Teabagger Interview W/ Jon Stewart

[Tiberius]

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.

Irrelevant, given that there is no necessary correlation between "having few non-whites" and "being racist".

All of them have racial epithets and racial slogans being displayed somewhere.

...and there are videos of such people being chased out of rallies by the organizers and security. There are no examples (that I know of) of tea party organizers officially displaying racist signs. An exposé by "Think Progress" on racism in the tea party was thoroughly debunked by various sites.

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.

...and if you are a liberal then you might not like this. I don't really have much of a problem with it. I agree that most of the tea party are right-wing, so it makes sense for right-wing politicians to be involved. I don't like Sarah Palin (no opinion on Bachman, I don't know her), but she seems to have changed her message since the election. Every time I see her on the news, she is always talking about small government, and I'm with her on that one.

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.

See point above.

It doesn't help that there are very few non-white people amongst the tea partiers.

No, it doesn't help, but it doesn't do anything else either. As I said before, a lack of black people in a specific group does not mean that group is racist. The fact that there are even *some* black members actually acts as a counter to the assertion that they are a racist movement.

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.

...and there are several ideas from tea partiers as to why this is. They have caught what they call "party-crashers" before; people who dress up as racists and come to the tea party to further the idea that the tea party is racist. By far the most popular theory is that the tea party is seen to be a group "against Obama", rather than a group against big government in general, and since Obama is black, the party draws racists in quite easily.

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.

Being funded by a party you don't like isn't a valid reason (for me) to be against something. You will actually find that a large percentage of the tea party are Independent voters (http://www.gallup.com/poll/127181/tea-pa...phics.aspx). As for who they tell people to vote for, why does the party matter? Surely the person should matter more than the party?

You'll have to excuse me, but your last sentence (from "most of the people...") didn't make a bit of sense. I lost the subject half-way through. Could you reword it?

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.

A right-wing news network sponsors a right-wing group, and this is a reason to be against them? I don't get your point.

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.

Major for *you*. Not so major for others. Again, I don't see how this is a reason for me not to like the tea party. As a member of the right-wing, and a libertarian (i.e. aligned with most tea party values), I can answer both of those for you:

1) Net Neutrality - Should be kept as the speed at which people access certain websites is determined by how much they pay their network provider. To do it by creating tiers of the internet would not only undermine the freedom that the internet was envisioned with, but the contracts that you drew up with your network provider. If network providers want to create additional levels of the internet, they must either choose to charge the websites or the users, not both at the same time.

2) Gay Marriage - Marriage is a religious ceremony, and as such, no government should get involved. Individual religions decide who they let marry in their churches. That way church X can allow gay marriage whilst church Y can disallow it. Having said that, if the government insists on getting involved, then it should of course be legalized, with the proviso that churches who do not want to marry gays should not be forced to marry gays.

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.

As far as I was aware, the only thing they wanted to be repealed was the law that forced business owners to hire people regardless of their skin colour. There are some reasons why that would be a good thing; for instance, if a racist business owner decides not to hire black people because he feels he cannot work with them (due to his racist beliefs), he is currently going to be punished for that. I feel the system might work better if we allow people to hire whom they want, for the reasons they want, and weed racism out of society in other ways, rather than trying to force people who hate each other to work together.

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.

Isn't this a reason not to vote Republican? I don't see how the Tea Party is to blame here...