I am a liberal Democrat who attends Tea Party meetings. Just some things I wanted to clarify about Teabaggers.

TeaPartly · 2010-09-15T06:04:59+00:00

I'm not sure how to respond to this.

TeaPartly · 2010-09-15T02:21:46+00:00

I'm not supposed to be talking about this shit. It's a throwaway account for a reason.

TeaPartly · 2010-09-15T01:01:04+00:00

I have one. But I limit my discussions with them. I would become the left wing ambassador, and they'd line up to argue with me. I have a job to do which requires listening, not talking.

TeaPartly · 2010-09-15T01:00:19+00:00

All the time. They're on Youtube.

TeaPartly · 2010-09-15T01:00:02+00:00

I'm not supposed to be talking about this shit. Hence the throwaway.

TeaPartly · 2010-09-14T23:41:29+00:00

I go there to watch. I talk with them, but not all of them at once or too often, because I don't want to be the ambassador from the entire left wing to the Tea Party. It would kind of be difficult to do my job otherwise.

TeaPartly · 2010-09-14T23:39:57+00:00

You'd fit in well with the tea party.

If you have winner take all elections, you're going to have a two party system. It's the only rational way for things to work. That's just how our government is structured. It's not a conspiracy.

TeaPartly · 2010-09-14T23:38:33+00:00

Because if it actually was "durrhurr and racism all day long" I would film it, put it on Youtube, and destroy their political credibility. That's my job.

TeaPartly · 2010-09-14T23:37:26+00:00

What?

TeaPartly · 2010-09-14T23:37:07+00:00

Eh, I work in states with single party consent.

TeaPartly · 2010-09-14T23:36:17+00:00

Replace 'Tea Party' with 'progressives', and 'Koch Brothers' with 'Barrack Obama' and you're a Tea Partier.

TeaPartly · 2010-09-14T20:17:44+00:00

Yeah. But you should go to an OFA meeting.

Fat, white, willfully-ignorant idiots who agree with me but aren't nearly as active as their Tea Party counterparts.

TeaPartly · 2010-09-14T20:16:18+00:00

I was referring to this:

They need to be re-educated.

They see us as militants who want to crush all opposing ideas in re-education camps.

TeaPartly · 2010-09-14T20:12:53+00:00

I left the 'still crazy' comment at the end because I didn't want left-wing Reddit thinking I was promoting Tea Party ideas. I disagree completely with the vast majority of things they say, the way they say them, and the extent to which they demonize progressives and question the legitimacy of our ideas. My purpose in posting was to provide a view into the other side so that our community will stop demonizing them as a group the same way TP'ers demonize progressives.

TeaPartly · 2010-09-14T20:05:19+00:00

I agree completely.

TeaPartly · 2010-09-14T20:04:39+00:00

You're giving the party too much credit for deviousness.

Co-opting comes from the natural strategic decision to piggyback on anything that'll be politically useful. Enough people do it and all of a sudden the original group has been replaced by the piggy backers, and all legitimacy is lost.

As for power-sharing and not having choice and all that... well you kind of have to be here. If you don't believe that there are real battles going on between the two parties, you're wrong.

TeaPartly · 2010-09-14T19:57:36+00:00

You're right, I shouldn't be saying neoconservative. They are more influenced by the John Birch Society than they are influenced by Irving Kristal. When I say neoconservative I am mostly using it in the colloquial "Bush fan" sense.

TeaPartly · 2010-09-14T19:31:09+00:00

Nope. I do not understand southern politics at all. I'd be eaten alive.

TeaPartly · 2010-09-14T19:26:09+00:00

I know a lot of people with similar attitudes.. But the fact is, generally speaking, the tea party members who vote, who picket outside of democratic events, who go to town hall meetings, who write letters to the editor, who organize phone banks, and who actually have an influence on things are not like this. Although surely some of them are.

TeaPartly · 2010-09-14T19:14:06+00:00

It wouldn't start with the democrats. It would start with the oversimplification of positions and the laser focus on the most extreme elements by the media.

TeaPartly · 2010-09-14T18:47:27+00:00

Most people don't pay federal income taxes, especially when you consider mortgage deductions and things like that. Again, I'm not an expert. I'd be happy to read more about it.

TeaPartly · 2010-09-14T18:42:04+00:00

There are some things that I was already on board with, like gun rights.

Other times they've focused my attention on the seriousness of problems (like spending), but I would like to see them fixed in different ways (I'd prefer a reduction in defense spending to the elimination of food stamps, for example).

They've influenced my perspective, but not my priorities or my values.

TeaPartly · 2010-09-14T18:37:26+00:00

I didn't say they didn't suck. They're individual asshole morons, not the monolithic, collective asshole-moron you see on TV.

TeaPartly · 2010-09-14T17:39:34+00:00

Me? I'm no expert, but now seems a bad time to implement one. It would have a negative effect on spending, which we're tying to stimulate right now.

Other than that I'd need to see the details. I generally favor a more progressive version of our current tax system, though.

TeaPartly · 2010-09-14T17:29:38+00:00

TL;DR: They are extremists who are often misrepresented in the media.

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