Is the Tea Party racist?

[Phatscotty]

Well, I did see one birther today. and it was the same guy that was there last year. He kept trying to wave his sign behind people who were getting interviewed. So we kept waving our flags in front of his sign. I myself fly a 3x5 Betsy Ross (13 stars, symbolic of states rights) back to back with the old Gadsden flag (DTOM). The birther did not say a word, but couragously seeked out other camera holders and waved his sign, and we followed him again, this time more tea baggers joined in. The birther actually started to sprint and tried to lose us, but as they say ....

"In a crowd with one birther, there is nowhere to hide."

We soon after spotted him walking up the steps of the capital, in one last attempt to let everyone see his sign, but we got up there eventually with our flags. he spotted us immediately, as if he were expecting us at any moment, savoring every last delicious free birther attention he can get from the pinnacle of the capital, and then we caught up with him and covered his ridiculous sign which said "bush knew about 9-11 and Obama isn't US born" and he attempted to raise his sign as high as he could, unfortunately he was a short fellow and my flags are just huge. Yeah so thats how my experience with a birther went today, my mates have it on tape but it does not make for good watching....

I had a similar experience at the Chicago rally.

It was my first rally and I didn't really know what to expect. I showed up (having told my parents I was going to visit the Baha'i temple for a religious studies class, because they are quite liberal and probably wouldn't approve of this) and pulled out my cardboard sign with the Gadsden on one side and a photocopy of the first page of the Constitution on the other. I got a few cheers from the people around me... there were even some college kids. A few people had guns, and I thought I recognized one of them... which kind of creeped me out, but I got used to it after a while. Anyway, it was going all right at first. I tried to get on camera but it was kind of crowded and I couldn't squeeze my way through. After an hour or so the police showed up (I mean lots of them, earlier there were just a few officers but as our numbers grew they sent for backup). A few squabbles and chants, but no violence yet. Then after another half hour or so, there was a sound kind of like a gunshot, I hadn't heard many real gunshots in real life so I couldn't tell for sure. People got really agitated and started shouting at the police... they began to move in on us... I was near the edge of the crowd so I was one of the closest ones to the police. Another gunshot about 5 minutes later (this one was definitely a gunshot, it was much closer to me than the last one, so I could easily tell). The crowd goes apeshit and the police start breaking it up and get on their radios to call more fuzz. A THIRD GUNSHOT that was even closer, probably less than 20 feet from me. The police start spraying pepper spray at this point and I get some. I'm on the ground and my eyes are tearing up almost to where I can't see. I guess the police thought it was me (I had a backpack on) so they pull me aside... two of them are holding me and one reaches for his taser. I was freaking out at this point... I'm about to get tased and I didn't do shit... I wipe the tears away from my eyes, and looking into the crowd, I see for a split second the man with the gun, the man that I had vaguely recognized from earlier, from these very forums in fact. Thornheart drew his Smith & Wesson .45 automatic handgun and fired for the fourth time. The bullet pierced the can of pepper spray, exploding it and blinding everyone within a 50 foot radius. The police scattered, mouthing furiously on their radios about a world-class sharpshooting teabagger. The bullet ricoched off a fire hydrant and glanced off the key that was still in a police motorcycle. The motorcycle whirred to life and zoomed straight towards me. "Jump!" Thornheart bellowed, his voice booming above the crowd. I jumped. The bike caught the strap of my backpack with its right handlebar, and I was whisked away beyond the crowd and beyond the police. The bike crashed into a light pole 30 seconds later, and I was thrown through the air, my eyes still stinging, until I landed with a thud. I rose, dazed, to find that I was in the parking lot, and I had landed right next to my car. I began to climb in, but before I left, I looked back at the crowd in the distance. I could see my savior one last time, unmistakable with his legendary 6 and a half foot stature. He cocked his hat, blew the smoke from his gun, and nodded in my direction before disappearing into the crowd.

[DangerBoy]

It was my first rally and I didn't really know what to expect. I showed up (having told my parents I was going to visit the Baha'i temple for a religious studies class, because they are quite liberal and probably wouldn't approve of this) and pulled out my cardboard sign with the Gadsden on one side and a photocopy of the first page of the Constitution on the other. I got a few cheers from the people around me... there were even some college kids. A few people had guns, and I thought I recognized one of them... which kind of creeped me out, but I got used to it after a while. Anyway, it was going all right at first. I tried to get on camera but it was kind of crowded and I couldn't squeeze my way through. After an hour or so the police showed up (I mean lots of them, earlier there were just a few officers but as our numbers grew they sent for backup). A few squabbles and chants, but no violence yet. Then after another half hour or so, there was a sound kind of like a gunshot, I hadn't heard many real gunshots in real life so I couldn't tell for sure. People got really agitated and started shouting at the police... they began to move in on us... I was near the edge of the crowd so I was one of the closest ones to the police. Another gunshot about 5 minutes later (this one was definitely a gunshot, it was much closer to me than the last one, so I could easily tell). The crowd goes apeshit and the police start breaking it up and get on their radios to call more fuzz. A THIRD GUNSHOT that was even closer, probably less than 20 feet from me. The police start spraying pepper spray at this point and I get some. I'm on the ground and my eyes are tearing up almost to where I can't see. I guess the police thought it was me (I had a backpack on) so they pull me aside... two of them are holding me and one reaches for his taser. I was freaking out at this point... I'm about to get tased and I didn't do shit... I wipe the tears away from my eyes, and looking into the crowd, I see for a split second the man with the gun, the man that I had vaguely recognized from earlier, from these very forums in fact. Thornheart drew his Smith & Wesson .45 automatic handgun and fired for the fourth time. The bullet pierced the can of pepper spray, exploding it and blinding everyone within a 50 foot radius. The police scattered, mouthing furiously on their radios about a world-class sharpshooting teabagger. The bullet ricoched off a fire hydrant and glanced off the key that was still in a police motorcycle. The motorcycle whirred to life and zoomed straight towards me. "Jump!" Thornheart bellowed, his voice booming above the crowd. I jumped. The bike caught the strap of my backpack with its right handlebar, and I was whisked away beyond the crowd and beyond the police. The bike crashed into a light pole 30 seconds later, and I was thrown through the air, my eyes still stinging, until I landed with a thud. I rose, dazed, to find that I was in the parking lot, and I had landed right next to my car. I began to climb in, but before I left, I looked back at the crowd in the distance. I could see my savior one last time, unmistakable with his legendary 6 and a half foot stature. He cocked his hat, blew the smoke from his gun, and nodded in my direction before disappearing into the crowd.

Anyone remember the Joe Beevers stories?

[Doc_Brown]

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/04/new-data-on-tea-party-sympathizers.html

I wonder why these liberals keep calling the tea partiers racist.

OH THAT PROVES IT!!! Well done Snorri and the University of Washington!

It also proves that 45% of people that disapprove of the tea party are also racist. That's pretty awesome.

I like the "if blacks would just try harder they would be as well of as whites" question.

What this actually proves is that this is a fugazi poll and that most Americans are clearly racist.

You're missing the point. This shows that people who like to associate with the Tea Party have higher than average amounts of racist thought. So it's not strange that the party is associated with racists.

Actually Snorri, that's exactly what this post doesn't do! I follow fivethiryeight regularly and have since late 2007. Nate Silver is a liberal, but he backs up his statements with facts and is clear when he expresses his opinion. In short, from what I've read of his, he's the type of liberal I enjoy talking to. Tom Schaller is a totally different story though. His posts over there have been pretty consistently shilling for the liberal side. If you read through his post carefully and without an initial bias, you might notice that there are quite a few problems with the poll and the analysis of it.

First, there is no data describing "the average." The comparison is between those that strongly support the tea party and those that strongly oppose it. The data presented doesn't allow you to say that the tea party people are more racist than average. What it does allow you to say is that the people that most strongly approve of the tea parties have somewhat lower opinions of minorities than do people that strongly disapprove of the tea parties. Is the average right in the middle of the two groups? Is it closer to the Tea Party group? Schaller's conclusion (echoed in your post) assumes that the views of the average American is equivalent to those of the group that strongly opposes the Tea Parties (a view that may be arguably debunked given the Gallup poll that suggests that the Tea Party is relatively mainstream). Even the data set presented has nearly twice as many people at least somewhat approving of the Tea Party as expressing some level of disapproval.

The second problem was that there were 66 people in the strongly disapprove category and 117 that strongly approved. I'm not a pollster or a statistician, so I can't comment on margin of error, but this doesn't look like a sufficient sample size to draw much of a conclusion.

Next, there is no description of the actual questions asked. How are the terms "trustworthy," "hardworking," and "intelligent" used in context?

The poll pulled random people from Georgia, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, California, and Ohio. To what extent are a handful of people from these 7 states representative of the country or the Tea Party as a whole?

Finally, the poll does not ask about Tea Party membership. It asks about approval or disapproval. I have some level of approval for the Tea Parties but am in no way a member. I don't doubt that some members of the fringe racist groups would find themselves unwelcome at a Tea Party rally but might still strongly approve of the Tea Party goals. So there's no way to extrapolate specific conclusions about members of the Tea Party from this data.

[stahrgazer]

Stahr, stop... you keep making these lists and facts up and it's driving me insane.

(1) Maybe you should check to see if Congress voted on the Iraq war. (Hint - they did... they had a whole vote and everything)
(2) President Obama didn't bring the expenditures to the forefront. What in the hell are you talking about?
(3) Bush did not eliminate these oversights. There were no oversights. Perhaps you should have said that Presidents Washington through Bush did not create oversights to prevent the banks from doing what they did.
(4) Bush signed some of the bailouts into law; not all of them. AND President Obama supported the Bush bailouts WHEN THEY HAPPENED.
(5) Bush reduced taxes on everyone! So did President Obama! WOWZERS!
(6) Bush had nothing to do with tripling unemployment rates. The president does not control who is or is not employed except by signing into law bills that are passed by Congress which provide incentives for companies to employ other people. Perhaps you should take a class on US government.

In sum... see above... stop making up facts.

1. Congress didn't vote in "a war" - they voted in some action. If Bush intended it to be "war" he should have established a budget for it, so we could see his deficit on paper.
2. Obama did put Iraq/Afghanistan expenditures into the budget, while Bush admin conveniently kept forgetting to do so. Obama inherited more deficit than he 'created' with his policies intended to help the poorest of us.
3. Bush did eliminate oversights.
4. Bush signed bailouts into law, with no requirements as to what was done with them. The result was, they weren't spent on what they were intended for. Obama's additional monies had requirements that in turn, began to stimulate the economy like they were supposed to.
5. Bush did NOT reduce my taxes.
6. Bush's failure to push for jobs, his reduction of oversight to banks, (which led to the mortgage bomb that cost construction workers their jobs) his tax reductions to give incentives to the highest dollar-makers without any need to stimulate our economy, did indeed effect unemployment rates.

Perhaps you need a class on critical thinking so you can stop being driven crazy by accurate lists and facts, and instead, be able to see how they link.

In sum... stop trying to deny facts you dislike. While I realize you learned from one of the best facts-concealers (Bush)... eventually, the facts do come to light (especially if you have an Obama follow you to push the facts into light.)

[Woodruff]

the facts do come to light (especially if you have an Obama follow you to push the facts into light.)

I sincerely wish that Obama would simply stop following in Bush's footsteps (pushing the facts into the light, my ass), but he does appear determined to do so.

[Snorri1234]

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/04/new-data-on-tea-party-sympathizers.html

I wonder why these liberals keep calling the tea partiers racist.

OH THAT PROVES IT!!! Well done Snorri and the University of Washington!

It also proves that 45% of people that disapprove of the tea party are also racist. That's pretty awesome.

I like the "if blacks would just try harder they would be as well of as whites" question.

What this actually proves is that this is a fugazi poll and that most Americans are clearly racist.

You're missing the point. This shows that people who like to associate with the Tea Party have higher than average amounts of racist thought. So it's not strange that the party is associated with racists.

Actually Snorri, that's exactly what this post doesn't do! I follow fivethiryeight regularly and have since late 2007. Nate Silver is a liberal, but he backs up his statements with facts and is clear when he expresses his opinion. In short, from what I've read of his, he's the type of liberal I enjoy talking to. Tom Schaller is a totally different story though. His posts over there have been pretty consistently shilling for the liberal side. If you read through his post carefully and without an initial bias, you might notice that there are quite a few problems with the poll and the analysis of it.

First, there is no data describing "the average." The comparison is between those that strongly support the tea party and those that strongly oppose it. The data presented doesn't allow you to say that the tea party people are more racist than average. What it does allow you to say is that the people that most strongly approve of the tea parties have somewhat lower opinions of minorities than do people that strongly disapprove of the tea parties. Is the average right in the middle of the two groups? Is it closer to the Tea Party group? Schaller's conclusion (echoed in your post) assumes that the views of the average American is equivalent to those of the group that strongly opposes the Tea Parties (a view that may be arguably debunked given the Gallup poll that suggests that the Tea Party is relatively mainstream). Even the data set presented has nearly twice as many people at least somewhat approving of the Tea Party as expressing some level of disapproval.

The second problem was that there were 66 people in the strongly disapprove category and 117 that strongly approved. I'm not a pollster or a statistician, so I can't comment on margin of error, but this doesn't look like a sufficient sample size to draw much of a conclusion.

Next, there is no description of the actual questions asked. How are the terms "trustworthy," "hardworking," and "intelligent" used in context?

The poll pulled random people from Georgia, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, California, and Ohio. To what extent are a handful of people from these 7 states representative of the country or the Tea Party as a whole?

Finally, the poll does not ask about Tea Party membership. It asks about approval or disapproval. I have some level of approval for the Tea Parties but am in no way a member. I don't doubt that some members of the fringe racist groups would find themselves unwelcome at a Tea Party rally but might still strongly approve of the Tea Party goals. So there's no way to extrapolate specific conclusions about members of the Tea Party from this data.

You'll notice that what you just typed does not disagree with my initial statement.

[thegreekdog]

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/04/new-data-on-tea-party-sympathizers.html

I wonder why these liberals keep calling the tea partiers racist.

OH THAT PROVES IT!!! Well done Snorri and the University of Washington!

It also proves that 45% of people that disapprove of the tea party are also racist. That's pretty awesome.

I like the "if blacks would just try harder they would be as well of as whites" question.

What this actually proves is that this is a fugazi poll and that most Americans are clearly racist.

You're missing the point. This shows that people who like to associate with the Tea Party have higher than average amounts of racist thought. So it's not strange that the party is associated with racists.

Actually Snorri, that's exactly what this post doesn't do! I follow fivethiryeight regularly and have since late 2007. Nate Silver is a liberal, but he backs up his statements with facts and is clear when he expresses his opinion. In short, from what I've read of his, he's the type of liberal I enjoy talking to. Tom Schaller is a totally different story though. His posts over there have been pretty consistently shilling for the liberal side. If you read through his post carefully and without an initial bias, you might notice that there are quite a few problems with the poll and the analysis of it.

First, there is no data describing "the average." The comparison is between those that strongly support the tea party and those that strongly oppose it. The data presented doesn't allow you to say that the tea party people are more racist than average. What it does allow you to say is that the people that most strongly approve of the tea parties have somewhat lower opinions of minorities than do people that strongly disapprove of the tea parties. Is the average right in the middle of the two groups? Is it closer to the Tea Party group? Schaller's conclusion (echoed in your post) assumes that the views of the average American is equivalent to those of the group that strongly opposes the Tea Parties (a view that may be arguably debunked given the Gallup poll that suggests that the Tea Party is relatively mainstream). Even the data set presented has nearly twice as many people at least somewhat approving of the Tea Party as expressing some level of disapproval.

The second problem was that there were 66 people in the strongly disapprove category and 117 that strongly approved. I'm not a pollster or a statistician, so I can't comment on margin of error, but this doesn't look like a sufficient sample size to draw much of a conclusion.

Next, there is no description of the actual questions asked. How are the terms "trustworthy," "hardworking," and "intelligent" used in context?

The poll pulled random people from Georgia, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, California, and Ohio. To what extent are a handful of people from these 7 states representative of the country or the Tea Party as a whole?

Finally, the poll does not ask about Tea Party membership. It asks about approval or disapproval. I have some level of approval for the Tea Parties but am in no way a member. I don't doubt that some members of the fringe racist groups would find themselves unwelcome at a Tea Party rally but might still strongly approve of the Tea Party goals. So there's no way to extrapolate specific conclusions about members of the Tea Party from this data.

That's why I said "fugazi."

[thegreekdog]

Stahr, stop... you keep making these lists and facts up and it's driving me insane.

(1) Maybe you should check to see if Congress voted on the Iraq war. (Hint - they did... they had a whole vote and everything)
(2) President Obama didn't bring the expenditures to the forefront. What in the hell are you talking about?
(3) Bush did not eliminate these oversights. There were no oversights. Perhaps you should have said that Presidents Washington through Bush did not create oversights to prevent the banks from doing what they did.
(4) Bush signed some of the bailouts into law; not all of them. AND President Obama supported the Bush bailouts WHEN THEY HAPPENED.
(5) Bush reduced taxes on everyone! So did President Obama! WOWZERS!
(6) Bush had nothing to do with tripling unemployment rates. The president does not control who is or is not employed except by signing into law bills that are passed by Congress which provide incentives for companies to employ other people. Perhaps you should take a class on US government.

In sum... see above... stop making up facts.

1. Congress didn't vote in "a war" - they voted in some action. If Bush intended it to be "war" he should have established a budget for it, so we could see his deficit on paper.
2. Obama did put Iraq/Afghanistan expenditures into the budget, while Bush admin conveniently kept forgetting to do so. Obama inherited more deficit than he 'created' with his policies intended to help the poorest of us.
3. Bush did eliminate oversights.
4. Bush signed bailouts into law, with no requirements as to what was done with them. The result was, they weren't spent on what they were intended for. Obama's additional monies had requirements that in turn, began to stimulate the economy like they were supposed to.
5. Bush did NOT reduce my taxes.
6. Bush's failure to push for jobs, his reduction of oversight to banks, (which led to the mortgage bomb that cost construction workers their jobs) his tax reductions to give incentives to the highest dollar-makers without any need to stimulate our economy, did indeed effect unemployment rates.

Perhaps you need a class on critical thinking so you can stop being driven crazy by accurate lists and facts, and instead, be able to see how they link.

In sum... stop trying to deny facts you dislike. While I realize you learned from one of the best facts-concealers (Bush)... eventually, the facts do come to light (especially if you have an Obama follow you to push the facts into light.)

Yeah, here's the thing buddy, I'm not Republican and I hated President Bush. Here's the other thing, you're clearly a spoon-fed, regurgitating Democrat who does not think for himself or look up anything. Your list is, again, not supported by evidence. I'm an excellent critical thinker. Because I'm a critical thinker, I understand that one cannot win an argument without the use of facts. The people that think they can win arguments without the use of facts are generally called idiots.

Here's another thing that critical thinkers don't do - change the argument (see, for example, your numbers 1 ("oh no, I'm talking about the WAR man, the WAR, not the conflict!?), 2 ("No, President Obama but the Iraq war in the budget; that's what I meant!"), 4 ("No, what I meant was that Bush's bailouts sucked, but Obama's are awesome because... see?... they created jobs... at a cost of $250,000 per job."), and 6 ("What I meant was, Bush didn't push for jobs... well, yeah, the economy was fine until the end of his adminsitration... and yeah, I'll ignore the other 7 years of the Bush adminsitration... but seriously, I'm totally a critical thinker dude.")

One other thing, unless you didn't pay taxes, President Bush reduced your taxes.

Look dude, seriously, if I were you I'd do a couple of things. First, go read some of SultanOfSurreal's posts. He's good at arguing and he's funny. Second, go read some of Snorri's posts. He at least provides some links and evidence backing up his assertions. I don't think you're going to do these things, but there's always hope.

[jimboston]

I went to the Tea Party Express Rally on Boston Common on 4/14.

The only racist signs I saw were coming from people protesting the Tea Partiers or Tea Baggers as we prefer to be called.

[Doc_Brown]

Actually Snorri, that's exactly what this post doesn't do! I follow fivethiryeight regularly and have since late 2007. Nate Silver is a liberal, but he backs up his statements with facts and is clear when he expresses his opinion. In short, from what I've read of his, he's the type of liberal I enjoy talking to. Tom Schaller is a totally different story though. His posts over there have been pretty consistently shilling for the liberal side. If you read through his post carefully and without an initial bias, you might notice that there are quite a few problems with the poll and the analysis of it.

First, there is no data describing "the average." The comparison is between those that strongly support the tea party and those that strongly oppose it. The data presented doesn't allow you to say that the tea party people are more racist than average. What it does allow you to say is that the people that most strongly approve of the tea parties have somewhat lower opinions of minorities than do people that strongly disapprove of the tea parties. Is the average right in the middle of the two groups? Is it closer to the Tea Party group? Schaller's conclusion (echoed in your post) assumes that the views of the average American is equivalent to those of the group that strongly opposes the Tea Parties (a view that may be arguably debunked given the Gallup poll that suggests that the Tea Party is relatively mainstream). Even the data set presented has nearly twice as many people at least somewhat approving of the Tea Party as expressing some level of disapproval.

The second problem was that there were 66 people in the strongly disapprove category and 117 that strongly approved. I'm not a pollster or a statistician, so I can't comment on margin of error, but this doesn't look like a sufficient sample size to draw much of a conclusion.

Next, there is no description of the actual questions asked. How are the terms "trustworthy," "hardworking," and "intelligent" used in context?

The poll pulled random people from Georgia, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, California, and Ohio. To what extent are a handful of people from these 7 states representative of the country or the Tea Party as a whole?

Finally, the poll does not ask about Tea Party membership. It asks about approval or disapproval. I have some level of approval for the Tea Parties but am in no way a member. I don't doubt that some members of the fringe racist groups would find themselves unwelcome at a Tea Party rally but might still strongly approve of the Tea Party goals. So there's no way to extrapolate specific conclusions about members of the Tea Party from this data.

You'll notice that what you just typed does not disagree with my initial statement.

That may be so, but I realized last night that there is another problem with the poll that is even more fundamental. Let me illustrate it by example. If the poll started off with a question about where I went to graduate school, then it would bring to my mind memories of that time. If it then asked about black people and whether I had a high opinion of them or considered them trustworthy, I would have given an emphatic yes! I don't generally run into many minorities given my work situation right now, but I did know a number of people from various racial backgrounds in graduate school that were top notch. On the other hand, if the poll started off asking about inner city schools before asking about my opinions of black people, the results won't be quite so positive because the image in my mind is of one of the local high schools (that is predominantly black) that has quite a bit of gang and drug problems.

I suspect what you'll find is that most people that are called racist really don't have a problem with minorities. They have lower opinions of the lower class as a whole. I'll admit that I have a tendency in that direction as well. Unfortunately, the black population is over-represented in the lower class. When the fundamental complaints are economic in nature, a consequence is to oppose seeing tax dollars be given to the lower classes. Add to that the experience of working up the corporate ladder and the belief that anyone that works hard, has reasonable intelligence, and has a desire to advance can move up into the middle class. What you end up with is someone that has pretty negative feelings towards the lower class - not towards black people as a whole.

The other structural problem with the poll is that a context is not given for the term "trustworthy." Trustworthy in what regards? Let's express the question another way: "Do you consider conservatives to be trustworthy?" Well, if the context is games on ConquerClub, the answer is probably yes. With some possible exceptions, I'm sure most of the conservatives here would make decent trustworthy teammates and so forth. If the context is political posts in this forum, you may be less likely to answer in the affirmative. And if the context is the running of the country, I'm pretty sure the answer is strongly negative. In terms of this poll, if the context is the presidency and conservative respondents are thinking specifically about Obama, they're going to be more negative in their answers than someone that really likes Obama's policies. The issue is not his race, it's his policies, and when Obama is the exemplar of his race (and I'm not quite sure what his race is - he's something like half white, one quarter black, and one quarter Arab), the negative feelings about Obama specifically will spill on to those he represents.

To give you a counter point to all this, Alan Keyes ran for the Republican nomination for president back in 1996 and 2000. At that time he had a lot of support among the crowd that now makes up a good portion of the Tea Party crowd. He has since become more of a loud-mouth gadfly and has lost supporters (myself among them). The point is that race is largely a non-issue to the vast majority of conservatives and the Tea Party crowd. The extent to which liberal policies becomes associated with a specific race is the extent to which those people will begin to express negative opinions about that race.

[Woodruff]

In sum... stop trying to deny facts you dislike. While I realize you learned from one of the best facts-concealers (Bush)... eventually, the facts do come to light (especially if you have an Obama follow you to push the facts into light.)

Here's some "facts pushed into the light", but Obama ain't the one pushing them, Stahr:
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/15/doj

Any comment about your hero?

[Doc_Brown]

NBC reporter asks a black man if he's ever felt uncomfortable at Tea Party gatherings:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/04/16/nbc_reporter_to_black_man_at_tea_party_have_you_ever_felt_uncomfortable.html

[bedub1]

NBC reporter asks a black man if he's ever felt uncomfortable at Tea Party gatherings:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/04/16/nbc_reporter_to_black_man_at_tea_party_have_you_ever_felt_uncomfortable.html

Nice clip...I'd like to see the rest of it.

The best way to marginalize a group is to call them all racist. The Tea Party isn't racist, never was, never will be, it's impossible for it to be racist. Some of the people might be racist. Just like in any group of people.

[Phatscotty]

Thanks for that, although I do want to clarify that I don't think the origins of the Tea Party are racist, as a couple of respondents have argued against. More that there is a racist element, and that few are willing to recongnise it, and those that do tend to over-emphasize it. TheGreekdog is pretty sharp on the topic, but let's face it- a black president was a catalyst. Everything else was in place, and the anger was there, but the Tea Party has so far been an issue of identity.

What is it to be an American? Obama, following the majority of Bush's policies, is not American where Bush was.

What does the Tea Party movement have to do with Bush?

Nothing.

Bush was NOT a conservative from a fiscal sense. IMO: The Tea Party has no love of Bush.

Which is sort of the point. What changed between the policies of Bush and Obama that caused the Tea Party. Deficit, gov't spending, the bailout, those are Bush era policies. Forgive me for asking, why now? Health care? Maybe, but it's not the focus of the Tea Party, so the why now issue seems to stand.

some may call 2009 a noticeable difference. I know for a fact many do not notice anything different. Bottom line, we are against out of control budgets no matter who the f*ck is signing them. guess what? the next president is fucked too if they do not deal with the budget crisis. Obama is adding to the budget crisis. this grows the tea party. this stuff is so simple, im questioning sanity levels.....

the tea party did not like bush that much at all. I documented all my problems with bush, all through. I'm sick of people asking "where were you when...."

I was there!

What the f*ck? people are waking up, so what it takes some longer than others? PEOPLE ARE WAKING UP!

End of story

[stahrgazer]

In sum... stop trying to deny facts you dislike. While I realize you learned from one of the best facts-concealers (Bush)... eventually, the facts do come to light (especially if you have an Obama follow you to push the facts into light.)

Here's some "facts pushed into the light", but Obama ain't the one pushing them, Stahr:
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/15/doj

Any comment about your hero?

I see no evidence that Obama administration is pushing for them. But where were these when Bush pushed for wiretaps? (There was evidence, back then, that it was the Bush administration doing the pushing, not merely the justice department while Bush was president)

[stahrgazer]

In sum... stop trying to deny facts you dislike. While I realize you learned from one of the best facts-concealers (Bush)... eventually, the facts do come to light (especially if you have an Obama follow you to push the facts into light.)

Yeah, here's the thing buddy, I'm not Republican and I hated President Bush. Here's the other thing, you're clearly a spoon-fed, regurgitating Democrat who does not think for himself or look up anything. Your list is, again, not supported by evidence. I'm an excellent critical thinker. Because I'm a critical thinker, I understand that one cannot win an argument without the use of facts. The people that think they can win arguments without the use of facts are generally called idiots.

Here's another thing that critical thinkers don't do - change the argument (see, for example, your numbers 1 ("oh no, I'm talking about the WAR man, the WAR, not the conflict!?), 2 ("No, President Obama but the Iraq war in the budget; that's what I meant!"), 4 ("No, what I meant was that Bush's bailouts sucked, but Obama's are awesome because... see?... they created jobs... at a cost of $250,000 per job."), and 6 ("What I meant was, Bush didn't push for jobs... well, yeah, the economy was fine until the end of his adminsitration... and yeah, I'll ignore the other 7 years of the Bush adminsitration... but seriously, I'm totally a critical thinker dude.")

One other thing, unless you didn't pay taxes, President Bush reduced your taxes.

Look dude, seriously, if I were you I'd do a couple of things. First, go read some of SultanOfSurreal's posts. He's good at arguing and he's funny. Second, go read some of Snorri's posts. He at least provides some links and evidence backing up his assertions. I don't think you're going to do these things, but there's always hope.

There are none so blind as those (like you) who will not see.

Congress voted in some use of force, but when Bush turned that into a lengthy war, he should have budgeted for it rather than spend spend spend while concealing what he was spending.

I've provided links in other places; not bothering here since I feel no need to spoon-feed you.

I pay taxes, and Bush increased them, while he lowered taxes for people who make 100 times what I make.

I never said Obama's bailouts are awesome, I explained that his were more pointed to the need. You want to complain that Obama's jobs cost $250,000 per job, but that's better than a few million to a CEO who failed. I would've preferred McCain's plan to give the money directly to homeowners to pay the banks with, but that would really be socialism.

The economy was NOT fine when Bush was president, but it's clear you prefer to distort evidence, so that you can adhere to a false argument that what happens on January 16, 2010 is what causes what happens on January 17, 2010; and so you can ignore what was happening as early as January, 2007.

But if the tea party was as anti-Bush as you claim, why weren't they holding parties then? Oh. Wait. Let me guess... it's because they couldn't see a LINK to his expenditures (because he was spending WITHOUT benefit of putting the spending into a budget)...

Seriously, dude, you clearly do NOT think as critically as you think you do.

p.s. I'm not a Democrat. I simply detested Bush's policies that led us into severe decline and crisis, and have a problem with my party blinding itself to that rather than suggesting things that can improve situations.

And back to my original question: If the tea party isn't racist, where is the evidence that they try to minimize racist comments from tea partiers?

I admired the Obama campaign because they clearly tried to minimize and eliminate negativity from their spokespeople. All literature, all talking points, suggested people NOT get into insults.

[Woodruff]

In sum... stop trying to deny facts you dislike. While I realize you learned from one of the best facts-concealers (Bush)... eventually, the facts do come to light (especially if you have an Obama follow you to push the facts into light.)

Here's some "facts pushed into the light", but Obama ain't the one pushing them, Stahr:
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/15/doj

Any comment about your hero?

I see no evidence that Obama administration is pushing for them. But where were these when Bush pushed for wiretaps? (There was evidence, back then, that it was the Bush administration doing the pushing, not merely the justice department while Bush was president)

Wow. Who does the Justice Department work for again, Stahr?

[PLAYER57832]

I had a similar experience at the Chicago rally.

If you are serious (which I doubt), I don't believe CC is the proper place to report a crime. If not, posting false accusations, even when you use a profile name and not "real" name, is not a wonderful thing to do, either.

[PLAYER57832]

I see no evidence that Obama administration is pushing for them. But where were these when Bush pushed for wiretaps? (There was evidence, back then, that it was the Bush administration doing the pushing, not merely the justice department while Bush was president)

Bush & the Bush administration did actually push for the Patriot act, etc. Many folks thought or at least hoped that Obama would back off from those rulings, but he has not. The Obama administration has not pushed for the provisions in the same way, but then, since its already established "policy", "pushing" is not necessary, he just has to refrain from opposing it.

Either way, I don't believe this was one of Obama's most wonderful decisions.

[john9blue]

If you are serious (which I doubt), I don't believe CC is the proper place to report a crime. If not, posting false accusations, even when you use a profile name and not "real" name, is not a wonderful thing to do, either.

I wonder if you read my post...?

[Phatscotty]

The answer to the OP's question, ("Is the Tea Party racist") is NO.
However, If this question was possed, "What party do racists mostly align with", the answer would certainly be, ...the TEA PARTY.

Same with if the question were "What party do people who are concerned about deficits, debt, and taxes mostly align with", the answer, in fact would be, the TEA PArty.

now, one of these questions deals with something real
one of these questions is designed to smear, demean, and marginalize millions of people he has never met

which is which?

::jeopardy music::

Where were these people when Bush Jr. wasted TRILLIONS of dollars on a war with Iraq ? I do not remember hearing a peep from them then.

So, your argument is that because people were not pissed when Bush was running 100-400 billion dollar deficits (WE WERE!), then they have no right to be pissed about 1.4 trillion dollar deficit in Obama's first year? there fore it must be racism????

I'd think the argument is more about, what Bush did that caused this NEED to spend these massive amounts.

well, it would be pretty stupid to, when faced with economic crisis, sit and argue over whos fault it is, compared to demanding that the people in power do something about it.

What does placing blame do to solve the problem? I can see you don't give a shit about the problem itself, and would only rather sit on the sideline and try to score a political point.

[thegreekdog]

In sum... stop trying to deny facts you dislike. While I realize you learned from one of the best facts-concealers (Bush)... eventually, the facts do come to light (especially if you have an Obama follow you to push the facts into light.)

Yeah, here's the thing buddy, I'm not Republican and I hated President Bush. Here's the other thing, you're clearly a spoon-fed, regurgitating Democrat who does not think for himself or look up anything. Your list is, again, not supported by evidence. I'm an excellent critical thinker. Because I'm a critical thinker, I understand that one cannot win an argument without the use of facts. The people that think they can win arguments without the use of facts are generally called idiots.

Here's another thing that critical thinkers don't do - change the argument (see, for example, your numbers 1 ("oh no, I'm talking about the WAR man, the WAR, not the conflict!?), 2 ("No, President Obama but the Iraq war in the budget; that's what I meant!"), 4 ("No, what I meant was that Bush's bailouts sucked, but Obama's are awesome because... see?... they created jobs... at a cost of $250,000 per job."), and 6 ("What I meant was, Bush didn't push for jobs... well, yeah, the economy was fine until the end of his adminsitration... and yeah, I'll ignore the other 7 years of the Bush adminsitration... but seriously, I'm totally a critical thinker dude.")

One other thing, unless you didn't pay taxes, President Bush reduced your taxes.

Look dude, seriously, if I were you I'd do a couple of things. First, go read some of SultanOfSurreal's posts. He's good at arguing and he's funny. Second, go read some of Snorri's posts. He at least provides some links and evidence backing up his assertions. I don't think you're going to do these things, but there's always hope.

There are none so blind as those (like you) who will not see.

Congress voted in some use of force, but when Bush turned that into a lengthy war, he should have budgeted for it rather than spend spend spend while concealing what he was spending.

I've provided links in other places; not bothering here since I feel no need to spoon-feed you.

I pay taxes, and Bush increased them, while he lowered taxes for people who make 100 times what I make.

I never said Obama's bailouts are awesome, I explained that his were more pointed to the need. You want to complain that Obama's jobs cost $250,000 per job, but that's better than a few million to a CEO who failed. I would've preferred McCain's plan to give the money directly to homeowners to pay the banks with, but that would really be socialism.

The economy was NOT fine when Bush was president, but it's clear you prefer to distort evidence, so that you can adhere to a false argument that what happens on January 16, 2010 is what causes what happens on January 17, 2010; and so you can ignore what was happening as early as January, 2007.

But if the tea party was as anti-Bush as you claim, why weren't they holding parties then? Oh. Wait. Let me guess... it's because they couldn't see a LINK to his expenditures (because he was spending WITHOUT benefit of putting the spending into a budget)...

Seriously, dude, you clearly do NOT think as critically as you think you do.

p.s. I'm not a Democrat. I simply detested Bush's policies that led us into severe decline and crisis, and have a problem with my party blinding itself to that rather than suggesting things that can improve situations.

And back to my original question: If the tea party isn't racist, where is the evidence that they try to minimize racist comments from tea partiers?

I admired the Obama campaign because they clearly tried to minimize and eliminate negativity from their spokespeople. All literature, all talking points, suggested people NOT get into insults.

I think I'm done arguing with you now, since you're still not making any sense. I will say, there is no way... at all... ever... in history... that your taxes went up because of something President Bush signed into law. There is no way. EVERYONE'S taxes went down. The only explanation is that you got a job or a higher-paying job.

I also detested President Bush's policies, specifically (1) the war in Iraq, (2) the massive spending, and (3) the Patriot Act. Care to comment on how President Obama is doing with these three things? Yeah, he's not doing well, is he? So, my question to you is, why do you support him? If he's continuing to engage in the same policies that President Bush engaged in, why do you support him so vehemently?

[tzor]

I think people are missing the point. There is a general tendency to think all spending is equal, but in the minds of many it is not. War spending is often justified (because of the war effort) and the best way to address war spending is to win the war quickly (and then … no more spending). The shit really hit the fan at the end of 2008 with the insane TARP program. Bush was, at the time, a lame duck president and we were more concerned with the 2008 elections. Then in 2009 we had the so called stimulus package that was only one heaping pile of pork. The president literally cashed in most of his political chips for this one with the cry that we needed to pass this “immediately.” (Only to later reveal most of the spending doesn’t kick in until the election years of 2010 and 2012.) That was the straw that launched the Tea Party Movement.

[Phatscotty]

In sum... stop trying to deny facts you dislike. While I realize you learned from one of the best facts-concealers (Bush)... eventually, the facts do come to light (especially if you have an Obama follow you to push the facts into light.)

Yeah, here's the thing buddy, I'm not Republican and I hated President Bush. Here's the other thing, you're clearly a spoon-fed, regurgitating Democrat who does not think for himself or look up anything. Your list is, again, not supported by evidence. I'm an excellent critical thinker. Because I'm a critical thinker, I understand that one cannot win an argument without the use of facts. The people that think they can win arguments without the use of facts are generally called idiots.

Here's another thing that critical thinkers don't do - change the argument (see, for example, your numbers 1 ("oh no, I'm talking about the WAR man, the WAR, not the conflict!?), 2 ("No, President Obama but the Iraq war in the budget; that's what I meant!"), 4 ("No, what I meant was that Bush's bailouts sucked, but Obama's are awesome because... see?... they created jobs... at a cost of $250,000 per job."), and 6 ("What I meant was, Bush didn't push for jobs... well, yeah, the economy was fine until the end of his adminsitration... and yeah, I'll ignore the other 7 years of the Bush adminsitration... but seriously, I'm totally a critical thinker dude.")

One other thing, unless you didn't pay taxes, President Bush reduced your taxes.

Look dude, seriously, if I were you I'd do a couple of things. First, go read some of SultanOfSurreal's posts. He's good at arguing and he's funny. Second, go read some of Snorri's posts. He at least provides some links and evidence backing up his assertions. I don't think you're going to do these things, but there's always hope.

There are none so blind as those (like you) who will not see.

Congress voted in some use of force, but when Bush turned that into a lengthy war, he should have budgeted for it rather than spend spend spend while concealing what he was spending.

I've provided links in other places; not bothering here since I feel no need to spoon-feed you.

I pay taxes, and Bush increased them, while he lowered taxes for people who make 100 times what I make.

I never said Obama's bailouts are awesome, I explained that his were more pointed to the need. You want to complain that Obama's jobs cost $250,000 per job, but that's better than a few million to a CEO who failed. I would've preferred McCain's plan to give the money directly to homeowners to pay the banks with, but that would really be socialism.

The economy was NOT fine when Bush was president, but it's clear you prefer to distort evidence, so that you can adhere to a false argument that what happens on January 16, 2010 is what causes what happens on January 17, 2010; and so you can ignore what was happening as early as January, 2007.

But if the tea party was as anti-Bush as you claim, why weren't they holding parties then? Oh. Wait. Let me guess... it's because they couldn't see a LINK to his expenditures (because he was spending WITHOUT benefit of putting the spending into a budget)...

Seriously, dude, you clearly do NOT think as critically as you think you do.

p.s. I'm not a Democrat. I simply detested Bush's policies that led us into severe decline and crisis, and have a problem with my party blinding itself to that rather than suggesting things that can improve situations.

And back to my original question: If the tea party isn't racist, where is the evidence that they try to minimize racist comments from tea partiers?

I admired the Obama campaign because they clearly tried to minimize and eliminate negativity from their spokespeople. All literature, all talking points, suggested people NOT get into insults.

I think I'm done arguing with you now, since you're still not making any sense. I will say, there is no way... at all... ever... in history... that your taxes went up because of something President Bush signed into law. There is no way. EVERYONE'S taxes went down. The only explanation is that you got a job or a higher-paying job.

I also detested President Bush's policies, specifically (1) the war in Iraq, (2) the massive spending, and (3) the Patriot Act. Care to comment on how President Obama is doing with these three things? Yeah, he's not doing well, is he? So, my question to you is, why do you support him? If he's continuing to engage in the same policies that President Bush engaged in, why do you support him so vehemently?

because he's black...

[tzor]

because he's black...

And Nancy Pelosi is ... ?