[DonQuigleone]

Originally Posted by Sackett

Spoiler for Length:

Really?

Really?

People don't agree with you, despite your plan obviously being better for them, so it must be racism and a desire to order people around?

Let me explain why there are so many in poor rural areas that support the Tea Party (and why the Tea Party imagery resonates so strongly). But this first requires a history lesson.

Long ago, there was something called feudalism and mercantilism. That was the organization in England. If you wanted to get ahead in life you need to either be born into the right family (that owned land), or you needed to have connections to the government so that you could secure government preference, which would allow you to crush your competitors. If you didn't fall into those categories, then you just needed to accept your lot in life.

A bunch of people didn't like this. Mainly either younger sons or religious minorities (that lacked the favor of the government). They emigrated to America. Why? Because in America there was free land for anyone who was willing to work it. (We'll ignore the American Indians for now, yes I realize the land was theirs, but it's not relevant to the current topic of interest- the Tea Party).

They didn't want the feudal deal of serving their betters in England who would then look out for them. They wanted independence. Financial independence.

Now these colonists began to become fairly successful. Unfortunately those who had closer connections to the King and Parliament in England began using those connections to pass laws that diverted wealth from the America colonials that produced it to those that had the better connections. (The tax was just the straw that broke the camel's back, there were several other issues such as requiring colonials ship their goods to England first before shipping elsewhere.) This lack of ability to influence the government that felt free to take the fruit of their labor led to a deep and widespread resentment. While the issue went far beyond "taxation without representation" that simplified focus became the rallying cry that represented the far broader concerns of people.

And so we had the Boston Tea Party.

The colonials didn't want all the riches and benefits of being English anymore. They wanted independence. Political (and financial) independence.

Now fast forward to today's Tea Party.

You say: "Social Security is a good program that helps you, we need to protect it unchanged"

The Tea Party says: "Yes, it's mine because I paid for it. But you want to put all these conditions on it. I have to stop working to collect them, and the returns are terrible. You then hold it hostage and threaten to take it away from me if I don't vote for more tax increases. I have to vote for someone to protect what ought to be already mine. If I bought private retirement insurance I wouldn't have to stop working, the money is mine. And they couldn't threaten to take my money away from me if I didn't vote a certain way. Nor can they offer to give me extra bonuses I didn't pay for in order to win my support. - It may give me more money- but at the cost of independence. Now I have to worry about whether I can get the government to listen to me."

You say: "Obama's Health Care plan will make sure all of you have insurance and are cared for. It's good for you."

The Tea Party says: "It forces me to buy insurance whether I want to or not. What do I do when the insurance company refuses to pay for something? They already got my money, and are going to keep on getting it no matter how unhappy I am. And the Government is establishing all the rules and regulators to determine what is and is not covered. What if I can't get the government to listen to me. It's making me lose control over my healthcare."

You say: "We need these regulations to protect us from greedy corporations who will do bad things to make money."

The Tea Party says: "Punish the guy who did the bad stuff, these regulations hurt the innocent just as much as the guilty. And those evil greedy corporations always have connections with the government, so they get special breaks that I can't get because I can't get the government to listen to me. So the regulations are all on me, and not on the corporations. All the time I see the government do really stupid stuff to me and my friends, and when I try to point out that this won't even accomplish what the government wants I'm just ignored by the government cause I'm a nobody. Hey wait a minute, this is starting to sound like that mercantilism stuff again. Maybe we ought to have another Tea Party."

You say: "These are all valuable programs that take care of people. They are worth their cost. You don't want to stop helping people do you? You're likely to be helped too."

The Tea Party says: "All this debt is a weight on the economy. Same with the taxes. We wouldn't need so much help if you'd just go away and leave us alone."

You say: "It's the rich who shall pay. You don't need to pay."

The Tea Party says: "Why should the rich pay? I'm not willing to spend more money for these programs because I don't think they're worth it. Why should I force somebody else to pay for something that I wouldn't pay money for? I don't remember Jesus saying 'Do unto others as you'd have done unto you- unless he's a rich man, then feel free to screw him over'"

You say: "The poor will suffer. Didn't Jesus say to help the poor?"

The Tea Party says: "You don't know jack sh-t about being poor. I've been poor, and life was hard. Why should life be easy? Man up and work hard. Yeah I know people have bad luck. I've had some myself, which is why I always try to help out when I meet someone who's down on his luck. But that doesn't mean I should take somebody else's money and give it to the poor. That's stealing. I share what I have with the poor. And besides, the government sucks at helping the poor. It wastes massive amounts of money, forces people to jump through all these stupid hoops that don't even make sense all the time. Sometimes it even forces them to do bad things to get the money. I'd hate to live like that myself, the government has taken all their freedom and independence away. The government has had 50+ years of fighting the war on poverty and just f--ked it all to h-ll. It don't even seem to get that marriage is the most important thing to helping the poor, and that making marriage all about love and feelings (ie gay marriage) is just terrible. Marriage needs to be about duty and commitments (ie man provides for wife and kids). Stop f--king with stuff you don't understand. Stay away from me. Stop helping me, you're just making things worse."

It's the same motivations as the Boston Tea Party. You say: "These government policies will benefit you, you ought to support them."

The Tea Party says: "I don't care how much money it puts in my pocket, I have to do what the government says to get it, so it's not free at all. Chains made of gold are still chains, and I won't sell my birthright of liberty for a mess of pottage."

That's the heart of it right there. The Tea Party is made up of people who value their economic independence more than they do their economic bottom line.

Now maybe you think that's all foolish shortsightedness. Or that the Tea Party has fundamentally misunderstood your intentions. Or maybe that the government is corrupt and incompetent like the Tea Party says, but that the alternative is worse. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to disagree.

But don't get lazy and accuse people of racism and fantasy about ordering people around when that just isn't the case.

You want to know what the main feeling there is among the Tea Party for blacks?

Pity.

I know cause I hear the Tea Party use black America as a warning about what could happen to them if they don't stop the Democrats. From the Tea Party perspective, the Democrats have enslaved Blacks. Democrats provided them with government programs that gave them money, but destroyed their families, and now Blacks are dependent on the money from the Government programs so they have to vote for the Democrats. Even though the Democrats support social policies that conflict with the social values of most Black Americans.

That's the rhetoric that shows up when race is raised in the Tea Party meetings. "The Democrats offer us government programs because they want to enslave us the way they enslaved black people".

Again, maybe you think that's a crazy way to look at the world, but it certainly doesn't hold any hatred for black people in it.

I think the reason you hold your views are correct, but what you aim at is wrong. I think that government funding of pensions or healthcare with no preconditions (bar citizenship), can actually free you. Universal Healthcare is the best example. With Universal Healthcare you don't need to worry about your healthcare at all. You don't need to be imprisoned by decisions you may (or may not) have made 10 years before. You don't need to worry about whether your health insurance company will uphold it's end of the bargain. You just walk into a hospital/GP and make an appointment, and later you get it at a low (or minimal) fee. That's it, no paperwork involved. You're free to move anywhere, do whatever you want, safe in the knowledge that you don't need to worry about it. That's independence. Furthermore it's a more efficient way to fund and organise it, and like free education it benefits everyone for healthcare to avalaible to all and high quality. It improves productivity and quality of life. Furthermore in our lifetimes we'll likely all end out spending more or less the same amount on healthcare. Why not allow you to more easily anticipate that spending by paying out of tax? The main counter-argument there is that some may jeopardise their health with bad habits, well perhaps they should have to pay a tax to compensate the health service then...

It gives you more control of your life as it frees you from corporate interests defining what service YOU get. Instead the healthcare establishment (Doctors) decide what is feasible to provide for all. They know what is best for your health. If you want you can still go outside the system and buy quack medecines, but you're only harming yourself.

On taxes, the main issue is that the wealthy pay less in tax then us, the working class. Why should we be protecting their tax dodging? Let them pay tax like the rest of us. It's not about stealing from the rich, it's about getting them to pay their fair share to support the government.

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

Used to be. The Tea Party was made up of libertarians and anarcho-capitalists who were all about a small, unintrusive government that meddled in only the aspects of life that it needed to--protecting individual rights, maintaining the military, maintaining the judiciary, things of that nature.

I can respect libertarians, they have a lot of good ideas. I can even respect anarcho-capitalists a bit, even though they live in a hopeless dreamworld. However, the Tea Party's original ideology was thoroughly hijacked and destroyed by a Glenn Beck/Sarah Palin/Michelle Bachmann breed of Faux News zombies who are basically Republicans who are too right-wing for the GOP.

Libertarians and anyone who believes in smaller, less-intrusive government would never advocate banning gay marriage. Instead, they'd advocate removing all the legal aspects of marriage altogether. Libertarians would never shill for big corporations, because one of the central tenants of libertarianism is that only individuals have rights--organizations do not.

The current Tea Party is not the original Tea Party. Instead, they are a bunch of soulless old losers who can't get over the fact that it's not 1954 anymore.

Quite right. I don't understand why Tea Partiers are coming out against Gay Marriage and Abortion. Shouldn't those be the citizens choice? Why should you have to live by state enforced morality? You should be free to define your own morality.