Irish Times Tea Party Article

Overheal

veritable wrote: »

That is undoubtedly true for some in the tea party. In my experience, the majority are not like this. They are small govt libertarians, like myself, who believe that people should be free to what they want, when they want, as long as they don't interfere with others. So whether you're for gay marriage or whatever, it's nobody's biz to tell you that you can't do that.

As i pointed out earlier, the impression people have in Ireland of the tea party is like the one described by you and the others above. It's not an accurate impression. The media is distorting the image and i think it's grossly unfair. If we in Ireland followed the tea party's small govt free market libertarian way of thinking, maybe all our lives would be freer and less restricted.

I really don't thin the media is. I think the Tea Party is. I don't exactly see the movement clearing up any of it's stances on Gay Rights, for instance. That leaves it up to interpretation. Now if the movement actually came out [...] And took a stance on the issue, that would be something. You'd think by now that a movement that claims to be so hellbent on libertarianism would have no problem just saying 'Gays should be allowed to have these freedoms'.

As an example you didn't see any doublespeak from Bloomberg recently. He supported the Mosque's legal rights to build where it planned to, and under the very same principles he agreed that Pastor Jones had every right to burn a pile of Korans down south.

But no sir, I view that the Tea Party is too involved with Christianity; it's a Libertarian movement tied into religion, a bit of an au contraire with the First Amendment. They want to be Libertarian but they also want to be Christian. So when someone asks the Tea Party about it's stance on Gay Rights and Abortion, the Tea Party from what I can see has remained [officially] mum. So you'll forgive the media if they're as bemused as I am at the ubiquity in the movement.

veritable

I don't think there was ever a chance of conservatives/libertarians/anarachists etc ever agreeing on absolutely everything. But there are definite things they have in common - small govt, fiscal responsibilty, personal liberty, etc.

The tea party is definitely right wing. but how is right wing defined? it is those beliefs that are not left-wing. The left is concerned with socialism/communism while the right is the opposite of the left, if you can say that. while the left can be easily defined, the right, being anything non left, is a mixed bag of beliefs. of course, as mentioned above they have things in common.

the tea party is a reflection of this variety in non-left views. some of them are anti-gay, pro-god, whatever etc. in my experience they are still mainly people pissed off with washington and over-ridingly (is that a word!) they share the aforementioned core beliefs.

as regards the mosque. they of course believe that the muslim man has a right to build it. they are protesting against the disrespect shown by the muslims in wanting to build it so close to the twin towers. but that is another topic.

my point on the media is not this single article but the continuous unbalanced reporting of the tea party in the Irish media. I have never seen anything debating the aims of the tea party. all the media does is try to undermine it and cast a bad light over it.

I posted a link to a recent Reason TV report from a rally on Sunday on page two of this thread. If you have the time check it out.:)

veritable

donegalfella wrote: »

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I have seen some of your other posts on different threads and i know you're decent and sensible. I respectfully think you are wrong on this however. The majority are not like this based on my first hand experience.
Limbaugh, Palin and fox are not what the media makes them out to be over here. I'm seriously astounded to read people's opinions of limbaugh, etc on Boards day in day out. In most cases, people will rant about them based on a single youtube clip or newspaper article. I spent a long time in the states and spent a lot of time exposed to them on tv and radio. the opinions Irish people have of them are not accurate reflections of how they really are.

metrovelvet

I learn more about Fox News from Boards than I do from anyone else, including my American compatriots, family and friends. I have the impression now that it has an Irish audience.

I wouldnt take any notice of the Irish TImes tbh.

oscarBravo

veritable wrote: »

Limbaugh, Palin and fox are not what the media makes them out to be over here. I'm seriously astounded to read people's opinions of limbaugh, etc on Boards day in day out.

My impressions of Fox News and Glenn Beck are formed from watching them.

Until I have to turn them off because my brain starts to bleed.

Beck and Palin don't need the media to make them look bad.

Overheal

Limbaugh, Palin and fox are not what the media makes them out to be over here. I'm seriously astounded to read people's opinions of limbaugh, etc on Boards day in day out. In most cases, people will rant about them based on a single youtube clip or newspaper article. I spent a long time in the states and spent a lot of time exposed to them on tv and radio. the opinions Irish people have of them are not accurate reflections of how they really are.

That's a bit of a faux pas. It's more like a long string of out-takes and newspaper articles, gold-line scandals, Back-in-Black segments and the outright hypocrisy that usually involves a personality saying one thing on tuesday and the polar opposite on thursday. Thats before you investigate the fact that when my radio is on, it's on Beck or Limbaugh.

Carcharodon

veritable wrote: »

I spent some months in the States recently and I have first hand experience of the tea party. the image that is created of them in the media here is not an accurate reflection. obviously nothing i say here is going to change your preformed opinion.

I live in America and my first hand experience is often a lot worse than that portrayed in the media, not saying that they are all crazy, uneducated, racist, bigoted, hypocritical, corporate, religious nutjobs but there is a large element that are really ill-informed and fixating their anger on the current economic situation on the wrong issues.

Mrmoe

It is in correct to say that the tea party movement are being unfairly portrayed. All you have to do is watch Glenn Beck for an hour everyday and you will begin to realise that the image the tea party has is due mainly to their high profile leaders such as Beck and Palin. I agree with many of the core principles of a Libertarianism. It is therefore torture watching Glenn Beck for an hour. They have corrupted the very founding principles of the tea party movement.

Overheal

I myself enjoy it when Jon Stewart shows Beck's objections at the government interfering with our lives and telling us what to do and how to live... and then follows it up with clips of Beck telling his viewers "Here's what you have to do" "Turn off the TV" "Be an Evangelist" "Call gold line" etc.

Manic Moran

I'm having something of a hard time parsing the common view of the Tea Party as a bunch of nutters with the fact that they do seem to have quite a sizeable proportion of the voting populace. I'd say they're probably the third or fourth biggest 'party' in the US right now, ahead of the Greens, and are giving some of the estabished party candidates a run for their money. Or they would be if they actually were a party as opposed to a somehat decentralised movement.

There are two options. Either the US is filled with a much larger proportion of nutters than I think realistic, or the TP Movment isn't, on a general level, all that far off-base.

NTM

Black Swan

Manic Moran wrote: »

I'm having something of a hard time parsing the common view of the Tea Party as a bunch of nutters with the fact that they do seem to have quite a sizeable proportion of the voting populace. I'd say they're probably the third or fourth biggest 'party' in the US right now

The Tea Party is not a party, per se, rather it is a faction of the Republican Party. This is evident from the fact that all the candidates they are supporting in the November 2010 US House and US Senate elections are registered as Republicans. Based upon the list that the Tea Party Movement published earlier this year, I only found one "token" registered Democrat that they supported for US Congress, all the rest were registered Republicans; ergo, they are not a party, but rather a faction of the Republican Party, no matter how they spin it.

It makes you wonder why the so called Tea Party has not become an officially recognized party on the ballot? Ross Perot founded the Reform Party in 1996 as an alternative to the Republican and Democratic parties, and one of their candidates (Jesse Ventura) later won the governor of Minnesota. If the Tea Party in fact was more representative of great numbers of Americans as they claim, why do they only run as registered Republicans in the November 2010 Congressional elections?

Is it because the Tea Party that largely identifies with Republican Sarah Palin, is but a segment of the Republican Party that is employing a very similar marketing spin used effectively by Republican Newt Gingrich during the mid-Clinton era called the Contract with America? This Republican marketing image spin used by Gingrich helped the GOP to gain control of both Houses of Congress. Is the Tea Party the new marketing spin of the GOP?

veritable

Blue_Lagoon wrote: »

Is the Tea Party the new marketing spin of the GOP?

Quite the opposite. The Tea party seeks to reform the Republican party. Just yesterday in Delaware we saw how the tea party candidate beat the repub supported candidate. The tea party wants to get rid of repubs known as RINOs (repub in name only), i.e. the big govt repubs like many in washington now.

Black Swan

veritable wrote: »

Just yesterday in Delaware we saw how the tea party candidate beat the repub supported candidate.

Was the "Tea Party" candidate registered as a Republican? If so, why a registered Republican and not a separate "Tea Party" candidate (for example, like Ross Perot's Reform Party was in fact a separate, official party, not a segment of the GOP)? Tea Party = Republican candidates.

To reiterate:

Blue_Lagoon wrote: »

The Tea Party is not a party, per se, rather it is a faction of the Republican Party.

metrovelvet

Blue_Lagoon wrote: »

Was the "Tea Party" candidate registered as a Republican? If so, why a registered Republican and not a separate "Tea Party" candidate (for example, like Ross Perot's Reform Party was in fact a separate, official party, not a segment of the GOP)? Tea Party = Republicans.

To reiterate:

Because Ross Perot didnt want to play with the Republicans. He wanted his own party independent of that.

It looks to me like the Tea Party want reform of the republican party and to be very much a part of it. This would make sense in an election because to start a whole new official registered party would only split votes.

Don't get too hung up on the term 'party'.

Black Swan

metrovelvet wrote: »

Don't get too hung up on the term 'party'.

The term "party" then is a misnomer (i.e., spin), because it is not an official party on the ballot, rather it is a segment of mostly Republicans that support registered Republican candidates against Democrats in November 2010.

To what extent will the "party" misnomer be used to lure unsuspecting Independents and Democrats to vote for registered Republicans in the 2010 November US Congressional elections?

metrovelvet

Blue_Lagoon wrote: »

The term "party" then is a misnomer (i.e., spin), because it is not an official party on the ballot, rather it is a segment of mostly Republicans that support registered Republican candidates against Democrats in November 2010.

To what extent will the "party" misnomer be used to lure unsuspecting Independents and Democrats to vote for registered Republicans in the 2010 November US Congressional elections?

It depends on how pedantic you want to get about it.

It's a wordplay on the Boston Tea Party to conjure up feelings of rebellion and national heritage. I think most Americans would get this. I dont think its going to lure and trap 'unsuspecting Democrats and Independants'. OMG that was so funny. That was the second funniest thing I've ever read on the politics boards.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Tea_Party

Black Swan

metrovelvet wrote: »

It's a wordplay on the Boston Tea Party to conjure up feelings of rebellion and national heritage.

It's a long stretch to draw a relationship between the specific political and economic issues that concerned the Boston Tea Party during colonial times and today's so called Tea Party in the USA; i.e., it's marketing spin: The Tea Party are Republicans in Tea Party clothing.

The Tea Party membership really shows its colours when they host Republican Sarah Palin as a guest speaker and supporter of their Republican registered candidates. They claim to be fiscally conservative, yet Palin supported the "Bridge to Nowhere" until the media disclosed that it was a colossal waste of $400 million in federal highway funds (then she flip-flopped).

veritable

The tea party use the word "party" not as in a political party but rather as a movement.

Palin, et al, are by no means popular with everyone in the movement but she is in favour of fiscal responsibility and small govt. the tea party is not composed of individuals with identical beliefs. Rather, they share certain core beliefs, like i mentioned previously. Apart from their core beliefs, their opinions can be quite diverse.

there is nothing to say that the tea party could not form a separate political party in the future. at this point in time they are using the repub party to gain momentum. they are also trying to force the repub party back to its conservative and libertarian roots. no doubt, should they fail to change the repub party, the tea party will form its own political party.

Brussels Sprout

veritable wrote: »

The tea party is definitely right wing. but how is right wing defined? it is those beliefs that are not left-wing. The left is concerned with socialism/communism while the right is the opposite of the left, if you can say that. while the left can be easily defined, the right, being anything non left, is a mixed bag of beliefs. of course, as mentioned above they have things in common.

You've taken an extreme view and slandered the entire political left with it in order to make the right look good by contrast. It's like saying "Well, the political right is concerned with fascism, while the left is the opposite of the right".

Permabear

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Lockstep

donegalfella wrote: »

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More accurately; against taxation without elected representation.

"No taxation without representation"


/pedantry

kev9100

veritable wrote: »

Palin, et al, are by no means popular with everyone in the movement but she is in favour of fiscal responsibility and small govt. the tea party is not composed of individuals with identical beliefs. Rather, they share certain core beliefs, like i mentioned previously. Apart from their core beliefs, their opinions can be quite diverse.

Fiscal respnsibility you say? How is it fiscally responsible to let an economy dive straight into an almighty depression? Because THAT is what the stimulus averted and Palin opposed the stimulus. Also, how is Palin forfor "small govt." when she is perfectly fine about taking away the right from women to make decisions about their own body and use the federal government to define what marraige is?

Dob74

veritable wrote: »

Did anybody else read this article?

I am sick of the garbage printed each day in the Irish media about anything not leftwing in the US.
I read this article over my breakfast yesterday morning and it put me in a mood for the day. (read it online because I refuse to pay money for the Irish Times trash.)
No wonder the Irish have such a miserable view of the right. The right constantly has its position undermined in the Irish media while the left is put on a pedastol.

Image if a small fringe group of elite rightwingers took control of the US government. The Irish Times would be appalled.

As for a small fringe group of elite rightwingers the Irish Times has no problem of the PD's running this country into the ground.

I guess Ms Kennedy isnt a former member of the Tea-Party

Overheal

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

I appreciate the historical evocation but lift the lid off that carafe and have a whiff of No Taxation Without Representation. As Carried by a Tea Party Movement in the wake of a Democratic Supermajority taking command of the federal government. Now who in this picture is not being represented? Could it be.... REPUBLICANS? /dramatic chipmunk.

stretchtex

To be fair I suspect that the Times is just as outraged with that looney billionaire George Soros character who bankrolls some of the far left organizations.

Mjollnir

stretchtex wrote: »

To be fair I suspect that the Times is just as outraged with that looney billionaire George Soros character who bankrolls some of the far left organizations.

Really? Which organizations, and how are they 'far' left?

Please be very specific.

Thanks!

stretchtex

The speculators duckets fund left fringe organizations such as move on and media matters.

stretchtex

George Bush and the Republicans acted like drunken sailors on shore leave when they were in power with regard to govt. spending. The Obama administration took the reins and have the US following in the path of Greece. The Tea Party is advocating fiscal responsibility and a common sense approach to government spending. I have read their platform and find myself very much in agreement although I won't buy any t-shirts or go march in DC. Folks on the left feel threatened by the foothold the movement has gained and have resorted to childish tactics to disparage the affiliation. I've known myself quite well for 36 years now and to discover that I'm a racist after reading threads like this just might keep me up tonight.

Exile 1798

stretchtex wrote: »

The speculators duckets fund left fringe organizations such as move on and media matters.

What is "fringe" or "far left" about these organisations?

I suspect from your causal use of these O'Riellyisms that you have fallen prey to the Fox machine.

stretchtex

My apologies, I'll retract my statement and concede that move on and the tea party are mainstream in nature