Ohhhh - I read the article you linked to. I assumed if you were talking about the study you would have linked to the WaPo article, rather than the woowoo one.
And yes, I agree with it. Every tea party rally I have seen has more “economic” signs than racist ones. So what? That there is even a significant minority of race based ones says a hell of a lot. And that the “small government” theme wasn’t considered relevant when it was a big white run government does as well.
Well, except cocaine.
You implied that tea Party membership in the south was representative of the population in that it includes a number of visible minorities. Or, to put it in your more colorful vernacular:
Well, miss elizabeth has given you a first hand account of a Tea Party rally in Memphis, and has reported that
This indicates that you are very, very wrong about the racial makeup of this group. Your agenda is that you want to convince us that the Tea Party are just a regular sample of the population whose only concern is the economy.
When your day is done and you wanna run on …
Well, sure. It’s not THEIR fault that a Democrat one-of-those-people got elected. They voted AGAINST him. Is it their fault everyone voted wrong?
-Joe
Where is the evidence that there is a significant minority of race based signs at Tea Parties? A sign that insults Obama is not race based any more than a sign insulting Cheney is race based. Cite please for that significant minority.
About that second point, no I don’t think that small government , libertarian thinking started on January 20, 2009:
Does that surprise you? Vocal minorities can wield influence out of proportion to their numbers – that is the whole point of being a vocal minority, the whole point of rallies and demonstrations and organizing and media attention. It is not just to secure the votes of everyone who shows up at the rallies, they’ll all vote and all vote the same way anyway.
I consider any birther stuff or Obama is a Muslim stuff to be race based.
Wow - thanks for the book recommendations. The point was that these Tea Partiers had not a single care about “small government” while Dubs was spending like a drunken sailor (incidently much of it on killing dusky people, the rest on lining the pockets of his cronies). It seems to only be an issue once someone got all uppity with ideas above his station and moved into the White House.
Small government ‘thought’ didn’t start in January, 2009. But caring about it did for the majority of the teabaggers.
Oh, I’m sure they did, because “small government” is a buzz word wrapped in a vacuum, it means precisely whatever you want it to. It means getting the government of your back, lowering taxes on all manner of needless stuff, “needless stuff” being another term of art that will be defined at some later date.
“Small government” is the vaporware of politics, it is that thing that has never been but as soon as it is, it will be totally wonderful.
This would only be true if you are an employer who hires people simply out of a desire to see them have a job.
If, on the other hand, you’re like most employers, and you hire the number of people you need to maximize your profit, then you’re spouting complete bullshit. If another employee would increase your company’s profitability, you would hire that person right now. And if the presence of another employee would not increase your company’s profitability, then you won’t hire someone, even if you do get a tax cut.
I wouldn’t blame you for this. If i were a small business owner, and i got a tax cut, there’s no way i’d use it to hire someone just for the hell of it. I’d pocket the money. And if my business profitability would be improved by hiring a new employee, i’d do that whether or not there was a tax cut because more profit is good for the business and for me, even if it’s being taxed.
I can’t define small government, but I will know what it is when I see it.
Some examples of waste:
A freeway in a part of the country I do not use
A government program that I do not use
Research funded by the government that I do not understand
Offices for politicians I do not agree with
Any government office or department that does not directly benefit me right now
Regulations in any way shape or form that do not directly impact me right now
Any government department whose function I do not understand
Government payouts to anyone other than me or my family or my employer
Simple, right?
King James has the right of it:
Ye shall know them by their candidates. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
I bumped my question for the second time to see if you or anyone else will answer it this time. If they Tea Party is not a socially conservative movement, why do they only endorse social conservatives?
I am not sure what you are arguing against. The contention put forth by me is that we should judge them by the people they endorse. If the candidates they endorsed were all fiscally conservative, but only 75% where socially conservative, I would accept that they are only a fiscal movement. But, so far as I have seen Rand Paul is the most socially liberal Tea Party endorsement. And that indicates that these separate, supposedly diverse, groups are just as united on social issues as fiscal ones.
Can you read for comprehension? I am asking, if its only focus is getting rid of government waste, why are all the candidates it endorses socially conservative? Is everyone who is fiscally conservative also socially conservative? Is gay marriage government waste? Since when did abortion laws have an effect on the deficit? DADT seems to cost the government money, shouldn’t they support repealing it? Or has this purportedly fiscal movement been taken over by social conservatives? If this movement is based solely on fiscal issues, where are the socially tolerant candidates?
Deep.
Does anyone else remember when Obama was accused of “palling around with terrorists”? Who was it that said that?
You keep asking, but seriously, who else are they going to endorse, liberals?
According to Starving Artist, liberals can’t be trusted. They make the country worse, and have been for 80 years now.
And we know that the liberals make the country worse because:
They are liberals. Q.E.D.
Of course it’s a partisan issue. Has not the GOP consistently pretended to be all about that ever since Reagan?
I blame the deficit on Obama for getting the country embroiled in an un-winnable war in Iraq in the first place.
(What? You KNOW that it’s going to be said eventually, and a significant proportion of right-wingers will come to accept it as the gospel truth.)
Then just admit that the tea party is a standard, hard right, conservative back lash to a Democratic administration and Congress, rather than a ground swell of anger at the fiscal irresponsibility of the last ten years. My contention is the whole point of the current tea party movement, on a large scale is to get Republicans in office without having to address what happened the last time they were in Congress.
Even the main Republicans are doing it. Eric Canto was on the Daily Show this week and, while I enjoyed a lot of the discussion they had, his pitch to put Republicans back in charge came down to “We screwed up last time, but we learned our lesson and will do better next time.” The tea party goes one better and says “that wasn’t us, we are different group, and if we appear exactly the same an push the same policies, well that is just a weird coincidence.”
To say nothing of dodging responsibility for that near trillion dollar debacle they fomented in in Iraq, and SHOVED DOWN OUR THROATS!
They wouldn’t want to have to take responsibility for that, now would they?