio of federal spending to taxes for Texas is about 1.3, not 2. (source) It's one of only two red states in the top 10 as far as spending/taxes ratio.

Dont wait for me dude... you go start it! =)

How do you figure that? Largely anything discussed in any of these threads would read as incredibly off-topic in a thread titled that.

But we get you're shooting to bait Willy into arguing with you, which in all honesty he shouldn't and he should ignore the subsequent cheerleader post from we all know who.

LOL... I'm easily baited into replying to people, but you're right. =)

@willpayton@isaac_clarke you guys amuse me. you sound like adminstration people in discussion. who went to the school of sharon angle journalism.

i am not baiting you into an arguement. im trying to bait you into a chaotic world where people have differing opinions instead of store bought partisan posistions. is there anything we can hear from you two that we couldn't just go to jay carney for? it seems like a waste for you two to argue anything... why not just reply to everyone with "see: jay carney"

i do feel like i am being counter-productive. i am really just keeping this hackery alive at this point. ok snark on you lifes of the dinner party you.

You're obsessed with Jay Carney man. I mean, yeah, he's a handsome man, but... come on.

@willpayton i'd go gay for chris christie. he would take me in his big strong arms. he would protect me. he is an alpha-male. carney and his gang are too metro. i want a hunk of over-BEARing man. daddy issues DING DING

Ick. Politics.

Indeed

So you're a twink? In any case... you better be a top, because if you're a bottom then Christie will crush you beneath his 400 lbs of manmeat.

@willpayton oh god christie fat jokes... got any george W. stupid jokes? you partisan hack

EEWWW apathy. :p

I got an automated call yesterday from a Tea Party office asking me to "Press 1 to sign the petition to repeal Obamacare," because apparently the Supreme Court making a decision on it, and the entire government shutting down so half our congress can throw a temper-tantrum isn't enough. And I live in Massachusetts, where we've been required to have healthcare for years. I wish they would just take a page out of their own "government is intrinsically evil and incompetent" book and shut themselves down.

Shut Down the Shut Down? I Like It!

@allstarsuperman: It makes sense though. If your stance on government is that it accomplishes nothing good, and in fact interferes with the lives of it's citizens in a negative way, why put yourself forward as a political party? Why run for office if all you'd do with that power is just say "Nope, we're not interested in passing or enforcing any laws, or collecting taxes, or providing social programs, we're more about just making sure that nothing beneficial is ever accomplished by the government." What's the point?

I honestly don't know government stuff..............

@allstarsuperman: That's ok, neither do Tea Party advocates.

Isn't there another site people could take about politics?

Why are you trying to defend Monsters ? This is just as bad as the people who try to defend God condoning Slavery in the Bible when they know themselves it's wrong. You don't have to try and justify the nature of these Tea Party People... we know how they are and giving slack to people who have a nature similar to the Klan is probably one of the worse things you could possibly do.

What the hell are you talking about ?