The tea party protests, your opinion please...

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I'm torn on this. On the one hand, I am a Libertarian and a fiscal conservative. This means there is an element to these protests that I have a lot of appreciation for, especially the issue of the income tax.

However, there is a much stronger element that I have little to no appreciation for. The group is filled with social conservatives, conspiracy nuts, survivalists, xenophobes and outright racists.

I feel like I should have my hand in things to let my viewpoint be known, but I also am not looking forward to the narrow-minded people I would be dealing with. It feels too much like Republicans being reactionary now that Obama is in office. So I'm not sure that my involvement would be practical or helpful.

What are your thoughts on the tea party protests?

I've yet to be able to discern an organized, coherent what-we're-mad-about message from these events.

The original Boston Tea Party was famously protesting "taxation without representation." The colonists were not allowed to vote representatives into government.

The people attending this week's tea parties did indeed get their vote. So if they're trying to resemble the intent of the original, it would seem they're simply bitching that they lost the elections. Not sure the original partygoers would agree with that one.

But moreover, it seems that the Right wing pundits and FOX News, who are sponsoring these events, have somehow convinced them that Obama has raised their taxes. In fact, Obama has made good on his campaign promise to cut taxes for basically everyone making less than $250,000/year. So it's both frustrating and sadly fascinating to watch working men and women protest the cutting of their own taxes while raising the taxes on those who can most afford it.

Then, like you said, there's the survivalist, racist, conspiracy-theorist nutjobs out there and I can't figure out just what they're protesting, except that they lost the election.

All the frustrating ignorance to history however is more than made up for by the widespread use of the phrase "Teabagging." I can't figure out if someone intentionally spread that term just to see if anyone would catch on or if so many conservatives really don't know what it means and won't be bothered to find out.

Either way, these protests have provided us liberals with an endless stream of teabagging jokes. And for that FOX News, we thank you!

- Jo

Ooooh, or maybe it's all a marketing ploy by Lipton to boost sales!

At the Lipton Marketing Department...

"They're all bitter about losing the election and crying Fascism now that the single party in charge isn't their party. Let's work with that."

"All we have to do is tell them it's exactly like the patriots in the Revolutionary War. None of them will ever remember history class or look it up!"

"I'll bet we can even get FOX News to sponsor the thing!"

"Dude! $100 bucks says I can get them all to call it teabagging and they won't even realize what they're saying until it's too late."

Ya, it's nearly impossible to focus in on any one issue because the "movement" is so fragmented, with many elements that strongly agree on some things, but strongly disagree on others.



That is arguable. You can point to a number of factors, whether it be the two-party system, campaign finance or the electoral college. Because of these things, I don't feel that my vote carries the weight that it should.

With the two-party system, I don't feel like I really have a choice. I didn't want McCain or Obama. Because the two parties want to stay in power, they cooperate to disenfranchise 3rd party hopefuls. Even the media takes part in this (on both sides). It creates an environment where debate is incredibly watered-down, and important issues are ignored while cultural divides take precedence.



While FOX and many Republicans have tried to make the TPP their own thing, the people that are behind it are not Republicans. Libertarians, Constitutionalists and various other 3rd parties and independents make up the core of the movement. Yes, they lost the elections, but that doesn't mean they were voting for McCain. Most in the core of the movement likely voted for Ron Paul or did not vote at all.



That's not actually true. They are promoting it, and they may be sponsoring some events, but the idea and the early implementation did not involve devout Republicans.



I cannot agree with the principal of taxing some at a higher rate than others. I'm all for getting rid of the various loopholes and tax havens that allow the rich to avoid taxes, but in my view, if we're going to have an income tax, it should absolutely be a flat-rate tax. But, of course, there shouldn't be an income tax at all.



This element absolutely did not vote for McCain. Most of these people actually despise McCain and accuse him of special treatment while giving information to and creating propaganda videos for his captors. Speak to your local POW-MIA group and you'll likely hear them refer to him as "songbird" (I think that's it).



Rachel Maddow is not funny, and the lady she had on her show (from Democracy Now! amirite?) was not funny. Pretentious ***** if you ask me (that is plural of a word that starts with C). You really shouldn't watch that stuff, it's just as bad as FOX, perhaps even worse, because they should know better (they seem to have an air of intellectualism, so you'd think they'd not be dismissive jackasses).

Basically the message is, stop spending all of our money. Stop giving all this money to the people who created the economic mess in the first place.



I believe that even though we did vote these people into office, its very rare to find a politician, on both sides of the aisle, that actually follow up on their campaign promises. Take Obama, he said during the campaign that he would end the war in Iraq. However, as soon as he got into office he adopts Bush's 16 month withdrawal plan which will only reduce the number of US troops down to 40,000 and keeps our 14 permanent military bases there and the multi-billion dollar US embassy in Baghdad that is bigger than the Vatican. His so called change is doing exactly what Bush had already planned to do.



What vote? Between a socialist (Obama) or a Fascist (McCain)? Doesn't seem like much of a choice to me.



Actually, most of these events, and the resurgence of modern tea parties in general, have emanated out of Ron Paul's presidential bid and his new organization, The Campaign for Liberty. It is Fox news that co-opted the message and began promoting the events as if it were the GOP that started them. Does anyone remember when Ron Paul raised a record breaking 6 million dollars on Dec. 16th 2007 the anniversary of the Boston tea party during his Tea Party Money Bomb?



While Obama has not raised taxes overall in the present, deficit spending, no matter if it was done by Obama or Bush, represents a tax on the future because these debts they are incurring on our behalf will eventually have to be paid back. Since both Obama and Bush have run up historically high deficits they represent the 2 greatest taxing presidents of all time.



Stereotyping is decidedly wrong, how can you label all the the people in a group as X simply because a very small minority holds a certain type of view. This is simply a logical fallacy and in fact is the same type of thinking that leads to racism. Just because there a few black people who love fried chicken and watermelon, doesn't mean that all black people do.



Actually I think the term "teabagging" is perfectly appropriate. I would love to place my sweaty balls upon the foreheads of most of the idiots in Washington. Basically what these protesters are saying is "suck it Washington".

Based on...?

It's apparently filled with people who don't want the government to keep doing the following one-two punch against the citizenry: 1) tax us ever higher, and then 2) waste the money they taxed from us, then repeat. Another related but equally objected-to combo is: 1) spend us into more debt, and then 2) pursue a solution to that debt by spending us a lot more into debt.

These two habitual government combinations are annoying to sane people. And that's who you'll find at these rallies.

I drove past one of the protests yesterday... there were over a thousand people there, which I thought was absolutely incredible, especially considering that the biggest anti-Bush protests held in the same spot never drew more than a couple of dozen...

and yes, I honked

I think this woman, who organized one of the protests, is emblematic of the people that attended. She is on disability, medicare and social security, and doesn't pay taxes - and she is rallying people against the "welfare state." If she was honest, she would refuse government programs and toss herself to the mercy of charities.

You don't want to have to stand in line for groceries?? The government will put money in your account every month - you don't even have to go down to the bank to deposit your check. But you do have to stand in line when you pay for your groceries - just like the rest of us wage earners. And you probably will have to sit and wait a few hours when you go to see a doctor ... that's the way the system works even without socialized medicine.


Here's another gem - a government contractor who is complaining about the government creating work!!



Please let us know the name of your company and the Federal Contract you are working on, and we will cancel it for you and save your tax dollars from being wasted.

i dont care what people do to organize so aslong as they don't make laws based up there religion. what a shock that foxnews, glenn beck and shaun hannity are involved, what a bunch of nutcases

I presume it is a reference to the Boston Tea Party? It is but is sound like the equivalent of the Monday Club here.

Basically people who don't want to join the BNP for publicity and power reason, but effectively endorse their policies.

it served its function 200 years ago, and now its just a joke. nothing will change. and why are they screaming about keeping there gun rights? whos taking away there guns? nobody's gonna get out of paying taxes either so why there crying about that is histaricle

The DC area is almost completely populated by people who either work for the federal government or one of its contractors, or are on welfare. I suspect that a lot of people at the DC protest were locals, so they fit into one of those two categories. Most people who protested did so in their hometowns-no longer do people travel thousands of miles to DC just to protest.

As for the woman in Syracuse who has a bad back and bad knees, it's hard to say, but those sound like self-caused ailments, usually from neglecting one's body. The obese frequently have knee issues as they get older, and a bad back can result from having too much weight as well. If they can't work, even if they are at fault for what happened to them, should they be helped? People don't seem to agree. The flip side is the aspie who can work yet is forced to live on welfare due to employers refusing to hire him because he is "strange". Also, there seems to have been a lot of career military at those protests, people who get lifetime benefits for their service. Thomas Jefferson argued that America shouldn't have an army, and tried to shut down the army that George Washington created.

The government is so gigantic nowadays that it's impossible to find somebody who ISN'T sponging off it somehow. The govt is so eager to spend that people who hate government find themselves benefitting from its spending spree. That doesn't mean they should shut up and let Obama run up a $30 trillion debt, however. Self-interest is not the only thing that matters here.

People are worried that when the government gets so big that everybody is sponging off it, it has gotten too big. Or as Barry Goldwater said, a government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take it all away. It doesn't have to be a matter of picking winners and losers Europe style, either-it can be that the government weakens as Rome's did from trying to be all things to all people, and ultimately collapses, forcing people to flee the cities and become tenant farmers in order to eat.

You can appreciate the positive things about the movement while still recognizing that there are some crazies in the mix. I'm sorry, but if someone actually believes the government was responsible for 9-11, I seriously question their sanity.

There are going to be hypocrites in every area of political thought.

I take offense to your classifying the movement as a joke. In my view, the joke is the fiat money system, the two-party system, the unconstitutional income tax, the military-industrial complex, the prison-industrial complex and the war on drugs.

As for guns, Obama had said he was in favor of new gun restrictions, but he's actually taken a more moderate stance, looking to merely enforce more effectively the laws that are already on the books. I agree that this is an over-reaction from the gun-rights enthusiasts.

It's not about getting out of paying taxes. It's about highlighting the fact that the income tax is a farce. The constitution makes a specific effort to describe which taxes are allowed and which are not. Taxes wherein we have a choice, such as sales tax, property tax, sin taxes, gas tax, license fees, etc, these are acceptable. What is unacceptable is a unavoidable direct tax, such as an income tax.

In 1913, a group of international bankers got together outside of the US to write their own legislation to create the FED. There is not supposed to be a central bank, that was another key element of our early government. It was tried, failed, and we decided "never again". Except that we did it again, and we have yet to abolish our current central bank. That sir, is the joke.

i agree that the federal reserve should be disbanded, but having silly peacefull protests isnt going to get anything done. do you disagree? and thousands of people have tried to say that the income tax is unconstitutional. 0 people have won any case against the IRS about this, so guess what? your still stuck paying income taxes. but i guess having a tea party will reform anything about the tax system here