How is all this Republican overreach going to play out in November 2014?

[BrainGlutton]

@adaher

Liberals aren’t used to uncontrollable advocacy groups. After all, they control them very strictly.

ACORN never was.

[BrainGlutton]

@foolsguinea

Uuuhh, I think you’re just desperately throwing words out there to try to convey, “Liberals bad.”

ANSWER is not “astroturf.” It is also not, “the left.” See, there is a great diversity of “the left,” because “left” means dissent in favor of reform, and there are different forms thereof.

And only some of those forms are “left,” and there are different forms even of those.

[Snowboarder_Bo]

@adaher

None of that is wrong, but it misses the point. Tea Party protests were organized on a grassroots level and the individual chapters are the very definition of grassroots.

You must use a different definition of the term “grassroots” than, oh, nearly everyone else on the planet:
[

A grassroots movement (often referenced in the context of a political movement) is one driven by the politics of a community. The term implies that the creation of the movement and the group supporting it are natural and spontaneous, highlighting the differences between this and a movement that is orchestrated by traditional power structures.

](Grassroots - Wikipedia)

The Tea Party is in no way, shape or form a grassroots movement.

ETA: Is anyone keeping track of how much adaher says that is wrong?

[WillFarnaby]

@crucible

Republicans have completely given away the ‘middle’, conceded it to the Democrats. The middle, where valid concerns are taken seriously, debated and handled.

The naïveté in this thread is astounding all around but this I found particularly noteworthy. You envision a Democratic Party occupying a middle where things are debated. In fact they are in lockstep. There is virtually no debate amongst democrats on anything. They have all come to a consensus on unlimited governmental power.

[WillFarnaby]

@BobLibDem

I beg to differ. Republicans are notorious for voting as a bloc. Obama’s stimulus + the ACA got what- zero GOP votes? If the Democrats want less diverse opinions, why do they embrace such diverse groups. If you looked at the crowds at the Democratic convention, you saw a nice cross section of America. In the Republican convention, it was vanilla soup. Here’s how to make a model of GOP ethnicity: take an Olympic size swimming pool. Drain out the water. Fill it with vanilla wafers. Toss in a handful of Oreos. That’s about the right proportion.

I’ll believe Republicans welcome diverse opinions when I see one of them say Rush Limbaugh is wrong about something- anything at all. Or when they say publicly that Obama has a good idea and they’re in favor of it.

Someone is completely oblivious to the obvious split occuring in the Republican Party. He imagines that the different skin colors of his party’s convention belies the Soviet like discipline of its members.

[jayjay]

Oh, look! Someone tagged out adaher!

[WillFarnaby]

And judging from your non-response delivered an Atomic Leg Drop.

[jayjay]

@WillFarnaby

And judging from your non-response delivered an Atomic Leg Drop.

None of you are capable of delivering the rhetorical equivalent of a such a thing. You’re Republicans.

[adaher]

And now I’m back for the hot tag! What were we talking about again?

[Chronos]

Democrats are all lockstep? That’s just such a supremely absurd statement that I don’t even know how to begin to address it. What leads you to that conclusion? Do you have some examples of major legislation where 100% of democrats voted the same way? Or some sort of mathematical way of measuring group cohesion, and assigning a score to it?

[BrainGlutton]

@WillFarnaby

Someone is completely oblivious to the obvious split occuring in the Republican Party.

Between which factions?

[adaher]

Snowboarder, it makes you look incredibly dumb to just declare me wrong on the Tea party’s grassroots nature. That’s the whole problem with the supposedly intellectual liberal class. They carefully weigh the evidence, and then eliminate all gray areas and just go for a black and white answer. And this is a group that criticized GWB for lack of nuance.

The Tea Party protests that first broke out, and nearly every protest since, were organized by local activists on the internet.

The Tea Party also is uncontrollable, something which we all agree on when liberals aren’t trying to prove its astroturf. Astroturf organizations can be easily brought into line because they want to keep the money flowing. All of the organizations cited in this thread are pro-immigration reform corporations. Yet the Tea Party is anti-immigration reform. And it’s not the only issue on which the Tea Party has proved uncontrollable.

You are confusing the moneyed organizations that jump on the bandwagon for the actual organizers of the movement. Which makes you not only wrong, but arrogant. Stick to the debating the merits rather than making it personal and you won’t look like an idiotic ass.

[GIGObuster]

@adaher

Snowboarder, it makes you look incredibly dumb to just declare me wrong on the Tea party’s grassroots nature. That’s the whole problem with the supposedly intellectual liberal class. They carefully weigh the evidence, and then eliminate all gray areas and just go for a black and white answer. And this is a group that criticized GWB for lack of nuance.

The Tea Party protests that first broke out, and nearly every protest since, were organized by local activists on the internet.

The Tea Party also is uncontrollable, something which we all agree on when liberals aren’t trying to prove its astroturf. Astroturf organizations can be easily brought into line because they want to keep the money flowing. All of the organizations cited in this thread are pro-immigration reform corporations. Yet the Tea Party is anti-immigration reform. And it’s not the only issue on which the Tea Party has proved uncontrollable.

You are confusing the moneyed organizations that jump on the bandwagon for the actual organizers of the movement. Which makes you not only wrong, but arrogant. Stick to the debating the merits rather than making it personal and you won’t look like an idiotic ass.

And that only shows that you did not read the academic report.

Incidentally, I was aware of the AstroTurf nature of the tea party thanks to looking at the fossil fuel efforts to elect people that would ¨coincidentally¨ protest against the control of fossil fuel emissions. I noticed that influence and artificial nature of them a few years ago.

Nearly all GOP Senate candidates deny global warming

Many of the Senate candidates are signatories of the Koch Industries’ Americans For Prosperity No Climate Tax pledge and the FreedomWorks Contract From America. The second plank of the Contract From America is to “Reject Cap & Trade: Stop costly new regulations that would increase unemployment, raise consumer prices, and weaken the nation’s global competitiveness with virtually no impact on global temperatures.” In reality, a carbon cap-and-trade market — by rewarding work instead of pollution — would increase jobs, lower electricity bills, restore American competitiveness, and forestall a climate catastrophe.

Overwhelmingly, the Republican candidates not only oppose action to limit global warming pollution, they question the validity of climate science. Here’s a sampling of the report [emphasis mine]:

So, yeah, you are wrong. what a surprise…

[adaher]

Oh, an academic report, that proves it! And that’s why liberals are wrong so much.

Did the corporate-backed groups organize the protests? Did the corporate-backed GOP candidates win in the primaries?

If the Tea Party isn’t grassroots, grassroots organizations don’t exist.

Appeal to authority does not trump using your own reasoning abilities.

[Marley23]

@adaher

Snowboarder, it makes you look incredibly dumb to just declare me wrong on the Tea party’s grassroots nature. That’s the whole problem with the supposedly intellectual liberal class. […] Stick to the debating the merits rather than making it personal and you won’t look like an idiotic ass.

This is overly insulting - significantly more than the posts you were complaining about. This is a formal warning not to do this again.

[GIGObuster]

@adaher

´Oh, an academic report, that proves it! And that’s why liberals are wrong so much.

Only that it is not the academic report that I quoted there, that was extra reporting from environmental organizations that did a lot of investigations early.

So, you are certifiably wrong again.

@adaher

Did the corporate-backed groups organize the protests? Did the corporate-backed GOP candidates win in the primaries?

Yes,

Opinion | The Billionaires Bankrolling the Tea Party (Published 2010)

And yes.

Climate of Doubt | FRONTLINE

BOB INGLIS: When you get the financial collapse going, that’s what made it possible for some well-spent money to blow doubt into the science because, you know, the bankers failed us, the federal government is failing us, it’s spending too much money, and these scientists who are funded by that federal government, they’re probably in it, too. And besides, they’re godless liberals.

JOHN HOCKENBERRY: Inglis was defeated.

MYRON EBELL, Competitive Enterprise Institute: Bob Inglis was defeated in a Republican primary 79 to 21 percent. Now, how many times has an incumbent who isn’t in prison or facing a prison sentence lost his own primary by 79 to 21 percent? This was overwhelming. But what’s happened is—

JOHN HOCKENBERRY: [on camera] The smile on your face suggests, “Man, we won one.”

MYRON EBELL: Of course we won one!

Rep. BOB INGLIS: We’re on the record. And our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren are going to read—

JOHN HOCKENBERRY: This climate hearing in the lame duck Congress was Inglis’s last.

Rep. BOB INGLIS: Your child is sick, 98 doctors say treat him this way, two say, “No, this other is the way to go.” I’ll go with the two. You’re taking a big risk with those kids.

Rep. JAMES SENSENBRENNER: That was a very key factor in 10 to 15 congressional districts in the 2010 election, where strong supporters of climate change legislation ended up being defeated.

Sen. JOHN KERRY: And there’s nothing like a loss in an election to promote fear in the survivors. And that’s exactly what happened in the United States Congress.

@adaher

If the Tea Party isn’t grassroots, grassroots organizations don’t exist.

Appeal to authority does not trump using your own reasoning abilities.

And you have no idea how appeal to authority works, it is not a fallacy when experts in the matter are cited. You are indeed, once again, certifiably wrong.

[adaher]

Your appeal to authority is fallacious because you cite partisan authority, or authority not qualified to understand the issue.

You cited partisan experts and treated it as wisdom come down from the mountain, and completely failed to engage with my arguments.

[GIGObuster]

@adaher

Your appeal to authority is fallacious because you cite partisan authority, or authority not qualified to understand the issue.

Sorry, but this say so of your is nonsense unless you can show it was the case, the sources I rely on do have credentials as historians and unless you can show that Frontline from PBS is not qualified, well, it is clear who is not qualified here.

BTW that contributor to Grist I quoted in the recent post holds a bachelor’s degree in math and physics from Amherst College and master’s degree in geosciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

@adaher

You cited partisan experts and treated it as wisdom come down from the mountain, and completely failed to engage with my arguments.

You are confused, I´m not posting to deal with you but with the actual poisoned sources that molded your sorry points. your arguments are not only dealt with, but shown to be uninformed in the extreme.

[Snowboarder_Bo]

@adaher

The Tea Party protests that first broke out, and nearly every protest since, were organized by local activists on the internet.

Those local activists were organzied beforehand and during by groups like Americans For Prosperity (funded by the Koch brothers), Citizens for a Sound Economy (also funded by the Koch brothers along with tobacco money) and FreedomWorks (Dick Armey, Bill Bennett, etc.). They were in no way spontaneous, citizen-activist groups.

Note that the first Tea Party website was actually registered as a domain in August 2008 (ChicagoTeaParty.com), in the name of a conservative radio talk show host producer, Zack Christenson.

Is your claim now going to be that he is psychic, and just knew that a movement with the same name and goals similar to his own would “spontaneously” appear? :dubious: :rolleyes:

[Chronos]

Wait, Fox News Network is now “local activists on the Internet”?