SIX YEARS AGO THE TEA PARTY WAS BORN....

[Whirlaway]

In a very short six years the political movement known as the Tea Party has accomplished a lot......


Let's never forget what Thomas Jefferson said.

I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master. I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country. I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them. I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.

[Yssup Rider]

SNICK

[gnadfly]

[WTF]

The Tea Party is the grandchild of the John Birch Society. ..the bastard child of the Ross Perot movement. Already compromised by the GOP. Six years old and can't walk without GOP support.

[boardman]

The Tea Party started out as a simple movement with a great platform.
Personal freedom
Economic Freedom
and a Debt free future.
The idea was to return the federal government to the limits set forth by the Constitution.

It has morphed into something completely different with the infusion of mostly Republican platform ideas.

[aubie79]

Originally Posted by WTF

The Tea Party is the grandchild of the John Birch Society. ..the bastard child of the Ross Perot movement. Already compromised by the GOP. Six years old and can't walk without GOP support.

Nor can the GOP walk without Cruz, Rand and the like. Therein lies the quandary for the Republicans vs. Hillary. Should be a fascinating 21 months ahead of us.

[DSK]

Originally Posted by WTF

The Tea Party is the grandchild of the John Birch Society. ..the bastard child of the Ross Perot movement. Already compromised by the GOP. Six years old and can't walk without GOP support.

Are you implying that Ross Perot was comfortable with the racist elements of the John Birch Society?

[WTF]

Originally Posted by boardman

The Tea Party started out as a simple movement with a great platform.
Personal freedom
Economic Freedom
and a Debt free future.
The idea was to return the federal government to the limits set forth by the Constitution.

It has morphed into something completely different with the infusion of mostly Republican platform ideas.

On this we can agree.


Shall I type it before you? Ok , I will.
Define agree.

[Whirlaway]

What evidence can you offer to support this claim?

The TP still is standing for all these things.

Can you give any specifics on how it has "morphed".....?

Originally Posted by boardman

The Tea Party started out as a simple movement with a great platform.
Personal freedom
Economic Freedom
and a Debt free future.
The idea was to return the federal government to the limits set forth by the Constitution.

It has morphed into something completely different with the infusion of mostly Republican platform ideas.

[TheDaliLama]

The Tea Party was started by a bunch of pissed off people (both Dems and Reps)

OVER OBAMA CARE!!!!!

[Whirlaway]

Actually it began with the bank, auto and mortgage bailouts.

Originally Posted by TheDaliLama

The Tea Party was started by a bunch of pissed off people (both Dems and Reps)

OVER OBAMA CARE!!!!!

[Yssup Rider]

Originally Posted by Whirlaway

What evidence can you offer to support this claim?

The TP still is standing for all these things.

Can you give any specifics on how it has "morphed".....?

Hey dickweed! Have you provided one shred of evidence of anything you've claimed in this thread?

Nope. Looks like you're feeling lonesome again and on the verge of yet another SPAM attack on ECCIE.

And, for the record, the only viable TP in America is the kind that Cornholio needs for his BUNGHOLE!


Seriously, you're pretty quick to demand backup for a claim but incredibly slow (or negligent) when it's time to prove a goddamned thing you post.

Typical Whir-LIE-turd, what did you say? Oh yeah ... "over the top rhetoric."

[boardman]

Originally Posted by Whirlaway

What evidence can you offer to support this claim?

The TP still is standing for all these things.

Can you give any specifics on how it has "morphed".....?

There are a number of Tea Party sites out there. Which one is the real Tea Party?

Check this one out. They use Rand Paul's and Sarah Palin's photos on the page.

http://www.teapartyplatform.us/Welcome.html

Read "what we believe"

The second sentence says...

"As strict constructionists we believe the Constitution should be amended to protect life and prohibit all abortions, without exception"

Abortion was never an original Tea Party issue but be that as it may, IMO, a strict constructionist would not wish to amend the constitution to take away personal choice. If they want to talk abortion then the correct thing for a strict constructionist to say would be "leave it up to the states"

Further down the page in talking about putting God back in education it says "Jews might be okay too." Really? That reads like a national platform.
I think a strict constructionist would reject the entire idea of a national education system and let individual States, school districts and communities decide on curriculum and religion.
Other statements on that page would indicate an agenda other than personal freedom.

Now look at other "Tea Party" sites:

http://www.teaparty-platform.com/

http://www.teapartypatriots.org/

http://www.theteaparty.net/about-the-tea-party/

I can't find it now but I ran across one earlier that was advocating affordable housing. WTF? The Tea Party wants to get involved in housing. How does that reduce the size of government?

The Tea Party I support wants only a few things.
A strong national defense and secure borders.
Smaller more efficient government so I have to pay less taxes
and for Federal government to stay the fuck out of my life and return to Constitutional principles.

I went to some Tea Party Rallies in the early days. They were a collection of people of no particular race, creed or color. What the rallies were about was lower taxes and smaller government. They got a lot of attention just for that.
Next thing you know certain Republicans are infusing their ideas about social and economic issues and certain Democrats start throwing the race card, or the poor card or whatever card they can play to discredit the Tea party for shit they originally wanted nothing to do with. Then the zealots get involved and the whole thing is just another load of crap.

As a result we seem to have several different factions with their own ideas about what the "Tea Party" is and plenty of confusion on the part of citizens like me that are trying to figure out what the hell happened.

With that kind of confusion it's easy to see why guys like WTF can easily make fun of "Tea Wackos".

[LexusLover]

A "strict constructionist" interprets the literal words of a law, ordinance, statute, and/or constitution using the most common meaning of any words in dispute or claimed to be susceptible of more than one nuance in meaning and applies the interpretation strictly to the facts sought to be evaluated as to any legal principles involved WITHOUT implying or otherwise assigning any suggested meaning beyond the strict words. The SCOTUS threw that philosophy out the window with the bath water years ago..... and began doing so long before anyone posting on this board was born, not to mention the Tea Party.

[Whirlaway]

Like you said; there is no single Tea Party......there is no party platform, because it isn't a party but an organization with fluid structure. So the fact that some faction wants one thing and another faction wants something else doesn't mean the movement has morphed.

The TP still stands for the same principals you enumerated.

Those remain the constant.

With regard to changing the constitution; there are some within the TP that think term limits are necessary, or that the 14th Amendment should be abolished. All those things would require constitutional changes. The fact that a discussion of changing our constitution is occurring within the TP isn't an indication that it has "morphed".

I just don't understand where you come up with that notion.

You might not be happy with the TP, but to say they no longer represent the core principles you cited is just wrong.

I might agree with you if you offered up some concrete areas in which the TP has abandoned the core issues. But they haven't.

Originally Posted by boardman

There are a number of Tea Party sites out there. Which one is the real Tea Party?

Check this one out. They use Rand Paul's and Sarah Palin's photos on the page.

http://www.teapartyplatform.us/Welcome.html

Read "what we believe"

The second sentence says...

"As strict constructionists we believe the Constitution should be amended to protect life and prohibit all abortions, without exception"

Abortion was never an original Tea Party issue but be that as it may, IMO, a strict constructionist would not wish to amend the constitution to take away personal choice. If they want to talk abortion then the correct thing for a strict constructionist to say would be "leave it up to the states"

Further down the page in talking about putting God back in education it says "Jews might be okay too." Really? That reads like a national platform.
I think a strict constructionist would reject the entire idea of a national education system and let individual States, school districts and communities decide on curriculum and religion.
Other statements on that page would indicate an agenda other than personal freedom.

Now look at other "Tea Party" sites:

http://www.teaparty-platform.com/

http://www.teapartypatriots.org/

http://www.theteaparty.net/about-the-tea-party/

I can't find it now but I ran across one earlier that was advocating affordable housing. WTF? The Tea Party wants to get involved in housing. How does that reduce the size of government?

The Tea Party I support wants only a few things.
A strong national defense and secure borders.
Smaller more efficient government so I have to pay less taxes
and for Federal government to stay the fuck out of my life and return to Constitutional principles.

I went to some Tea Party Rallies in the early days. They were a collection of people of no particular race, creed or color. What the rallies were about was lower taxes and smaller government. They got a lot of attention just for that.
Next thing you know certain Republicans are infusing their ideas about social and economic issues and certain Democrats start throwing the race card, or the poor card or whatever card they can play to discredit the Tea party for shit they originally wanted nothing to do with. Then the zealots get involved and the whole thing is just another load of crap.

As a result we seem to have several different factions with their own ideas about what the "Tea Party" is and plenty of confusion on the part of citizens like me that are trying to figure out what the hell happened.

With that kind of confusion it's easy to see why guys like WTF can easily make fun "Tea Wackos".