I want to hear from conservatives. Liberals, please don’t respond. And PLEASE don’t make this a political debate. This is a LANGUAGE question.
I wish there was a place for liberals to vote without affecting the poll, so I could easily see the results. As a moderator, could you perhaps add one?
I did not vote, being a left-of-center girl. However, the wording of the choices leads me to think that you believe “teabagger” is a derisive term liberals have inflicted upon a certain class of conservatives. Instead, I believe teabagger was a term those folks first coined for themselves. Upon the realization that the term was also used for a sexual act, “Tea Party” became more common usage.
There should be a button to the lower right of the poll that lets you view results without voting.
Here is a timeline for the evolution of the word “teabagger”. Early Tea Party members purchased “Proud to be a teabagger” buttons and were encouraged to “tea bag the fools in D.C.” during rallies. I won’t comment further since I’m not a conservative.
As the OP has asked, let’s let the conservatives occupy this turf for awhile.
Thank you for the link, but I’m really not looking for information about the origins of the term. I want to know how people feel about it NOW.
An honest question. I’ve been in threads where the OP has requested that only those of a certain persuasion respond, yet others come in and say it isn’t right to have a “private” thread, and I’ haven’t seen mods respond, as has happened here. So why now?
And before you ask, I have no cite, as I never thought to bookmark such threads.
Baker, I take it you’re not a regular reader in ATMB…
Thanks for linking to that article, Implicit. I hadn’t realized that the moniker didn’t originate from Tea Party detractors. Interesting.
By popular request, here is the liberal version of this poll.
I clicked “other” because, when I see someone use the term as a perjorative, I know that I can ignore them; they have nothing useful to provide.
I’m a traditional conservative Republican. The Tea Party are not any of those things so I don’t personally feel insulted when someone says teabagger.
As negative as my personal opinion is of the Tea Party movement, I think teabagger is essentially so juvenile that I can’t help but think less of anyone who uses the term.
I’m conservative-ish, but I don’t like the Tea Party myself.
However, I laugh whenever I hear the term, both because the mental imagery is kinda funny, and because of the irony of a liberal using (what I percieve as) a gay slur to describe people he or she doesn’t like.
I don’t know. Am I way off base to conflate this particular oral sex act with a man as a gay slur? If someone said it to me, I percieve it as shortform for, “I don’t like what you stand for; you probably gargle another man’s junk! Loser!!”
I recognize it’s intended to be an insult but it doesn’t “offend” me. (I’d have to give a shit about what liberals think in order to be offended.)
This is a fairly good way to state my reaction to it. I do wonder, from time to time, if the people using the term understand how it makes them look.
Lifelong conservative here. I regard the Tea Party the way traditional Mormons probably feel about Warren Jeffs. Insult them all you like; They are not us.
So no, it’s not an insult.
Someone pointed this out in the other thread, too. I designed the poll poorly by not differentiating the tea party conservatives from the rest of the nation’s conservatives. That’s obviously a pretty major “oops.”
I’ve never thought of it as having anything to do with gays, but maybe I’m wrong.
Word. I call them teabaggers myself.