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Willravel · 08-06-2010, 10:46 PM

I never ever said GW was responsible for 9/11. Ever. The man can barely eat a pretzel. I saw something that didn't make sense and I asked questions and didn't get satisfactory answers. There was no hate at all involved. There was frustration at times, but never hate.

The problem with assuming the images I posted are somehow just the fringe of the Tea Party is that there's no evidence of that. The anti-war movement was united behind one simple thing: no war in Iraq. That's all that brought us together. It was our singular goal and nothing else mattered. Though some might claim the singular goal of the tea party has something to do with not liking the Bush bailouts or taxation, the reality is that they're not united behind any one thing other than their anger at a whole bunch of things Fox News tells them to be angry at or scared of. It's that directionless (I'm not sure directionless is a word) anger that leads them to just be a hate-movement. I hate Obama because he's a secret Kenyan (a staggering 41% of Republicans think President Obama wasn't born in the US). I hate illegal immigrants. I hate 'abortionists'. I hate socialists. I hate Nanci Pelosi or Harry Reid. I hate gays. You've been to the Tea Party rallies, right? The vast majority of people fall under these statements. The few actual libertarians that showed up at the beginning jumped ship as soon as they realized the thing was morphing into the Fox News corporate rally system.

Show me evidence they're a part of the lunatic fringe.

Edit: And, perhaps most importantly, the anti-war movement was not started nor embraced by any media outlet. it was a real grassroots movement that gained massive support from the people through word of mouth. The protests in 2003 were the largest in human history and were together for a cause that, it turns out, was right. We were lied to by the government about Iraq and we invaded them based on those lies. Despite the fact we ultimately failed, the anti-war movement in the lead up to the invasion in 2003 was righteous and groundbreaking.

Compare that to the Tea Party. The Tea Party's roots can be directly traced to Dave Ramsey on an episode of Fox and Friends in February of 2009. Without his absurd outburst, the thing would have been a few dozen forum members enjoying a day in the park. Because Fox and talk radio picked it up and took the reigns, it became a pseudo-movement. By the time April 15th came around, Fox was playing an active role in organizing the protests (which were about... a lot of stuff, actually, but mainly they were complaining about high taxes even though about half of Tea Partiers pay no federal income taxes). A lot of very angry and ignorant people showed up, along with a few well-meaning libertarians and anarchists, who quickly fled once they realized what was really going on. Now the movement is a joke, an albatross for the GOP. Unlike the anti-war movement, the Tea Party movement has been proven wrong on their major complaints (taxes are actually ,low, not high, the Bush Administration bailed out Wall Street, not President Obama, illegal immigration is actually getting smaller because of American economic problems, they don't actually want a balanced budget, just tax cuts and insane military spending, healthcare legislation hasn't lead to Nazism or socialism or even antidisestablishmentarianism, etc., etc.).

08-06-2010, 10:46 PM	#56 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	I never ever said GW was responsible for 9/11. Ever. The man can barely eat a pretzel. I saw something that didn't make sense and I asked questions and didn't get satisfactory answers. There was no hate at all involved. There was frustration at times, but never hate. The problem with assuming the images I posted are somehow just the fringe of the Tea Party is that there's no evidence of that. The anti-war movement was united behind one simple thing: no war in Iraq. That's all that brought us together. It was our singular goal and nothing else mattered. Though some might claim the singular goal of the tea party has something to do with not liking the Bush bailouts or taxation, the reality is that they're not united behind any one thing other than their anger at a whole bunch of things Fox News tells them to be angry at or scared of. It's that directionless (I'm not sure directionless is a word) anger that leads them to just be a hate-movement. I hate Obama because he's a secret Kenyan (a staggering 41% of Republicans think President Obama wasn't born in the US). I hate illegal immigrants. I hate 'abortionists'. I hate socialists. I hate Nanci Pelosi or Harry Reid. I hate gays. You've been to the Tea Party rallies, right? The vast majority of people fall under these statements. The few actual libertarians that showed up at the beginning jumped ship as soon as they realized the thing was morphing into the Fox News corporate rally system. Show me evidence they're a part of the lunatic fringe. Edit: And, perhaps most importantly, the anti-war movement was not started nor embraced by any media outlet. it was a real grassroots movement that gained massive support from the people through word of mouth. The protests in 2003 were the largest in human history and were together for a cause that, it turns out, was right. We were lied to by the government about Iraq and we invaded them based on those lies. Despite the fact we ultimately failed, the anti-war movement in the lead up to the invasion in 2003 was righteous and groundbreaking. Compare that to the Tea Party. The Tea Party's roots can be directly traced to Dave Ramsey on an episode of Fox and Friends in February of 2009. Without his absurd outburst, the thing would have been a few dozen forum members enjoying a day in the park. Because Fox and talk radio picked it up and took the reigns, it became a pseudo-movement. By the time April 15th came around, Fox was playing an active role in organizing the protests (which were about... a lot of stuff, actually, but mainly they were complaining about high taxes even though about half of Tea Partiers pay no federal income taxes). A lot of very angry and ignorant people showed up, along with a few well-meaning libertarians and anarchists, who quickly fled once they realized what was really going on. Now the movement is a joke, an albatross for the GOP. Unlike the anti-war movement, the Tea Party movement has been proven wrong on their major complaints (taxes are actually ,low, not high, the Bush Administration bailed out Wall Street, not President Obama, illegal immigration is actually getting smaller because of American economic problems, they don't actually want a balanced budget, just tax cuts and insane military spending, healthcare legislation hasn't lead to Nazism or socialism or even antidisestablishmentarianism, etc., etc.). Last edited by Willravel; 08-06-2010 at 11:00 PM..