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Help me understand the tea party

Started by Worm Rider, September 14, 2011, 01:19:12 AM

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Anna Mae Bollocks

Dubya and his cronies don't seem to be hurting.  :x
Scantily-Clad Inspector of Gigantic and Unnecessary Cashews, Texas Division

Elder Iptuous

I think it is willfully ignorant to deny a connection between racism and the tea party  movement.  (and i don't think anyone here has actually done that)

just thinking out loud here...
it seems to me that the defining aspect of the tea party is a reaction to what is seen as overly intrusive govt.
the sentiment of smaller govt. seems linked to glorifying self-reliance.  self-reliance can be seen to have overlap with nationalism->isolationism-> xenophobia-> and ultimately, separatism/racism.  So although racism is not supposed to be a defining aspect of the movement, the racists are going to cling to the group and poison it.  In fact, it seems to me that any group that advocates smaller govt. will have to deal with this sequence of associations...

Anna Mae Bollocks

#77
Quote from: Iptuous on September 14, 2011, 05:14:20 PM
I think it is willfully ignorant to deny a connection between racism and the tea party  movement.  (and i don't think anyone here has actually done that)

just thinking out loud here...
it seems to me that the defining aspect of the tea party is a reaction to what is seen as overly intrusive govt.
the sentiment of smaller govt. seems linked to glorifying self-reliance.  self-reliance can be seen to have overlap with nationalism->isolationism-> xenophobia-> and ultimately, separatism/racism.  So although racism is not supposed to be a defining aspect of the movement, the racists are going to cling to the group and poison it.  In fact, it seems to me that any group that advocates smaller govt. will have to deal with this sequence of associations...


It was all engineered, y'know. RS called it last year http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/matt-taibbi-on-the-tea-party-20100928
Scantily-Clad Inspector of Gigantic and Unnecessary Cashews, Texas Division


Iason Ouabache

Quote from: Disco Pickle on September 14, 2011, 03:08:42 PM
Nope, I'm sure there are plenty of bigots in the Tea Party.  Statistically, there would have to be.  It is a bit (quite a bit) of a generalization to say the entire group can be painted with a big 'ol brush called bigotry.

Of course there are bigots in every party. The difference with other parties is that they try to keep crazy racist ol' grandpa to the fringes. The Tea Party keep promoting their bigots to the head office.
You cannot fathom the immensity of the fuck i do not give.
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Cain

Quote from: Iptuous on September 14, 2011, 02:41:31 PM
Nice job on the talking points, Cain!
have you ever considered writing a political discourse in the form of a dialogue?
i'd pay money for that.

I hadn't actually, until now.

And thanks.  I make it a point to be able to at least semi-convincingly argue for any given political ideology or policy that is going.  As it goes, libertarian-esque rhetoric is easier than most for me, since I spent several months acting as semi-unofficial Opposition Research for the local Tories, when I went to Uni, and my cover was as a libertarian Tory.  Those were fun days...I was playing a blinder on everyone.

Da6s

Five and a half pages and no one's mentioned the tea party's anti-intellectualism? Or their eagerness to ban and burn books that don't coincide with their personal beliefs? I'm disappointed PD.  :|
We appear to be doomed by our DNA to repeat the same destructive behaviors our forebears have repeated for millenia. If anything our problem solving skills have actually diminished with the advent of technology & our ubiquitous modern conveniences. & yet despite our predisposition towards fear-driven hostility; towards what we anachronistically term primitive behavior another instinct is just as firmly encoded in our make-up. We are capable as our ancestors were of incredible breathtaking acts of kindness. Every hour of every day a man risks his life at a moments notice to save another. Forget for a moment the belligerent benevolent billionaires who grant the unfortunate a crumb of costfree cake. I speak of pure acts of selflessness. A Mother who rushes into the street to save a child from a speeding vehicle. A person who runs into a burning building to reach a family trapped on the upper story. Such actions,such moments,such unconscious selfless decisions,define what it is to be human

Cain

The OP actually specifically mentioned the socialism thing.

But, you know, thanks for taking the time to show your disdain for us.  Maybe next time you'll use that to read the OP more carefully?

Doktor Howl

Quote from: Da6s on September 15, 2011, 01:43:25 PM
Five and a half pages and no one's mentioned the tea party's anti-intellectualism? Or their eagerness to ban and burn books that don't coincide with their personal beliefs? I'm disappointed PD.  :|


Your approval is not our concern.
Molon Lube

Adios

Yeah, instead of bitching about it, why the hell didn't he just fill our vast shortcomings?

Doktor Howl

Quote from: Hawk on September 15, 2011, 04:45:58 PM
Yeah, instead of bitching about it, why the hell didn't he just fill our vast shortcomings?

Because it's Da6s.  He's more of an idea man.

:lulz:
Molon Lube


Anna Mae Bollocks

To paraphrase: Shit in one hand and have ideas in the other and see which one fills up first.  :lulz:
Scantily-Clad Inspector of Gigantic and Unnecessary Cashews, Texas Division

Worm Rider

Thanks for the help. I've read Ayn Rand. I have a hard time not thinking that it was written tongue in cheek, like a modest proposal.

Let me try to channel my inner tea party member.

I work hard, but I don't get everything I deserve for this hard work, because there are lazy people mooching off me through taxes and other bullshit economic policies put in place by the looters. These lazy people want to enjoy the fruits of my labor. What they need is a fire lit under their asses. If they had to live in fear that they would wind up torn apart by wolves or die of exposure and the flu living in a cardboard box because no one is going to help them at all, then they would stop being lazy and get to work. This is because the world is ultimately just, and in the absence of economic interference, all hard workers will be rewarded with the best our modern technology has to offer. Nobody could ever end up poor despite working hard and being intelligent. The fact that I work so hard, and am reasonably intelligent, but lack an even nicer car and an even nicer place to live than the one I have is the result of lazy people taking my money to fund abortions -not because greedy people are raking in billions of dollars by profiting off a society that has well-educated, healthy, happy people and refusing to pay back into that society in order to keep it that way. I am self righteous. I do the right things, I live the right way, I follow the right rules. Other people don't -and they are the ones that should suffer. They should suffer. I want people to suffer, unless they follow the same damn rules I do. Suffering provides the necessary negative feedback to give us all a kick in the pants when we need it. The world would be a utopia if we all worked as hard as me and stopped trying to get something for nothing. Also, I at least moderately agree with or am not completely offended by the following ideas: Christianity right, other religions are wrong, gayness is wrong, abortions are wrong, many poor people are poor because they are lazy. My ideas may not be politically correct, but I know the difference between right and wrong. If you work hard and don't completely flaunt all morality by being a homo (which is just gross, what the fuck is wrong with you people?) or doing abortions (which kills babies, how is that not clear?) then every thing will work out for you (unless some baby killing homo takes what's yours).  

Okay. I think I've done it. The problem is, in order to think this way, I have to shut off my critical analysis facility and become intransigently sure of myself. I have to be completely obsessed with the fact that I deserve more than I have. I can't empathize at all with the poor black woman who has three kids and makes minimum wage and lives in a shitty neighborhood, or with her kids who can't read or write and don't have money for lunch, because she is mooching off of me with her food stamps. She deserves the situation she is in. Her kids deserve it too. Maybe they won't be so lazy and stupid when (if) they grow up because they will learn from their experience that only hard work gets you food. I can't accept the idea that we the people could vote to each pitch in a portion of our income to help those kids out. Only lazy people would think that way.  Nor can I accept the idea that they are in an impossible situation, lacking the same opportunities I was given at birth. I have to be completely ungrateful for all that has been given to me and insist that absolutely everything good that has ever happened to me in my life is the result of my deserving it. I deserve everything good that has or will ever happen to me, and everything bad is someone else's fault, because I am one of the good guys. I am on the right team, I believe in the right God, and I am a winner.

Is this right? If so, how do we deal with these people? They think we are the dumb ones who just don't understand how the world works. They think they understand what we are thinking, but that we refuse to see things their way. Unfortunately, I think that thinking in terms of us vs. them and using war metaphors is just playing into their way of thinking. We have to think in terms of Us. WE includes them. We the people. That just sounds so cheesy. Fuck it. They are fucking morons.  

Precious Moments Zalgo

That's a pretty good summary.  Her novels weren't written tongue in cheek at all, though.  She really believed her philosophy and almost lived up to it, you know, except for that one time she got really sick and couldn't afford to pay for her own medical treatments, so she accepted government assistance under a fake name.

I'm surprised I don't see more Tea Partiers smoking.  All the supermen and superwomen in Rand's novels smoke like chimneys, and I can't recall any scenes that mentioned any of the looters or parasites smoking.

Oh yeah, Ayn Rand was totally pro-choice on abortion.

QuoteAn embryo has no rights. Rights do not pertain to a potential, only to an actual being. A child cannot acquire any rights until it is born. The living take precedence over the not-yet-living (or the unborn).

Abortion is a moral right—which should be left to the sole discretion of the woman involved; morally, nothing other than her wish in the matter is to be considered. Who can conceivably have the right to dictate to her what disposition she is to make of the functions of her own body?"
http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=objectivism_faq#obj_q5
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