Yup, madison deleted my comment pointing out that the teaparties are homogeously white conservatives.
Feel free.

strangelet on April 16, 2009 at 10:00 PM

What type of moron are you? Where I live there were many people not white. It was wonderful to see. I think you are just a racist and are stereotyping your ignorance.

Rancho Cucamonga, California, a nearby community that I doubt anyone would normally consider a hotbed of political activism

Except Janet Napolitano of course.

If some rightwing Axelrod had designed this movement, maybe he would have come up with something slicker and hipper and more appealing to New Class fashion victims – like the O symbol… I suppose we can be thankful this isn’t yet another high-gloss, consumer-tested substance-free exercise in corporate marketing.

I still think that folding all of the resistance to Obamaism by way of hidden taxes, future obligations, etc., into the tax issue, or seeming to do so, is narrow and artificial.

CK, I see your point, but about the name thing:

1) It is what it is, and what it is works. By works, I mean it’s successful. It works like any other simple, easy-to-understand and easy-to-remember name of something that becomes popular. Calling it something else now would be to throw away the very handle that attracted so many.

2) No one at the tea parties seems to be beholden to the narrow definition that detractors want to foist upon us – of being only about taxes, and not about spending, and so on.

3) The detractors don’t like that the tea parties have caught on so well, and therefore seize upon technicalities in an attempt to de-legitimize them. They say we can’t use the name because the situation isn’t exactly the same as the original tea party. And because of that – if you follow their logic – the whole movement is invalidated. This is what they hope to do. There’s little point in rising to that bait.

4) It is the *second* tea party, if you will, and therefore different in many respects from the first.

5) What someone said earlier about taxation without representation actually is valid. All you have to do is look at all those legislators who voted for the first bail-out over their constituents’ dead bodies.

6) I don’t know who started the name, but its genesis was never about the tax portion of the equation only.

7) It’s too late to change it now anyway, even if there were much point to doing so.

Ah, but i DO want to inspire you. I can defeat insane clowns like Beck with one frontal lobe tied behind my back.
Sir Richard famoiusly said……There is no altruism in nature.
Give me a loyal sane opposition to fact-check Obamas policies, not a bunch of juggalos spewing conspiracy theory.
Give me worthy opponents prepared to do battle in truth and honor.
Give me war.

You try to rip meh
But I don’t tear and I don’t scare.

“First they ignore you, then they mock you, then they fight you, then you win.” M. Gandhi

Thanks for that inspiring bit, Strangelet, even if you had no intention to inspire.

As for your mocking regular people and their sincere concerns . . . well, that’s what you do, isn’t it?

You plan to make sure we don’t win?

Well, I think that’s kinda silly. And self-defeating. You plan to make sure truckloads of money get thrown away (or stolen)willy-nilly, for generations to come, with no end in sight.

Not sure why you’d want that, but good luck on your battle to make sure it continues.

ll propose a deal: When Obama asks the LA Times to release the Khalidi tape, we can begin to think he doesn’t have a lot to hide after all.

CK MacLeod on April 17, 2009 at 12:37 PM

no clue here. what is the Khalidi tape?

Using a conservative estimate – taking news accounts on face value as per the methodology of Obamanaut Numbers Oracle Nate Silver – Geraghty gets up to 340+ thousand.

http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjcwN2Y0M2MzMjc4MzViMTNjOWQzZTZjNDU5NjE4ZTY=

Pajamas Media achieves a reasonable estimate of 550,000.

http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=tea-party

The Malkin piece you link openly and directly makes a joke out of the 1 Million figure – calling it “liberal math.” Mischaracterizing pieces like that moves my domain security alert level to orange on you, grrrl. Keep on doing it, and I’ll conclude, sadly, that discussion with you is a waste of time.

As for Alex Jones or Jones-connected people buying ads on Rush or Beck, I haven’t seen The Obama Deception, I don’t trust Charles Johnson, and I’m not greatly interested in the topic, but my default position is freedom of speech. Otherwise, the world doesn’t revolve around your feelings about the right wing or your vision of some perfect yet toadly kewl conservatism. This matter is rather off-topic, but I’ll propose a deal: When Obama asks the LA Times to release the Khalidi tape, we can begin to think he doesn’t have a lot to hide after all.

The Obama presidency isn’t imperial Britain, that these taxpayers do have representation, and that the protestors are merely acting out of selfishness or ignorance, as unwitting tools of “the rich.”

I have to respectfully disagree on this point. I keep hearing this criticism, but, you know what, I DO NOT have representation in Washington. First, in Washington, we have one president and a few hundred Congress critters representing 250million people, yet the Federal gov’t annually seizes 10-35% of my income. Would our founding fathers and the colonists in 1773 have thought that adequate representation?

Second, there are 1.8 million civilian employees in the federal gov’t – not including the post office – making the federal gov’t the largest employer in the country. They collect your taxes and spend your money. Did you vote for any of them?

Third, in this last election, we had a choice between statism, and statism-lite. I wanted to vote for smaller gov’t, fiscal responsibility, reduced entitlements, reduced taxes and respect for civil rights like free speech and gun ownership. Who was I supposed to vote for? There are 3rd party and write-in candidates, but seriously, now.

Yeah, I know, Obama won 52% of the vote, but he has to govern 100% of the nation and obey the rule of law. Just because he won 52% of the vote, he does not have the authority to steal from the other 48% to redistribute their hard earned income and buy votes for the next go ‘round. Rights come from God to the individual. No, Obama is not God. Yes, I have a right to my income, guns, and free speech.

The solution is to restore the constitution, restore power to the states to defend the rights of their citizens, and restore the right of the people to keep the fruits of their labor. Not have it redistributed to them by the federal government! Then I will be adequately represented. Therefore, “No taxation without representation” is a perfectly legitimate assessment of the situation right now.

It is the critics who are ignorant, and there is nothing wrong with selfishness. I think Ayn Rand wrote a little book on that… Atlas… something. The Tea Party moniker is perfect. Politicians and the MSM can mock it and dismiss it at their own peril.

timmy geithner? and how ’bout janet napolitano.

Congress doesn’t care about anyone except themselves.

War is like any other bad relationship. Of course you want out, but at what price? And perhaps more importantly, once you get out, will you be any better off?
–QUELLCRIST FALCONER
Campaign Diaries

and ima grrl.
so sexist to assume that because i use multisyllabics and im demonstrably intellectually aggro that i am xy.

I didn’t assume anything about your chromosomes, grrl. I actually had thought you were female, but I left the language open – even went out of my way to do so.

When you voted for Obama, you voted for the plantation, and you continue to agitate on its behalf, against us runaways. It’s still “your side” until you perform a valid act of contrition.

Anyway, a few posts ago you were threatening war. You seem confused.

Small victories lead to bigger ones so long as leadership remembers the founding principles. The reasons for the first protests.

And those would be?

I promise to strike with my terrible swift deleting sword as soon as someone dares to troll my domain.

I imagine you with a claymore.
I was on the fencing team in undergrad, epee is my weapon of choice.
Engarde!

I also find Douthat tedious…..since he is basically Kristol with a bigger vocabulary and a little more hair.
Who does speak for the Right?

Well said!

As for the post in question:

1. I don’t think “calumny” is the word you intended, strangelet. If you are trying to deny that the Tea Parties are other than purely partisan affairs – and there are more alternatives to partisan than “bipartisan” – I know you’re wrong. If you have a more nuanced, less immediately disprovable claim, you’re welcome to try to support it.
2. As if anyone was trying to claim a “mandate” – except in the sense that in a free society each of us is his or her own mandate.
3. Whatever.
4. Douthat may get a lot of things, but he doesn’t get my clicks unless someone gives me a good reason. I generally find him tedious.
5. Your side is the one that lives by ethnodemographic vivisection, the liberal plantation, spoils, and the saddest stories ever told. It’s what you had to patch together when dialectical materialism ran aground. It was a nice try and looked great on paper. I’d wish you better luck next time, but I probably wouldn’t mean it.

Who came up with that stupid idea? Demographics is destiny in a very few instances. You’ll never understand strangelet. As a lefty you view politics as barter. It’s why you’re a lefty. The tea parties are the beginning of the movement. Protest doesn’t change anything. But if the protest is big enough and loud enough then at some point members become leaders. They see the risk of leadership, in time and effort, as having a greater likelihood of paying off (changing things). Then persuasion begins through an organized campaign of propaganda, debate and electioneering. Protest is for getting attention, building a network, and attracting competent men and women to implement policies developed as positive articulations of objections. This isn’t a campaign…yet. But in a years time? Yes, on a small scale and using already established players it will be a campaign. Small victories lead to bigger ones so long as leadership remembers the founding principles. The reasons for the first protests.

I’m not debating you. I’m educating you. But by all means, insist that what matters here is skin color and bribery. How could you not? It’s all you have.

I present this data merely as a reference; it is not intended as a value judgment about the success of the protests or their lack thereof. One should bear in mind that ours is a large country, and that gatherings of this magnitude (if several hundred individual protests can be thought of as a “gathering”) are not especially uncommon. For instance, protests in favor of immigration reform drew several million participants in the spring of 2006, including several individual events of at least 300,000. Likewise, anti-war protests in 2003 involved attendance of at least 300,000 in a single American city (New York) on a single day.

3. This what the left learned from anti-Bush protests–

“First they ignore you, then they mock you, then they fight you, then you win.” M. Gandhi

I will be honored to engage you when you get past the sillie stage. However, Beck and your deliverance contingent and your persistant deafness to culture renders you emminently mockable. However, I do not discount you.
And I plan to make sure you do not win.
4. Douthat gets it.
5. You dismiss the environment, which is in flux. Some of Obama’s economic spaghetti will stick to the wall. The housing market is already improving. And cultural and demographic evolution are inexorable. You must find a way to broaden the teaparties appeal to youth and minorities.

At this point you are worthy only of mockery and scorn. Your memes are crude and scattered and your SNR is high….nearly everything you try to say is drowned in anti-Obama noise. I cannot tell if it is logical at all.
I am more than willing to go to war against a worthy and homrable opponent.
You are not there yet.

its a race to see who can lead this divergent group. its obvious that the dems in Congress just cannot. can you imagine Barney Frank heading the “new Constitution” party? maybe the Republicans can figure out a way to fold these people into their “big” tent. but Michael Steele is proving to be a disappointment; he can’t jump on opportunities.

i’d like to see more young people, all of our veterans & more middle class people involved.

and I hope & pray that our tea-partying bunch doesn’t start any violence. bambi & rahm & axelrod are just waiting for that.