A Million Mad Hatters: The Tea Party “Revolution”

I know, I know – another month-and-a-half between posts. Sorry about that. Now let’s dive in.

For months now, I’ve been watching the absurd media coverage given to what’s been called the “Tea Party Movement” here in America. The Tea Partiers, as they are commonly called, are supposedly a loosely-connected group of people who have come together to “take back America” in response to certain recent events that have made them angry. On the surface, that’s not a bad concept. The definition of democracy is based upon dissent among the common people in response to an overreaching central government. Dissent is not wrong. Dissent is allowed, even encouraged, under the United States Constitution.

But for that dissent to reach national and even world-wide levels, it stands to reason that said dissent has a valid target, with valid reasoning. And no matter what you think about governmental concepts and philosophy, the Tea Party is wrong. Ridiculously wrong, on so many levels. A nice idea at the outset has become overrun by the fringe, the kooks, the lunatics, and the dangerously unstable. It’s at the point now that if you consider yourself a “member” of this Tea Party movement, I consider you to be, at best, an easily-led dupe. At worst, I consider you to be a danger to my country, borderline-treasonous, and possibly a hateful bigot.

As I’ve just shown, another concept that is allowed under the Constitution is my right to air my opinions, too. Here’s mine: shut up, Tea Partiers. I’m tired of listening to you. I’m tired of seeing you on my television. I’m sick of you morons claiming that you speak for America when you’re nothing but an embarrassment to America.

You have a problem with the government? Fine. Every American knows of something that they think could be improved. Even in America, one of the freest nations on Earth, there are problems. Some people think taxes are too high. Some people think we need to try harder to find alternative energy or spend more money on education or better roads. EVERYONE thinks something needs to be better. You can talk all you want about what problems you feel this country is dealing with.

Within reason.

Threatening to burn down people’s houses, like one nut did to Nancy Pelosi after multiple rants left on her Washington voicemail after the Health Care Reform bill passed, is not within reason. Shouting “kill him” in reference to the President, like several subhumans have at Palin rallies in the past couple years, is not within reason. Ignoring mountains of evidence while continuing to claim that Barack Obama is a secret Muslim Kenyan that is part of a 40+ year-long African conspiracy to “invade” America and turn it into Saudi Arabia West is not within reason. The first two are treasonous. The third is just monumentally stupid and racist.

So why did a movement that purports to have been put into motion to protest the bank bailouts not find its footing until the Obama administration? Why indeed? As is often forgotten by the lunatic fringe, the federal program to bail out the largest failing banks was not conceived by the Obama administration, but rather the Bush administration several months before Obama ever took office. Where were the Tea Partiers then? Where was the outrage? And here we tiptoe up to the sensitive underbelly of the Tea Party monster, the thing they know they can’t say aloud, lest what little credibility they have be forever destroyed – there’s a Negro runnin’ things now. And they don’t like it.

Several polls have been taken recently that revealed a general microcosm of the “average” Tea Partier – reasonably wealthy, white, and well-educated. On the surface, that might be mildly surprising to those who assume that Tea Partiers are white trash loons (of course, the “white” part is hardly surprising, but I digress). I read a great article a couple days ago that pointed out the trend throughout history of majority groups resisting the rise of minority groups through various means and linking that, rightly, to the Tea Party. So why would many white, well-off, well-educated people suddenly be upset about banks and taxes NOW after George W. Bush spent 8 years following what laws he liked and ignoring ones he didn’t, sinking hundreds of billions of tax dollars into a pointless war on the other side of the world, signing the Patriot Act and stripping Americans of their civil liberties, botching the response to Katrina, helping his father’s oil buddies make millions under the table, and on and on? WHY NOW are they suddenly so upset?

Because a black man is their President. They can veil that answer with all the denials they want. But that’s why. And that’s that. The world is changing. It’s not all about Whitey anymore. So now comes the anger. After dealing with 8 years of the least intellectually-curious and probably most corrupt president since Richard Nixon, NOW these people are suddenly enraged with the state of things. Now they need to “take back America”. They just know better than to mention that they’re adding the addendum “from the blacks” under their breath.

Of course, this kind of looney-bin kookery is nothing new to Republicans’ response to Democratic administrations. The rural vote is heavily-Republican and has been for decades, thanks to the Republican political machine having successfully painted Democrats as pansy Liberal elitists while painting themselves as down-home country boys. The salt of the Earth. Yessirree. The irony of Republican politicians taking off their Armani suits and putting on cowboy hats and plaid shirts to go out and press the flesh while fooling gullible countryfolk with their supposed “common man” background and then going back to their mansions is totally lost on Republican voters. They’ve bought it hook, line, and sinker. So whenever a Democrat is elected President, the crazies in their log cabins start shining up their guns and putting their militias together again while waiting for some ridiculous repeal of the 2nd Amendment that they’re sure will happen, but never does. Every Democrat elected is the result of a conspiracy, every Democrat elected will take away your guns, every Democrat elected isn’t a “real” American.

But this time it’s different. Not only is a Democrat back in the White House, this one is an African. He was born in Kenya. He’s biding his time before repealing the 2nd Amendment, hell, the whole Constitution. And so on. Who knows what other diabolical plans he has for this great nation? After all, just look at him. He’s, y’know, not “one of us”.

And that’s the Tea Party. Sure, maybe some people in there somewhere really are just mad about taxes and that’s it. I honestly believe there are two wings of this Tea Party nonsense and they just don’t realize it yet.  There is the smaller “anti-tax” wing and the larger “racist” wing. The problem is that they look exactly alike. There’s no way to differentiate between the two. I think that some people have been sucked in to the movement because of the economy or some other valid reason. Of course, that still doesn’t explain why the anti-taxers just now decided to get pissed off about things, but maybe they’re just slow in the head. Maybe it takes them 8+ years to get angry about things. So I don’t think ALL of them are racist reactionary dupes. But those somewhat-reasonable people are in the minority when it comes to this “movement” of comically-stupid, hateful bigots.

On April 19, a group that almost gleefully asked to be described as a “branch” of the Tea Party movement protested in Washington, D.C. carrying loaded rifles, pistols, and semi-automatic weapons. Why? One, because they can, and two, to protest the supposed targeting of the 2nd Amendment. There is no such targeting. Obama has no plans to repeal any facet of the Constitution in any shape or form. It’s a figment of their imagination. But reality matters not to these people. So several hundred Tea Partiers showed up “locked and loaded” and stood around and ranted about an illusion. When you have a rifle slung on your back and strut around in public because it’s technically legal, I’m sure it makes you FEEL like a big man. But it makes you LOOK like a dipshit. I could buy a wizard’s robe and hat and walk up and down the street waving my magic wand and gibbering about the approaching black dragon army and it would be legal. But it doesn’t mean I don’t look like I need psychiatric help. That would hardly deter these people, though. When their chosen idol, Sarah Palin, tells rabid Tea Partiers to “lock and load” in response to the Health Care Reform bill, how does that not make rational people cringe and wait to see how many nuts actually take her literally?

The New York Times released a poll last week that put the Tea Party arrogance and self-importance to the forefront. One question asked Tea Partiers and non-Tea Partiers if they felt the Tea Party represented the ideas of most Americans. 84% of Tea Partiers said yes. When combined with the non-Tea Partiers, the “yes” vote dropped to 25%. That in a nutshell is the Tea Party – far more important to American democracy in their own minds than they actually are in reality, a group that deserves little mention but instead receives coverage around the country because they can shout words loudly, wear American flag t-shirts, and are happily oblivious to the fact that they are lying mimics, forcefed talking points by Fox News without a shred of evidence or fact to back up their claims.

A famous quote is attributed to Thomas Jefferson: “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism”. And upon thinking about that, I almost feel sorry for those in the Tea Party. They are being used and they don’t even know it. As the vast majority are middle-aged white folk, the backbone of the Republican Party’s voting bloc, Republican leaders have flocked to the Tea Party standard to use it for their own personal gain. Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, and countless Republicans have fought to insert themselves into the movement, to steer it towards their campaigns, to use its sudden power to increase their OWN power, while pulling in tens of thousands of dollars a pop in speaking fees, of course. And these Tea Partiers don’t even see it, don’t even realize how they’re being scammed.

They think they’re true patriots (at least the non-racists do). They think they’re performing a proud public service. They think they’re standing up for America. But they’re just being conned. The Tea Party is a blip on the radar – the angry shout of the rich white man railing against his loosening stranglehold on society. It will all be over soon. As with all fleeting pointlessness, it will end with a whimper, not a bang. No third party will be created from this. No great social upheaval will be created from this. They will just stand around and yell and scream and hold badly-misspelled signs full of lies and propaganda and hate, showing off their holstered guns and flag pins, claiming that they’re not racist when rational people know they are, claiming that it’s not about a black man in the White House when rational people know that it is.

Tea Partiers, you can’t claim to be all about protesting taxes when you’re carrying signs with Obama wearing a Muslim headdress. You can’t claim to be all about peaceful assembly when you marching around wearing loaded pistols. You can’t claim that the United States is descending into tyranny when it’s doing nothing of the kind. If you could only go back in time and ask European Jews in the 1930s, or the Romans during the days of the emperors, or the serfs in medieval society, or commoners under Stalin or Mao or Hitler, about REAL tyranny, then maybe you’d know the meaning of the word. Those people knew about tyranny and suffered under it every day for their entire lives. You know nothing about tyranny, beyond what the talking head millionaires on Fox News blabber about when they’re just trying to get you riled up. You are ignorant. They’re trying to whip you into an idiotic frenzy. And you’re falling for it.

The excellent social philospher Eric Hoffer, who was far from a liberal and hated the term “intellectual”, wrote a book in 1951 called The True Believer, which dealt with mass social movements and fanaticism. Inside is another quote that I think is quite pertinent: “In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.” Simply put, the Tea Partiers’ perfect world no longer exists. It is up to them whether they want to become part of a forward-thinking society, to really and truly strive for a better nation, or instead wallow in their dreams of the dominant white man and the status quo. If they continue to choose the latter, their influence will be ever marginalized until they are nothing but a footnote in political history.

Yes, I’m still alive!!! And now, a quick political commentary. :)

Yeah, yeah, I know. I haven’t posted in something like a month. Sorry about that. Been a busy month in the Ruzin household – kid growing up, lots of this, lots of that. Anyhow, this won’t be a long one. I just wanted to say a quick word on the HUGE health care reform debate.

I’m a pretty liberal democrat. You know that. Too bad it’s so sad that I have to preface my opinion that everyone should be entitled to be healed by their government by saying that I’m a liberal. Conservatives think that’s crazy talk. It’s not that crazy of an idea if you think literally for just a second about what exactly a proper democratic government is supposed to do for their people – defend them, protect them, etc. But that’s okay. Republicans aren’t currently in the business to do what’s best for their country. They’re in the business to disagree with anything and everything that Barack Obama says or does, to the point where Congressmen suddenly have a mental seizure, think they’re on the floor of the British House of Commons (yeah, you, Joe Wilson) and shout like a moron while the President is speaking (by the way, Joe, pretty nice of the health care industry to donate over $300,000 to your PAC. I’m sure that wouldn’t have anything to do with your temporary Tourette’s, would it?)

I’m a frequent follower of Digg.com, a liberally-slanted news aggregator. Today one Digger posted a comment on a health-care-debate thread that I just had to share. It’s so great that it should be passed out at these ridiculous Teabagger rallies (i.e. uneducated, black-hating, pro-Palin hillbillies). If you ever get lassoed into an argument with some buffoon who doesn’t want health care reform because “gub’ment needs to stay outta my doctor’s office” or “Obamer is socializin’ medicine”, just have these facts ready to go. Watch his eye start twitching and his mouth hang open, as his Copenhagen-addled brain feverishly tries to come up with a comeback that doesn’t involve latent racism (the real reason most Republicans hate Obama, but that’s a story for another day).

Anyway, here ya go!

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Username: UniversalGuy (Sept. 17)

I am a conservative.

This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the U.S. Department of Energy.

I then took a shower in the clean water provided by a municipal water utility.

After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC-regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like, using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

I watched this while eating my breakfast of food inspected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

At the appropriate time, as regulated by the U.S. Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the U.S. Naval Observatory, I get into my automobile that was inspected and approved by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and set out to work on the roads build by the local, state, and federal Departments of Transportation (DoT), possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank.

On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) and drop the kids off at the public school.

After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), enjoying another two meals which again do not kill me because of the USDA, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DoT roads, to my house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and Fire Marshal’s inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its valuables thanks to the local police department.

And then I log on to the internet — which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration — and read on Fox News forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can’t do anything right.

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So the next time you have to put up with some foaming-at-the-mouth redneck saying that giving people a public option in health care will ‘socialize’ medicine and ruin the country, tell him that, thanks to the government, you have electricity, you have running water, we have a well-regulated and efficient mailing system, your workplace is free of dangerous hazards, our cars are safe, the roads are safe and maintained, your food is safe, your drugs are safe, and your neighborhoods are watched and kept safe by the police. You can thank the *gasp* GOVERNMENT for all of those things. It’s easy to blame the government for a lot of stuff, but without it, it’d be Lord of the Flies out there. So maybe you Republicans could explain to me why fixing health care would destroy our country. Good luck with that.

What I Think (a short Q and A)

Sorry that I haven’t posted in a few days, all. The wifey and some friends of ours had some fun throwing back a few beers… and throwing ground blooms up in the air and seeing which way they would spin once the fuse burned down. No, nobody got hurt and great times were had by all, but I didn’t have a whole lot of time to write when I was busy tying 5 ground blooms together so I could “see what happens” (note: not much).

So anyhow, I was thinking earlier that I hadn’t really laid out my views on important issues for people reading my blog who aren’t too familiar with me. Now, I could write out like a 2,000 word post on every individual issue and utterly bore everyone who doesn’t want to read a novel-length diatribe regarding some political opinion of mine. Or I could make it short and sweet and write no more than a short paragraph on everything. So here goes — a short and sweet opinion of mine on every controversial thing that pops into my head. 🙂

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— Are you in favor of gay marriage?

Totally in favor of it. There’s no reason to be against it unless you seriously think you’re better than gay people, which makes you a bigot, or you worry about the “sanctity of family”. And you usually only worry about the “sanctity of family” if you’re a Christian, a Republican, a bigot, a jerk, or a combination of all 4. I’m sick and tired of hearing holier-than-thou Republicans tell me that gay people can’t marry because it doesn’t jive with family values…then those same guys end up either coming out as gay themselves a few months later or calling a press conference and admitting that they cheated on their wife. “Family values”? What a crock.

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— Christopher Columbus was a heroic explorer, wasn’t he?

Hell no. Columbus was a conniving bastard who used every bit of his political clout to throw together an expedition to sail to Asia with 2 goals in mind: finding new lands for Spain to claim ownership of & finding a quicker route to Asia to increase Spain’s trading power. You wouldn’t believe how opposite the truth is from what they teach you about the guy in grade school. When I was a kid, I was taught how Columbus was this hero who convinced the flat-earth morons in Europe to let him set sail and discover new continents and then he stumbled across America and chilled with some Indians and he was a great adventurer and the “discoverer of the New World” and blah blah blah. Bullcrap. Columbus was a heartless racist who killed thousands of Native Americans for not finding him enough gold to bring back to Spain and probably killed hundreds of thousands more through diseases that his crew carried that the natives weren’t immune to. Anyone who celebrates Columbus Day is a dupe.

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— Should marijuana be legalized?

Yes. I guarantee you that half of the people smoking weed right now only do it because it’s illegal and the “cool” factor that comes with breaking the law. If marijuana was legalized, those people would no longer get the kick out of doing something “bad”. Also, I think it’s pretty clear that the “dangers” of marijuana have been overhyped for decades. Any history scholar worth his salt knows that the only reason marijuana is illegal in the first place is because of William Randolph Hearst’s push to make hemp illegal so that it wouldn’t replace wood pulp paper and cut into his huge newspaper conglomerate’s profits. The ‘evil weed’ story just picked up from there. You had Reefer Madness and then the laughable failure that is the “War on Drugs” since the 1980s. THEN you’ve got the growing number of studies that show the BENEFICIAL effects of marijuana on patients with chronic pain (hehe…chronic). I think if marijuana was legalized and then regulated by the government, it would help those patients and actually DECREASE the number of those casual users who only do it because it’s naughty and illegal.

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Is there a liberal media bias?

No, so-called “liberal” media outlets like the major networks at least ATTEMPT to call news stories down the middle. You never hear those anchors sit there and give their opinion. That’s what you hear on Fox News, the only obviously biased network on television. Republicans who watch CBS or NBC and complain about a bias are just hearing what they want to hear. Anyone can turn on Fox News and see clear bias, because those anchors tell the viewer what they think about every story. And that’s not journalism, that’s propoganda.

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Did Lee Harvey Oswald kill John F. Kennedy, or was there a conspiracy?

I know it’s a hard thing for some people to swallow – to believe that the most powerful man in the world could be taken down by a nobody loner with a gun. But beloved presidents and celebrities aren’t immune to guns, just because they’re held by a lesser man. Oswald killed Kennedy. He didn’t have help. There was no conspiracy, no second shooter on the grassy knoll, no CIA involvement, no Castro involvement, none of that nonsense. Oswald was a pretty good shot and HAD a pretty good shot. He missed the first shot, and hit the next two. There was no “magic bullet”. Kennedy and Connolly weren’t sitting lined up with the shot and weren’t even sitting at the same height. Again, I know that it’s hard for a lot of people to realize that history can be changed by the most inconsequential people, but really – do you know the name of the bomber that killed Austria’s Archduke Franz Ferdinand and started World War I? I don’t even remember the guy’s name and I’m a history guy. To believe Kennedy was the victim of a conspiracy means that you believe that he was some kind of Superman who could only be taken down by the combined efforts of a dozen different nefarious groups. He wasn’t. He was just a guy.

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Are you in favor of capital punishment?

That’s a hard one for me to answer. I know that athiest or antitheist Democrats tend to oppose it as a barbaric practice and religious Republicans tend to favor it as giving a scumbag murderer what he’s got coming to him. Unfortunately, as an atheist Democrat, I often find myself favoring it. I know that I probably shouldn’t, because of what it says about society in general, but I think that literally the only part of the Bible that I can get behind is “an eye for an eye”. I would probably consider a world that does not practice the death penalty as more advanced than one that did. But it’s hard for me to hear about some guy who raped and killed little kids and not want an especially cruel death devised for him. In that case, I would actually prefer life in prison over the death penalty, because today’s death penalty isn’t vicious enough. If I had my way, I’d torture him until he was begging to die. So as you can see, I’m conflicted between wanting an advanced and enlightened society and wanting to take out some anger on worthless dirtbags.

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Do you believe in global warming? Do you feel humans have contributed to its effects?

Easy one. Global warming is real. And humans sure as hell have contributed. Whenever this comes up, Republicans scoff at scientific evidence as if THEY are the experts on the subject. I find that offensive. Lawmakers should stick to lawmaking and let scientists stick to science. You know, the Earth isn’t THAT big. And we’ve been constantly pumping smoke and CFCs and other godawful pollutants into the atmosphere for the past 150 years or so. Where do they go? Are they made to disappear by the invisible pollution fairy? No, what they do is destroy the ozone layer while simultaneously adding to the CO2 blanket in the atmosphere. Summers will get hotter. Winter will get colder. Spring and Autumn will eventually all but disappear. Storms will get more severe. And the one thing we can count on is Republicans saying that it’s just a natural spike in the Earth’s cycle. Yeah, because they know more than scientists who do nothing but study this kind of thing. My generation will be ok. My daughter’s generation will probably be alright. Not real sure about her kids. But God will fix it, right?

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Should prayer be allowed in schools?

No. Normally I would be against government intrusion, but prayer in schools is definitely not ok. Societies that allow that kind of thing turn into theocracies. What about kids who don’t WANT to pray? If you have prayer time in schools, then what you’re doing is immediately outing all of the kids who aren’t religious. And then you’ve got problems between the kids. Oh, and there’s that little “separation of church and state” thing in that there Constitution that Christians love to bring up constantly. What that means is that prayer in schools (which are regulated by the government) is unconstitutional. The end.

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Should euthanasia be legal?

Another toughie, but I’m comfortable saying yes to this one. If somebody’s 95 and has a terminal disease, then let’s face it – they’re never going to get better. It’s not like their 95-year-old body is going to fight off brain cancer and then be right back out on the tennis court. They will live in constant and unceasing pain, either for a few months or a few years. That person’s life, for all intents and purposes, is over. Yeah, they’re still breathing. Yeah, they can still talk and think. But their live will be on an inevitable and painful decline until death. And how about those people who are vegetables, like Terri Schiavo, people who can’t talk and think on their own, but who are just an empty shell of a person? I’m sorry, but not only was pulling the plug the right thing to do, but they should have pulled the plug on that woman about 10 years before they actually did. But no, you’ve got self-righteous idiots like that clown Bill Frist standing on the floor of the Senate and interfering with somebody’s private life in the name of the sacredness of life. That poor Michael Schiavo finally wins his court battle and is allowed to let his wife go, they do the autopsy, and Terri’s brain was holier than swiss cheese. She would NEVER have recovered. There wasn’t going to be any ridiculous God-given miracle. So why not just let those people go? I sure as hell wouldn’t want to stare at the ceiling of a hospital or nursing home for the last 5 years of my life, screaming in my mind to be heard, but trapped in a pointless body that just lays there and drools on itself. How does that sound? As in most cases, the people who think that they can tell other people what they should be allowed to do with their own lives would most likely be singing a different tune if it actually happened to them.

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Alright, that’s enough of that. Just a few thoughts on controversial issues, so you know where I stand. Feel free to comment and tell me how right I am, or how wrong I am. I’m a big boy. I can take it. 🙂