Fox News Poll on Tea Baggers

This?:




That's absolutely DISGUSTING!!!


No wonder you're all crimson!!

at least they aren't angry pirates.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=angry%20pirate

arrrggh!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/20/AR2010022004046.html?hpid=topnews

Oh, but those teabaggers a just a bunch of pathetic fools, according to the a2k elites.....idiots.

video
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/20/glenn-beck-cpac-2010-spee_n_470356.html

At this rate, in a couple of months the teabaggers will be booing Reagan.

so does that mean that you are now ready to take the revolutionaries who are trying to take over the GOP seriously?

Why would I take anyone seriously that thinks they can take over the GOP by booing some of the great GOP leaders of the past?

One of two things will happen.
1. They will become disillusioned when they find they are such a small part of the GOP and can't assume control.
2. They will manage to take control but by doing so alienate 80% of the existing Republicans so they won't support any teabaggers candidates.

Frankly, as been said here before. I hope they do manage to take over the GOP but that doesn't mean they will be a serious threat to run the government. Running the government requires more than ideology which they don't seem to understand.

Underestimating your opponent is a reliable precursor to defeat. The process whereby the Dems in Massachusetts approached their rather stunning defeat with such self-serving complacency appears to remain undiminished.

I think President Obama truly believes he can outsmart everyone at the forthcoming Health Care show; reveal the Republicans as the intransigent nay sayers his propagandizers assure him and themselves that they are ; and then press forward confidently to pass some new version of the health care legislation through the reconciliatiuon process. The surprise will come when he discovers he no longer has even 50 votes in the Senate.

It is now widely felt that Reagan set in motion the causes of the Great Recession, what makes you think that public proclamation that Reagan was wrong would be a negative?

Wrong or not it won't be accepted well by those that think Reagan was a God. I can think of several here that live in a different reality and if they were shown pictures of Reagan having sex with a goat would claim goats are mythical creatures.

There are people who will and do believe just about any damn fool thing, who cares. Reagan was long time ago, and a lot of bad things have happened in the interim that are connected to his now discredited economic ideas. It is the majority that must be gathered to fix America, we will not get everybody, nor should we try. Reagan is due for a bashing, and it will help the cause of the reformers to do it.

Ron Paul wins the straw poll at cpac and then gets booed

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/33225.html

Hawkeye isn't going to like that article--his Queen, Miss Palin, only got 7% of the vote in that straw poll.

That story just confirms what i've been saying to the effect that this group thinks to dominate conservative politics by being the loudest, most obnoxious group out there. That does not seem to me to be a very reliable road to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Here is a new view on the Tea Party from a well-known activist minister:

The insurgent Tea Party and its Libertarian philosophy is a political phenomenon, not a religious one. Like the Democratic and Republican parties it seeks to challenge, it is a secular movement, not a Christian one. As with both major political parties, people who regard themselves as Christians may be involved in, or sympathetic to, the new Tea Party; but that doesn’t make it “Christian.” But like the philosophies and policies of the major political parties, the Tea Party can legitimately be examined on the basis of Christian principles -- and it should be.

Since the Tea Party is getting such national attention, our God’s Politics blog is going to begin a dialogue on this question: Just how Christian is the Tea Party Movement -- and the Libertarian political philosophy that lies behind it? Let me start the dialogue here. And please join in.

Libertarianism is a political philosophy that holds individual rights as its supreme value and considers government the major obstacle. It tends to be liberal on cultural and moral issues and conservative on fiscal, economic, and foreign policy. This “just leave me alone and don’t spend my money” option is growing quickly in American life, as we have seen in the Tea Party movement. Libertarianism has been an undercurrent in the Republican Party for some time, and has been in the news lately due to the primary election win of Rand Paul as the Republican candidate for a Senate seat in Kentucky. Paul has spoken like a true Libertarian, as evidenced by some of his comments since that election last week.

He cited the Civil Rights Act as an example of government interference with the rights of private business. Paul told an interviewer that he would have tried to change the provision in the 1964 Civil Rights Act that made it illegal for private businesses to discriminate on the basis of race. He answered a specific question about desegregating lunch counters by countering, “Does the owner of the restaurant own his restaurant? Or does the government own his restaurant?”

A few days later, he spoke about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Referring to the Obama administration’s criticisms of BP, Paul said, “I think that sounds really un-American in his criticism of business.”

Is such a philosophy Christian? In several major aspects of biblical ethics, I would suggest that Libertarianism falls short.

1. The Libertarian enshrinement of individual choice is not the pre-eminent Christian virtue. Emphasizing individual rights at the expense of others violates the common good, a central Christian teaching and tradition. The Christian answer to the question “Are we our brother’s keeper?” is decidedly “Yes.” Jesus tells us that the greatest commandment is to love God and love our neighbor. Loving your neighbor is a better Christian response than telling your neighbor to leave you alone. Both compassion and social justice are fundamental Christian commitments, and while the Christian community is responsible for living out both, government is also held accountable to the requirements of justice and mercy. Both Christians on the Right and the Left have raised questions about Libertarian abandonment of the most vulnerable -- whether that means unborn lives or the poor.

Just look at the biblical prophets in their condemnation of injustice to the poor, and how they frequently follow those statements by requiring the king (the government) to act justly (a requirement that applied both to the kings of Israel and to foreign potentates). Jeremiah, speaking of King Josiah, said, “He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well" (Jeremiah 22:16). Amos instructs the courts (the government) to “Hate evil, love good; maintain justice in the courts” (Amos 5:15). The prophets hold kings, rulers, judges, and employers accountable to the demands of justice and mercy.

2. An anti-government ideology just isn’t biblical. In Romans 13, the apostle Paul (not the Kentucky Senate candidate) describes the role and vocation of government; in addition to the church, government also plays a role in God’s plan and purposes. Preserving the social order, punishing evil and rewarding good, and protecting the common good are all prescribed; we are even instructed to pay taxes for those purposes! Sorry, Tea Party. Of course, debating the size and role of government is always a fair and good discussion, and most of us would prefer smart and effective to “big” or “small” government.

Revelation 13 depicts the state as a totalitarian beast -- a metaphor for Rome, which was persecuting the Christians. This passage serves as a clear warning about the abuse of governmental power. But a power-hungry government is clearly an aberration and violation of the proper role of government in protecting its citizens and upholding the demands of fairness and justice. To disparage government per se -- to see government as the central problem in society -- is simply not a biblical position.

3. The Libertarians’ supreme confidence in the market is not consistent with a biblical view of human nature and sin. The exclusive focus on government as the central problem ignores the problems of other social sectors, and in particular, the market. When government regulation is the enemy, the market is set free to pursue its own self-interest without regard for public safety, the common good, and the protection of the environment -- which Christians regard as God’s creation. Libertarians seem to believe in the myth of the sinless market and that the self-interest of business owners or corporations will serve the interests of society; and if they don’t, it’s not government’s role to correct it.

But such theorizing ignores the practical issues that the public sector has to solve. Should big oil companies like BP simply be allowed to spew oil into the ocean? And is regulating them really un-American? Do we really want nobody to inspect our meat, make sure our kids’ toys are safe, or police the polluters to keep our air clean? Do we really want owners of restaurants and hotels to be able to decide whom they will or won’t serve, or should liquor store owners also be able to sell alcohol to our kids? Given the reality of sin in all human institutions, doesn’t a political process that provides both accountability and checks and balances make both theological and practical sense? C.S. Lewis once said that we need democracy not because people are essentially good, but because they often are not. Democratic accountability is essential to preventing the market from becoming a beast of corporate totalitarianism " just as it is essential for the government. And God’s priorities should determine ours, not the priorities of the Chamber of Commerce.

4. The Libertarian preference for the strong over the weak is decidedly un-Christian. “Leave me alone to make my own choices and spend my own money” is a political philosophy that puts those who need help at a real disadvantage. And those who need help are central to any Christian evaluation of political philosophy. “As you have done to the least of these,” says Jesus, “You have done to me.” And “Blessed are those who are just left alone” has still not made the list of Beatitudes. To anticipate the Libertarian response, let me just say that private charity is simply not enough to satisfy the demands of either fairness or justice, let alone compassion. When the system is designed to protect the privileges of the already strong and make the weak even more defenseless and vulnerable, something is wrong with the system.

5. Finally, I am just going to say it. There is something wrong with a political movement like the Tea Party which is almost all white. Does that mean every member of the Tea Party is racist? Likely not. But is an undercurrent of white resentment part of the Tea Party ethos, and would there even be a Tea Party if the president of the United States weren’t the first black man to occupy that office? It’s time we had some honest answers to that question. And as far as I can tell, Libertarianism has never been much of a multi-cultural movement. Need I say that racism -- overt, implied, or even subtle -- is not a Christian virtue.

So that should get us started. Let’s have the dialogue about how Christian the Tea Party Movement and its Libertarian philosophy really are. Jump in!

What Would Jesus Say About Her?

That's funny!

I 'd have supported Ron Paul.




David

While not a Tea Bagger, Rand Paul is certainly next of kin:

According to a new Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll, Rand Paul's support in Kentucky has plummeted to below 50%. Which means we may owe an apology to the state of Kentucky!

When the controversy over Rand Paul's non-support of the Civil Rights Act blew up, we posted this famous video of Kentucky Democrats having an important and serious discussion of national politics, and sometimes using the "N-word." It turns out that these people are perhaps outliers.

Paul's only ahead Democratic challenger Jack Conway 44-40%. (And the last poll, showing Paul up 59-34, was a Rasmussen poll, so who actually knows how big his lead actually was?)

Paul's negatives are up among Democrats and independents. But Republicans like him just a little bit more!

It was also reported today that Rand Paul is, for some reason, not actually a board-certified ophthalmologist. You don't need certification to practice, but 95% of practicing ophthalmologists are certified.

When I first heard of the Tea Party, my immediate reaction was to call them the Tea Baggers. My daughter was horrified. Hey! Why would I know about the slang term tea bagging? Well, apparently that phrase was the immediate reaction of people who have street cred!

For those of us who join in your ignorance of what that "slang term" is,
will u share this information?





David