please explain the Tea Party to a canuck

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i am horribly uninformed about this. this is embarrassing. i can be pretty arrogant about the areas where i am well-informed... and this is not one of those areas. i can admit when i am ignorant of an issue.

i understand the basics of american politics, but this Tea Party stuff has thrown me for a loop.

i am a canadian. i don't read the newspaper, nor do i watch television news. the closest thing i read to the news is consumerist.com for their consumer stories.

i tried asking my husband about the Tea Party, and he explained it to me somewhat. but he only half-watches the news himself.

anyway. i'm lazy. anybody care to explain some of the background, or why there are such strong opinions about this Tea Party? thank you in advance.

?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnUfPQVOqpw[/youtube]

cool video



thanks for the background

It's basically conservative voters who were pissed that a black democratic man won the presidency without any doubt and prefer to blame him for things he did not start(the recession, TARP, the deficit) and grossly exaggerate what he has done so far(so called takeover of healthcare and the banks). They are paranoid about alien socialists/nazists/maoists/communists trying to take over the US and worship Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin as their lords and masters and actively campaign for higher corporate profits at their own expense. Rich conservative people like the Koch brothers fund them but don't actively participate in demonstrations since they are certain the common fold will make certain their wealthy overlords will get their tax breaks. Since they think the Republican party failed them and won't abide by their extreme views, they opted to form their own pseudo-party to put in those extreme ignorant folks like themselves in congress and take this country back to some... imaginary utopia in America's past that no one can identify.

ahhhh ok. thank you. we had something like that up here called the Reform Party. it fizzled out eventually.

My video said the same thing.

Oh, and don't forget that the birthers also make up a strong constituency of tea partiers.

Birthers being people who believe that Obama was placed into power by a hidden conspiracy that thinks it's necessary to put in someone who isn't an american to carry out their evil plots because a white natural born american would never sell out (their line of thinking).

For the most part, I think the Birthers are discredited as a group and pretty much no one takes them seriously anymore, even most Tea Partiers still silently agree with them. However they're still quite vocal about Obama being a Muslim though.

If Obama has not publicly spoken the words "lâ ilâha illallâh, Muḥammadur rasûlullâh" then he is not a Muslim. That is the end of it. The fact that he claims to be Christian also automatically means that he cannot be Muslim. Either he is telling the truth and is not Muslim, or he is lying to cover up his Muslim faith, in which case Islam regards him as a hypocrite who will burn in hell and suffer a far more severe punishment than ordinary infidels. In either case, he is not Muslim.

But Tea Partier's don't believe in logic.
His daddy was a Muslim so he must be a Muslim too. Because being Muslim is an ethnicity and is genetic. Or so they say.

Obama is Irish. You ever seen a picture of his mother?

Time for some Glenn Beck logic.

Obama's daddy = Muslim

Obama's mother = Irish

Terrorists = Muslim

But wait. The IRA practices terrorism... and they are Irish.

So Irish = Terrorist

That must mean that Obama...

Is a Muslim Irish Terrorist Hybrid secretly sent to destroy America!
Egads!

Don't forget the Irish are Catholic, and as we all know from the inspired teaching of Jack Chic, Islam is actually a Catholic conspiracy. So Obama is an Irish Catholic terrorist posing as an Kenyan Muslim terrorist as all part of the Vatican's nefarious plot going back 1500 years. Also, he's a Jew, because what conspiracy theory is complete without blaming it all on the Jews?

The Tea Party party is named in rememberance of the Boston Tea Party which was a protest against the British tea tax on American colonists. Several activist got dressed up as Indians and boarded the ship containing chests of taxed tea on Dec 16, 1773. They dumped the contents into Boston Harbor which cost the shippers a rather large amount of money. The act was an act of defiance to the taxes imposed by the English parliement and was indicitive of a growing resentment and hatred for the government the Mother Country (England) imposed upon the American colonists. This eventually led to the Revolution which was successful (with the help of France) and American independence from the hated English government.

The modern Tea Part is a protest against increasing taxation, increasing indebtedness and increasing interference in the everyday lives of people by the highly disliked government in Washington D.C..

The Tea Party is very appealing to two classes of folks: 1. libertarians who want smaller government on principle and 2. right wing Republicans who detest the current government in Washington because it is majority Democrat both in the legislative branch and there is a Democrat president currently in office. The movement got extra momentum this year because of the high handed way in which the Obama-niks passed the latest health care bill.

The Tea Party to a certain extent has been hijacked by the most reactionary elements of the Republican party. Rather unfortunate, but the Tea Party caught on in popularity and the Republican right wing saw an opportunity to push their agenda (such as it is).

For a number of reasons Democrats will suffer in today's election. In addition to the reactionary right of the Republican party there are many, many pissed off independent voters (not affiliated with either the Democrat party or the Republican party) who are highly annoyed with the current administration. it is they who will take a bite out of Democrat rue today.

I hope this gives you some idea of what is going on here in the 'States.

ruveyn

We've gone over this before:
Birthers do not believe Obama was born in the US until he discloses his long form birth certificate and explain why he has a social security number from Connecticut when he never lived there. Also, Michelle Obama once said he was born in Kenya.

As for the Tea Party, they resent that Obama only represents the most extreme left wing of his constituents. Obama may have won by a landslide in the electoral vote, but only won with 53% of the popular vote. More than half the country now disapproves of Obama's job performance and the people are also mad at the congressmen who helped Obama pursue his out of touch agenda. If Obama had kept a moderate agenda, bridging party lines like he promised at the DNC, the Tea Party would probably have remained relegated to a handful of rednecks holding small, sporadic protests and mailing teabags to Washington D.C. But the Democrats didn't do that so the Tea Party exploded into a movement that will probably kick the democrats out of control of the house, thus leaving Obama in a stalemate for the rest of his time in office.

The Tea Party movement started before Obama was elected. The Birthers are a small part of the movement. The Birth Issue is just a convenient way of attacking the Obama administration. Since people are no longer free and easy with overtly racist hostility they transform it to hostility to foreign birth which disqualifies one to be President of the United States. One must be a natural born citizen of the U..S. to be President. Since Obama's mother is an American citizen he qualifies on that count and since he born in Hawaii he qualifies under the criterion set forth in the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

In short, we are stuck with Obama. He was elected fair and square and he is legally qualified to hold the office.

Far too much was made of the Birther controversy some of it fueled by the media, which just loves to stir up a ruckus. The real target of the Tea Party movement is the highly liberal, highly statist Democrat liberal agenda. particularly the health care legislation. Unfortunately there is a discernible component of hypocricy here. The Republicans, especially under the late and unlamented Bush administration ran up the deficit and debt beyond our ability to repay much before Obama started to run. The Republicans have been digging a hole for the U.S. to sink into for years before 2008. It actually started back in the Regan Administration.

I wanted to start a movement too. It is called the I Hate the F*cking U.S. Government Because It is Totally Incompetent Movement and it is totally non-partisan.

It never caught on.

ruveyn