Teabagger Interview W/ Jon Stewart

[TheDarkestOfAngels]

@ Adrian:

I don't know how different the Tea Party in the UK is from the US, but I'll try to shed some light on this whole situation because I'm not sure you're getting the whole picture of what the Tea Party is about.
Still, you can take my word at face value, as I am one of those 'big government' liberals, but what the tea party says they want and what they actually do are two different things.

I think the problem is painting every single one of them with the same brush. Not all the "teabaggers" are Libertarians; not all of them are stupid; not all of them vote for Sarah Palin; not all of them (in fact a low number) are racists.

Generalizations usually leave a few examples that defy the stereotype but I can say that of all the tea party rallies I've seen or heard of here in the US, few of them have any non-whites in them. All of them have racial epithets and racial slogans being displayed somewhere. Michelle Bachman and Sarah Palin have been elevated into being the tea party's centeral figures, even if some of them don't agree that that's a good idea (as polls have indicated) - the thing is that when she speaks, the tea party listens and tends to agree with them.
The leaders of the various tea sects have certainly attempted to make clear of the groups not being racist, but despite their attempts to quell those members of their parties, such blatantly racist tones are usually present amongst their numbers. It doesn't help that there are very few non-white people amongst the tea partiers.

This isn't speaking of their individual members of their groups as the racists may very well be in the minority, but they're prominant enough in the group to show a far greater percentage than the general populace.

Where I do side with the tea party is their platform of lower taxes, and smaller government. I'd attend the tea party rallies in the UK if they weren't so closely connected with UKIP, who I reject because of their anti-islam stance on almost anything.

And that's an excellent position for someone to have. I disagree with it, generally speaking, but the idea isn't invalid in principle. The problem with the tea party in this regard is that they're funded by republicans (many of which are former 'bushies'), tell you to vote for republicans, are telling a large percentage of republicans that they aren't republican enough, and when President Bush was pissing all over our freedoms, most of the people who are tea baggers now were telling us that the people rallying against Bush's clearly unconstitutional policies were telling us that those people (who were openly protesting Bush's policies) were UnAmerican.
FOX news (who recently handed Republicans a million dollars) even sponsered many of their rallies early in the Tea Party's public appearances, which only really got their rallies going off shortly after the sound election of a whole slew of democrats into office - not just the half-black one in the white house, but also Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi in Congress - the popular Republican enemies.
Furthermore, the tea party, being one of supposedly small government and low taxes, has no discernable stance as far as I can tell on Net Neutrality and Gay Marriage, two major constitutional issues about the level of freedom we have. Worse still is that the Republican candidates for congress up this novemeber - the ones saying we should repeal the 14th amendment - is a position endorsed by the Republican Candidates who are backed by the tea party.

Worse still, is not only that the Tea Party and the Republican Party are essentially becoming the same group is that the group's hard-right-wing ideaology also includes and especially exonerates that of the religious right and all of the horrible fail that that entails. It's to the point now to where you can complain about what republican candidates are doing and have it usually apply to the tea party as well - as republicans attempting to get into office are usually either a part of this group or are trying to get elected by the people in these groups without necenssarily being endorsed by them (such as John McCain.)

Finally, the Republicans currently in congress right now who are flirting with the Tea Party, have made it their policy to reject everything the democrats do - regardless of the policies or even whether or not the policies coincide with the Tea Party's party platform.

Now, as I said earlier, this is the American Tea Party so perhaps the Tea Party you have to worry about in your elections is more sane than ours, but the ones here are super-hard-right wing republicans, basically. They're racist, xenophobic, fringe republican people whose idea of an ideal america was a 1950s ideal with rules from 1850s.

EDIT: It's also important to note that the huge and utterly ridiculous anti-church/state stance being done over the muslim/islamic fervor over here right now (AKA "ground zero mosque") is because of the tea party candidates and republicans all around the country.