IS THE "TEA PARTY" REALLY A POPULIST MOVEMENT?

@hawkeye10,

Quote:

What you read as being a tool I think a lot of us read as "immune from being subverted by the elites".

You meant to say 'we see a fellow idiot, and that makes us feel good about ourselves.' Claiming that the current group of tea partiers have any sort of real intelligence at all is a joke. Let alone a positive agenda for moving forward with the country's business.

Cycloptichorn

2 Replies

@Cycloptichorn,

Quote:

Claiming that the current group of tea partiers have any sort of real intelligence at all is a joke

You should take note of the Stanley Fish oppinion. I promise you that a great the majority of people who will vote tea party believe that the people they are voting for are more intelligent than are the other choices.

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Claiming that the current group of tea partiers have any sort of real intelligence at all is a joke. Let alone a positive agenda for moving forward with the country's business.
Cycloptichorn

Are you asserting this to be a fact, or is it merely your prejudice? Do you have any proof?

1 Reply

@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Claiming that the current group of tea partiers have any sort of real intelligence at all is a joke. Let alone a positive agenda for moving forward with the country's business.
Cycloptichorn

Are you asserting this to be a fact, or is it merely your prejudice? Do you have any proof?

I have yet to see a single 'tea party' candidate who was worth voting for in any fashion. Many of them display a deep ignorance regarding the history of the country, the Constitution, and modern economics. All of them are playing on populist anger, hoping to get elected in a year where dissatisfaction with the rate of recovery is high. None of them have highlighted a sustainable vision of the future. I have actually studied many of these people; I doubt you have. At all.

Unless you can provide some counter-examples, I feel it's safe to say that these are an unimpressive bunch. I'm sure you realize this is true as well, and are just being a cranky old man, per your usual.

I don't even know why we bother referring to them this way, in fact. They are Republican candidates. There is no significant difference between the two.

Cycloptichorn

0 Replies

@hawkeye10,

Quote:

I promise you that a great the majority of people who will vote tea party believe that the people they are voting for are more intelligent than are the other choices.

I already explained it - this is because those people are idiots. They believe that the people they support are smarter, because it lets them believe that THEY are smarter. But they are not, in any fashion.

You are displaying the classic anti-intellectualism that fools use to convince themselves that education (that they can't personally achieve) is a negative instead of a positive.

Cycloptichorn

2 Replies

@Cycloptichorn,

Quote:

You are displaying the classic anti-intellectualism

sure, because we believe that the intellectuals have become too divorced from the masses, that they no longer have anything useful to contribute to the cause. So we freeze them out, until they show up with more sense, and more respect for the human race.

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

Quote:
You are displaying the classic anti-intellectualism
sure, because we believe that the intellectuals have become too divorced from the masses, know longer have anything useful to contribute to the cause. So we freeze them out, until they show up with more sense, and more respect for the human race.

There's no evidence that you have any better plan then they do; or that your solutions are any more appropriate than theirs. In fact, there exists plenty of evidence that people who like to denigrate governance - such as yourself - would do a much worse job were they in charge.

At least you admit your anti-intellectualism. However, you don't seem to understand that it's a failure on your part and not a positive thing.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Quote:

There's no evidence that you have any better plan then they do

It would be better if the tea party people had some proof, but it is not required. When what you are doing is not working you know with 100% certainty that what you are doing is not the correct thing. ANY OTHER THING has a better than 0% chance of working, so it is better to go with that than what you have.

The next thing might be even worse, but you dont know that till you try it. when you find this out you change again. There is probably some super complicated intellectual name for this concept, but all it is is common sense.

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@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

I already explained it - this is because those people are idiots. They believe that the people they support are smarter, because it lets them believe that THEY are smarter. But they are not, in any fashion.

Just out of curiosity, how do you come to know the truth of these statements?

Cycloptichorn wrote:

You are displaying the classic anti-intellectualism that fools use to convince themselves that education (that they can't personally achieve) is a negative instead of a positive.

What are your credentials in this area?

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@hawkeye10,

Quote:

It is "what we are doing aint working, so lets do something else, anything else".

I think I understand the nature of what tea party supporters broadly oppose, but what I'm interested in is what actual government policy initiatives they would support?

It seems to me, from my reading & from what I've seen in the media, that there's a sort of nostalgic longing for a past US, which more closely reflects the religious & political leanings of those within the broad "movement". (Correct me if I've gotten this wrong.) But how would this translate into actual government policies?

Is there some clearly articulated list of policy objectives somewhere which could be posted here? It is one thing to support, say, "less government spending", for example, but should it be assumed that this means cuts to all areas of government spending? Would this include hefty cuts to military spending? Government subsidy programs for US primary producers? Spending on education? Etc, etc .. Which areas, specifically would be targeted for cuts? And how would these proposed cuts actually improve the circumstances of most Americans? Why would they necessarily be a positive thing?

I'm not directing this query to hawkeye, specifically, but to any or all of the tea party supporters here.

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@msolga,

Quote:

think I understand the nature of what tea party supporters broadly oppose, but what I'm interested in is what actual government policy initiatives they would support?

Minimal National government, like less than 1/2 of what the fed government does now, lower taxes, and courts which follow the will of the people. I can't think of anything else that is generally agreed to, an no, their is not any firm agreement on which 1/2 of the government to get rid of.

1 Reply

@msolga,

from what I've read social security and health care would be prime targets for elimination.

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@msolga,

Unlike folks like Cyclo I don't have the ability to know what other people are thinking or what exactly motivates them. Moreover, I am generally very suspicious of those who claim they do.

However, it is possible to deduce a few central tendencies from the statements of many self-identified spokesmen for these groups and from fairly well articulated public comncerns that appear to also be widely shared by them.

I believe many are frustrated by a government that is (1) becoming ever more expensive and claiming control of an ever larger share of our national product; and (2) becoming far more intrusive into the lives and affairs of its citizens.

Many have expressed serious doubts about the integrity of the class of professional politicians of both parties who say they represent them, but who have gerrymandered their districts to ensure stable careers for themselves, and who too often appear to seek their personal advancement over the public good: even the best of them appear to chronically fail to detect the adverse side effects of the increasingly complex and intrusive legislation they enact (and too often even fail to read).

As a result it appears that many of these folks want less government and less intrusion into their lives. As one of them said to Senator Arlen Spector in and early encounter "Why don't you just leave us alone?"

2 Replies

@georgeob1,

Quote:

Many have expressed serious doubts about the integrity of the class of professional politicians of both parties who say they represent them, but who have gerrymandered their districts to ensure stable careers for themselves, and who too often appear to seek their personal advancement over the public good: even the best of them appear to chronically fail to detect the adverse side effects of the increasingly complex and intrusive legislation they enact (and too often even fail to read).

and that would be in with the tea party, or more likely, the Bull Moose Party. unfortunately I don't see the tea party in the same light as georgeob does. I'm much more of a philosophical anarchist.

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@georgeob1,

Quote:

I believe many are frustrated by a government that is (1) becoming ever more expensive and claiming control of an ever larger share of our national product; and (2) becoming far more intrusive into the lives and affairs of its citizens

Bingo...we create government to administer to our needs that are not fulfilled by individual effort or the normal practices of capitalism, we do not create government to run the economy or to run our lives. The government has usurped its authority, and it must be cut back and restrained.

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

yeah, I think the US Navy is still running about 26 nuclear "boomers" and how many "fast attack" in defense of attack by the USSR. and that's just a drop in the bucket.

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@hawkeye10,

Quote:

Minimal National government, like less than 1/2 of what the fed government does now, lower taxes, and courts which follow the will of the people. I can't think of anything else that is generally agreed to, an no, their is not any firm agreement on which 1/2 of the government to get rid of.

I was asking for a more detailed outline of tea party policies than that, hawkeye, if they exist .
I'd assumed, given that there tea party candidates standing for election, that the electorate would have had access to fairly detailed information relating to all government policy areas.
(I'm not sure what "courts which follow the will of the people" would look like, either. How would they differ to courts in the US now?)

I asked in my post if spending cuts would effect all areas of government spending, or just selected areas. Which cuts, specifically, would address "the the objective of "restoring America”?
One spending area I asked asked about was military spending, which would, of course, impact on US foreign policy. It appears there are differences of tea party views on this. (see quote below)
It seems really odd to me that people are (apparently) voting for tea party candidates without fully understanding what they actually stand for. Or what policies they will support, to put it another way. I'd certainly want to know a lot more about the implications of my vote, before casting it in support of any candidate.

Quote:

“The people of Delaware have spoken,” O’Donnell told supporters at a victory rally on Tuesday. “No more politics as usual. The cause is restoring America.”

For Tea Party activists, “restoring America” means downsizing government spending. But according to research by the Sam Adams Alliance, a Chicago-based non-profit organisation, 80 percent of tea partiers say defence is a “very important” issue to them. The federal government spent 782 billion dollars on defence in 2009, or 23 percent of the overall budget.

Given the contradiction, Tea Party leaders are not surprisingly divided between isolationists and interventionists as has generally been the case in American politics.

http://www.france24.com/en/20100915-tea-party-foreign-policy-brew-usa-republicans-midterms-politics

1 Reply

@msolga,

Quote:

I was asking for a more detailed outline of tea party policies than that, hawkeye, if they exist

they dont, this movement is hive like in nature, there is no central planning, and no central plan. There are lots of people with lots of plans which change constantly.

1 Reply

I speak bullshit, miss olga, let me interpret for you.

He says they have no plan, just discontent...

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@Rockhead,

Quote:

He says they have no plan, just discontent...

They are organized enough to get things done that no one thought they could get done, that almost no one ever gets done (over run one of the two major parties). There is a serious problem with your analysis Rocky.

1 Reply

IS THE "TEA PARTY" REALLY A POPULIST MOVEMENT?

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