BigDaddyCool

I know, I can't stay way...it's like a drug.

I know that there was one post in which I said that I had to stay away from Newsvine because the boards there pissed me off, but when I saw an MSNBC.com story on the Tea Party movement and how some of them were explaining how and why they joined the Tea Party, I couldn’t resist. I had to take a look and see what the people had to say about the article.

As you would expect (since it’s Newsvine) the usual finger-pointing, name-calling, immature squabbling broke out, especially among a few conservatives and liberals who seem to enjoy putting each other down. But in between there seemed to be some very well-written thoughts by some very thoughtful, mature people who had a genuine desire to discuss the article and their feelings about the Tea Party. I even went so far as to copy and paste my open letter to the Tea Party Movement into the discussion thread. I was surprised by the responses that I did get on my letter:

well i think they sure dont want to be called “teabaggers”….thats a gay term, and used quite alot by democrats.
its a gay slur….i think, but whatever. – keck

 My thoughts exactly… If anyone is entitled, it’s these people. They’re sitting here wondering why their wealth is evaporating, so they blame the poor and unfortunate, and not the very policies they’ve been electing people to enact, DEREGULATION! And they want more of it. Fine, you can have it. I have nothing to loose, in fact I’m too young to even care any ways. Continue to destroy the country your parents built for you, morons… – Jake2509

Big daddy-you should run for office. Or how about starting an Anti tea party movement? Let’s take our country back from them!
Although I still can’t see where their country went to??? LOL. – Ted 050247

First off guys, thanks for the kind words. Yeah I know that “Teabagger” is supposed to be an insult to these people. Why do you think I use it to describe them? Because I know that they don’t like it, that’s why!!! Let’s see how the big, bad, bully likes it when someone treats him/her like they treat other people.

Second, running for office? Eh………I don’t know. I find the current state of politics in America distasteful enough without putting myself into the mix. I mean if the people in the State of California wouldn’t mind a political novice who has only been back in his native state for a few months, who wants to match smack talk with smack talk, and who doesn’t have enough cash in his pocket to buy any ad time let alone start a campaign then hey, I would be more than happy to debate Meg Whitman about how businesses in California are not creating jobs. I would be glad to start up an Internet campaign to have my name put on the ballot as an Independent. I would be more than happy to give my take on the issues facing our state…if only I could figure out what they all are.

But in looking further down the discussion thread I saw one post by someone named Gentle Hawk, that I believe hits it right on the head, maybe even moreso then my letter does:

Who knows what percentage of the Tea Party membership is actually adult and thoughtful and possess practical and compassionate traits. I certainly don’t, and for some reason, no polling organization has attempted to parse the party psychologically. I think that would be an interesting study. Realistically, if there is a comparative number in the overall population, then one can assume there is a reasonable number of people who fit my description. However, they are not the ones we hear about or hear from. It’s the noisiest and most radically right who are visible to the collective eye, most of whom are disgruntled former Republicans who wish to drive the country even further to the right than the GOP. That’s too bad! Without that element, many people would be taking the Tea Party more seriously.

Currently however, that’s impossible when we see people strapping guns to their hips, carrying placards with a picture of Obama as a tribal warrior or worse, using the talking points of the right wing media, speaking of armed revolution in a country where we fought two wars in order that we’d never have to fight one another again. We created a republic with a foundation of democratic principles so that we could all decide the direction and policies of our country. In the modern age of the world, we invented one person, on vote, specifically so that the majority rules. We put laws and regulations into place so that the most powerful were not supposed to be able to injure the least powerful. While the latter may not be as true now as it was decades ago, we still have the ability to affect changes through elections and our communal voices without taking up rifles.

We all see the anger of the Tea Party. I think ‘some’ of the reasons are simple, and lies basically in two elements of the party. The group I mentioned of thoughtful adults are angry because they are not being taken as seriously as they believe their principles deserve. It’s natural for that mindset to occur under the circumstances. In large measure, this group actually shares commonality with ‘progressives’. People tend to lump progressives and liberals together. However, they are quite different. Progressives share fiscally responsible concepts with conservatives, or at least what conservatives are supposed to be. It’s unfortunately necessary to apply that disclaimer as we have all seen the newest version of conservatism which has very little in common with the older version. That too is part of the problem. More on that later.

Progressives are typically liberal socially. So are the old version of conservatives. It’s now become necessary to use the descriptor “compassionate” in front of conservative when describing the old conservative. It’s necessary because the new version possesses so little compassion. That was not generally true of conservatives until the Reagan revolution. You’d see conservatives working to provide social programs as a safety net to disenfranchised Americans. Perhaps they were less liberal than liberals, but at least the thought existed to reach out and help when it made sense. That’s where progressives and compassionate conservatives have a meeting of the mind. In simplistic terms, and please forgive the sweeping and not altogether accurate depiction, but pure hard core liberals are usually in favor of just about every social program that addresses some need for all classes of Americans, no matter how small, in some cases, regardless of a high visibility of need, and so on.

Progressives on the other hand, are usually liberal socially, but much more conservative fiscally. They seek out social problems as proactively as liberals, define needs and look to government for solutions, all liberal reactions. The difference is, they are interested in providing social solutions only when the resources are available, only when the value earned is as great or greater than the investment, only when it is created in cooperation between government, business and the general population, and only when it doesn’t replicate another program that is supposed to be working on the same issue.

Progressives will look at plans for the payback. For instance, does a plan provide Americans with a foundation that will impel them forward toward more productivity. If so, does the ultimate payback provide more value in the long run, than the short term investment. They also look at existing programs and make judgements on whether they actually have value. If not, they look for ways to change them, and if that’s not practical, they urge discontinuation of those programs. This isn’t a lot different from compassionate conservatives is it? I fully admit progressives are more likely than conservatives, even compassionate ones, to invest money in social programs. That’s because most of them have more liberal social views and stronger feelings of responsibility to their less fortunate compatriots. Because they are socially liberal, they also tend to take a longer term view of issues.

For instance, they rankle at things such as oil companies making obscene profits at the cost of our environment and treasury. To that end, they strongly support renewable energy resources and technologies, doing away to the degree possible with fossil fuels. They believe, and it’s completely rational thinking, that we need to start now in the most enthusiastic way to institute the changes necessary to accomplish these things. They tend to be well versed in the issues of the day, possessing a knowledge of what history has taught us before, and with an underpinning of wisdom that allows them to predict events in the future. Again, as relates to energy, they realize the world’s oil supplies are quickly being reduced. They know America’s oil supply hit its peak in the late 50′s and early 60′s, and that we have gone downhill at an escalated rate ever since. They know ‘new’ finds of oil fields are fewer and fewer, and those that are found are much smaller and more difficult to extract.

They ‘see’ the end game, and that end game is the critical necessity to commit national resources now so that we are prepared in the future, both near term and long. The see many issues in the same way. They support nationalizing our health care because they not only believe good health care is a right for all people, but they further believe it will be cheaper in the long run because the only way to bring costs down to reasonable levels is to spread the cost, leverage markets to force prices of insurance and medications and services down. They believe, and again quite rationally, that it will cost all of us less once programs like this are put into place in practical ways.

My point in the discussion of progressives and compassionate conservatives is this as relates to the Tea Party. There may well be people in that party whose tendency might be to be compassionate conservatives, but in essence, that tendency has no ability to grow or even be a consideration in a movement that is not taken seriously because of the new style of conservatives whose voices drown out more acceptable conversation and actions. It’s an unfortunate fact, but a fact nonetheless, that many liberals, progressives, moderates, and compassionate conservatives consider the Tea Party as nothing but the furthest right, not only without compassion, but without true national interest at heart, and certainly without the ability to understand and apply wise consideration to the issues with which we are challenged. This means, we make assumptions about Tea Partiers that are not altogether true. It also means those within the party who may otherwise wish to work toward solutions are caught between two forces, the hard right in their own party that will ridicule and marginalize them unless they take a very hard line, and everyone else who sees them no differently than the worst in their party, which is not a surprise considering it is difficult for them to speak out.

There was a time very very early on in the life of the Tea Party where it could have been a very positive force for change in the way we do our business as a nation and a planet. In my opinion, that time has passed. The images we all have of the Tea Party are pretty well set now, and to change them would take an entire series of miracles that will not happen. Meanwhile, the hardest right of the party is being fed red meat by politicians and media who have no care about anything but their own bottom line of power, whether social or financial. If there is a desire to place blame, it’s not difficult to see the GOP and their media resources endeavored to create the Tea Party agenda, and for quite some time were successful.

One only needs to look at the early sponsors and leaders to see the footprint of those in Republican leadership positions. They have lost control recently, and it’s starting to bite them in their collective asses, but regardless of how you look at the issue, it’s too late for the party to gain any strong credibility with the majority of the population. In effect, it’s a shame the Tea Party wasn’t ‘really’ a grass roots movement, because if it had been, it would have been a very good place for progressives and compassionate conservatives to create solutions that serve us all. In fact, the conversation coming from such a group would impact liberals to be more ‘progressive’ and for some of the new conservatives to be more compassionate. The national conversation could have been completely different, but that possibility was removed by those who used the party for their own agendas.

I have no answer folks. I only have regret about something that might have provided enormous value to our nation. Again, I see no way the Tea Party can ever be inclusive. It’s already been poisoned too much to recover, both in image and in the type of member it now attracts. Beginning a new group is intensely difficult, and not something that is even in our mindset right now. We are so divided and uncommunicative in practical ways because of what took place with the Tea Party, that it’s become a habit to take a position and hang onto it for dear life even when the overwhelming evidence is contrary. In short, it’s going to take a very very long time to get to a point where dialogue will be common, if ever. Still, we owe it to the republic our forefathers founded with democratic principles to try. I don’t know how to do that, but I do know it will be the most difficult thing we could ever do. However, if we don’t, we are truly lost!

I believe it was a well written summary of the Tea Party movement as it stands now, how it is seen by a majority of the country, and what a waste of potential the movement has now become.

Like he said, there was a time in which the Tea Party could have used its powers for good instead of evil, and it looks like there is no going back now. Ok, yeah, I know that’s a simplistic way of looking at what he said, but in a nutshell that is pretty much what has happened to the Tea Party. They started out on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange with Rick Santelli’s rant, moved to FOX News organizing rallies on April 15th which I referred to as “Let the unemployed eat cake” rallies since they seemed to be against you and me finding jobs; and now they have moved to trying to deny us Health Care while keeping their own while putting forward Political Candidates who appear as if their cheese has slipped off of their cracker.

See: Sharon Angle.

I too have no answer, unfortunately too many of those in the Tea Party movement are so firmly entrenched in their own political dogma that it seems impossible to dig or flush them out and bring them into the light of day. Although if we actually managed to do that some of them might actually burst into flames. But there is going to come a time when those in the tea Party are going to look around and realize what a waste of energy has just occurred, and they are going to kick themselves because they are now nothing more than a sad political joke right alongside Fred Phelps and the John Birch Society. Hopefully one of these days this will happen and they will try to become a force for good.

But maybe we should have a stash of garlic, Holy Water and Cruxifixes standing by just in case.

Where is Buffy the Vampire Slayer when you need her?

Until next time…