Liberals on this forum are irrational

[Tiberius]

Question Adrian, and I mean this as a question to understand your views:

Hypothetically, if I were to poll randomly at a Tea Party event on the following three issues:

1. Same gender marriage
2. Abortion rights
3. Prayer in schools

...what kind of results do you speculate we would get? Would we find a socially liberal group? Mixed results? Conservative? Have any polls on social issues been conducted that you know of?

Interestingly, for the first two issues you noted (gay marriage and abortion rights), there has been excessive polling of tea party members. You only need to do a simple Google search for "tea party gay marriage" or "tea party pro-choice" to find a few articles that may be surprising to a lot of people:

1) http://www.mediaite.com/online/video-of-...tea-party/

A video from Think Progressive (yup, the progressive and usually anti-"tea party" group) shows the reaction of some tea party members at a rally in new Hampshire, where they were asked whether the legalization of gay marriage in their state had affected them, and what they thought about it. The reactions were positive; with most of those questioned saying it did not affect them, and others going as far to say "if you’re in love with somebody, then it’s all good".

2) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-sapp/...37061.html

Another progressive website reporting here. It has links to polling results from politico.com and nytimes.com that show the majority of the tea party do not support government setting moral standards or defining marriage, and a "sizable majority" (65%) say that abortion should either be generally available, or available with limits.

More interesting poll data is here: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010...tics#tab=0

So for those two, I'd say the Tea Party comes across as it should do: socially quite liberal.

I wasn't able to come across any raw data that covered prayer in schools, but my guess (and it is only a guess) would be that either we'd see the tea party siding with the majority of Americans (65%) who want prayer in schools, or that they would take a more "liberal" approach and say that prayer should be allowed, but not enforced.

I'm sure it is different for the four popular speakers you mentioned, but you have to remember that those speakers are all individuals. They do not speak for all the values espoused by the Tea Party. In the nytimes poll I linked to previously, 45% of the Tea Party stated that the goal of the movement was to reduce federal government, as opposed to cutting the budget (6%), lowering taxes (6%), Electing their own candidates (7%), Creating jobs (9%), Something else (7%), All of them (18%), Don’t know or no answer (3%).

Nobody agrees with their leaders on 100% of the issues, but they do tend to agree with them 100% on the issues that matter, and all 4 speakers want to reduce federal government, which is why they are speakers at the Tea Party rallies.

Lastly, if you want to see the "real" Tea Party, I suggest you look at the speakers who go to the smaller events. I haven't looked at his videos for a while (been avoiding YouTube recently), but Lee Doren (http://leedoren.com) always made great videos concerning the Tea Party. He is young, intelligent, and usually sticks to the issues of what the Tea Party is actually trying to do.

[reverendjeremiah]

It's a trap, his couch will eat you.

...an Admiral can sense these things!

[Dean-o]

Maybe I could have put it more eloquently than I did with that drunken rant. More sober, let me explain the point I was trying to get across.

First off, let me say it is not just liberals on this forum. I was once called a racist because I disagreed with Obama's interventionist foreign policy. It was a discussion of Iraq and Afghanistan at the time, but now we can include Libya.

It seems that now that we have a black president the race card is the best card to pull. Even though Ron Paul denounced the racist that donated to his2008 campaign, he is still called a racist. His son, Rand, has also been attacked this way. During an interview with Rachel Maddow he said he would not repeal the Civil rights act. In fact, he stated that he agreed with 9 out of 10 parts of the act and that would have been enough for him to vote for it. But MSNBC edited that interview to make it look like Rand would not have voted for it and wants to repeal it.

This is common place among liberals. If you make your opponent look like a racist, everything he says is taken with a grain of salt.

[Shell B]

Maybe I could have put it more eloquently than I did with that drunken rant.

Hehe, I knew you were drunk.

[Dean-o]

Maybe I could have put it more eloquently than I did with that drunken rant.

Hehe, I knew you were drunk.

LMAO...Of course, I am still a little drunk tonight, just not as shitfaced.

You know me and my Beam.

[Shell B]

You should really drink Jack Daniels. The taste is so much better. Sorry, I didn't mean to hijack your thread. You know me and political party talk. Blech.

[Violet]

I don't like parties.

Too much 'noise'. Too many people. Not enough fun.

[Minimalist]

This guy nails Paul....and his dear old fucked up daddy...pretty well.

http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010...bertarian/

First off, I don’t think Rand Paul is a racist, not consciously at least. He simply represents a mindset that is completely ignorant and disinterested in all issues concerning race and racism. He’s disinterested in how that affects people in this country who happen to not look like him. He is primarily concerned with preserving the liberties of those who happen to look like him. That’s essentially the nature of true libertarians. That’s why his father has been relegated to the margins in politics. That’s why we don’t have national libertarian candidates. While their views may be based on principles, they are not based on reality.

[Dean-o]

You should really drink Jack Daniels. The taste is so much better. Sorry, I didn't mean to hijack your thread. You know me and political party talk. Blech.

Jim Beam is cheaper that is why I drink that mostly. Every now and then I will buy some Jack Daniels or Crown Royal.

[Shell B]

I remember buying Jim when I was broke back in the day. Then, I lived right off post in Tacoma, so I would go on base and buy like a gallon of Jack for thirty bucks.