[Vision2020] Teabaggers

Fri Mar 12 17:36:56 PST 2010

Roger,

When you make relies, do not use or delete the ">" from in front of your entries so that we can tell which entries are yours.  Else it is too hard to read, and not worth the effort.

W.
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: lfalen 
  To: Saundra Lund ; 'Joe Campbell' ; Vision2020 at moscow.com 
  Sent: Friday, March 12, 2010 10:16 AM
  Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Teabaggers

  I will make some comments after some of your statements
  -----Original message-----
  From: "Saundra Lund" v2020 at ssl.fastmail.fm
  Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:01:23 -0800
  To: "'Joe Campbell'" philosopher.joe at gmail.com, Vision2020 at moscow.com
  Subject: RE: [Vision2020] Teabaggers

  > Hi Joe,
  > 
  > Great to read you again, and thanks for such a cogent post, with which I
  > wholeheartedly agree.
  > 
  > Just another comment or two, and a couple or three comments back to Roger.
  > 
  > You wrote:
  > "In fact, teabaggers initially called themselves “teabaggers”!"
  > 
  > Exactly.  It was a self-chosen label, unlike the GOP's inclination to call
  > all with conscience and who put people above profit "socialists" and
  > "communists" and "anti-American" and all that other nonsense.
  > 
  > I suppose it would be fair to say that the teabaggers were FOR their
  > self-chosen label before they were against it.  How positively GOP of them
  > :-)
  > 
  > Perhaps, though, a good compromise would be to refer to them as
  > teabaggers-cum-Tea Partiers  ;-)
  > 
  > In a separate response to me, Roger wrote:
  > "The bulk of them however are for smaller government, freemarkets, and
  > adhering to the Constitution."
  > 
  > Really, you need to get OUT more because you are completely out of touch
  > with how the movement has . . . evolved.  Heck -- I can't even call it an
  > evolution because it was defined by wingnuts from the very beginning, I'm
  > sorry to say  :-(
  > I did not say that wren't any wingnut in the Tea Party. I said that there were some in most movement. You rile against wingnunts associated with the Tea Party. I have yet to see you, Tom, Nick or Wayne comment on those left wingers that think that 9/11 was an inside job of the Bush Administration. If wou buy into that then you are futher out on the fringe than anybody in associated with the Tea Party. You imply that I am uninformed. It is true that I do not listen to tv news even Fox. but here is a list where I do get information- Newsweek, US News and World Reports, Newsmax, Reason, The Heritage Foundation, National Review, Natural History, Natural Geographic, Wild West, American History, History Cannel Magazine, Discover Magazine, American Heritage, The NRA, AARP, Archaeology, Kiplinger's Personel Fianace,, Money, Scientific American, Health New, Sheptical Opservor, Cituzebs Agint Government Waste, Drug Policy Alliance, Tuffs 
  > I'm really sorry, Roger -- you don't get to define the movement according to
  > your ideals.  I wish you did, though, because this country would be a better
  > place if those were the genuine motives of the teabaggers-cum-Tea Partiers.
  > 
  > In a response to Nick, Roger also made the comment:
  > "What the mainline media says does not confirm anything. they have been
  > consistent  either in ignoring the Tea Party or downplaying it."
  > 
  > Again, Roger, and I say this with love:  you really need to broaden your
  > horizons.  The Teabaggers-cum-Tea Partiers have been ALL over the news,
  > including that embarrassing 9/12 Teabaggers-cum-Tea Partiers attendance
  > gross overestimation.  Indeed, I would argue that the mainstream media has
  > overblown the whole thing.  Most likely, the movement is going to implode
  > precisely because honest people were initially drawn to a movement that is &
  > was from the very beginning grossly overpopulated by wingnuts.  Basically,
  > it's become a freak show with the likes of lunatics like Tancredo providing
  > scary entertainment for the rest of us.
  > 
  > In a response to Keely, Roger wrote:
  > "There are also a substantial number of Black Americans in the Tea Party."
  > 
  > Who am I going to believe:  your statement or my lying eyes?  Absent proof
  > to the contrary, I'm going to believe what I've seen with my own eyes.
  > 
  > IOW, Roger, put up or shut up.  Nick provided statistics from a libertarian
  > delegate to the Tea Party Convention that 99.5% of the delegates were WHITE.
  > If there are so many "Black Americans" in the Tea Party, why were 99.5% of
  > the delegates WHITE?  And, of course, there are my own lying eyes that tell
  > me there aren't "substantial" numbers of anything but white folks in the Tea
  > Party.
  > 
  > 
  > Saundra Lund
  > Moscow, ID
  > 
  > The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do
  > nothing.
  > ~ Edmund Burke
  > 
  > ***** Original material contained herein is Copyright 2010 through life plus
  > 70 years, Saundra Lund. Do not copy, forward, excerpt, or reproduce outside
  > the Vision 2020 forum without the express written permission of the
  > author.*****
  > 
  > 
  > -----Original Message-----
  > From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com]
  > On Behalf Of Joe Campbell
  > Sent: Wednesday, March 10, 2010 2:15 PM
  > To: Vision2020 at moscow.com
  > Subject: [Vision2020] Teabaggers
  > 
  > A few comments on the use of the word “teabaggers.”
  > 
  > 1/ Nick was not the first person to call folks in the Tea Bag movement
  > “teabaggers.” The term “teabagger” was a finalist for the New Oxford
  > American Dictionary’s “word of the year.” And not for the “sex act”
  > use of the term but for the usage that refers to members of the Tea
  > Bag movement – as Nick used it. Dictionaries have no political agenda.
  > They just register usage. In fact, teabaggers initially called
  > themselves “teabaggers”!
  > 
  > 2/ According to the Urban Dictionary, “teabagger” has FIVE distinct
  > meanings, the FIRST of which is “one who carries large bags of
  > packaged tea for shipment.” Only one of the five meanings has the
  > explicit sexual connotation.
  > 
  > 3/ Why does the use of the word “teabaggers” make folks “cringe every
  > time” they hear it? I’m no psychologist but my guess is the term has
  > gay connotations and the CONSERVATIVE – not libertarian but
  > straight-up conservative – folks in the tea bag movement are
  > homophobic. Maybe there is another reason that the term makes you
  > cringe, Dan, but if there is I don’t get it. Maybe it’s just the
  > sexuality of the connotation but when my softball teammates call me a
  > “baller” I laugh, I don’t cringe.
  > 
  > 4/ Teabaggers pretend to be libertarian but how many of them voted for
  > a state constitutional amendment against gay and lesbian marriage?
  > Let’s face it, once you give the state the right to tell you whom to
  > MARRY, you’ve crossed over to the non-libertarian side of the
  > political spectrum. Like Garrett, I applaud much of the teabaggers’
  > platform, especially the limitation of “government intrusion.” As Nick
  > notes, teabaggers are for “economic liberty” not freedom from
  > government intrusion. And they are not for economic liberty for all.
  > Otherwise, why on earth wouldn’t they favor gay and lesbian marriages
  > so that gays and lesbians can enjoy the same tax benefits as straight
  > married couples? This is just standard George Bush, religious-right
  > conservatism wearing a new hat. If it were otherwise, it would have
  > started long before Obama was elected.
  > 
  > 5/ Dan, as much as I like and respect you, you are a hypocrite, as
  > Garrett suggested. You POSTED on Tom Forbes’ website back when he had
  > a tagline that was insulting to academics, like myself. When the
  > Christ Church guy held up the sign that said that Linda Paul, Tom
  > Lamar, and Aaron Ament were bigots, you told me in an exchange on the
  > Daily News blog that the right approach to insulting “idiots” was to
  > ignore them. You even went so far as to openly criticize Tom’s wife
  > and daughter for confronting the Christ Church bigot guy. Dale
  > Courtney essentially called all liberals and progressives “communists”
  > in the header of his blog for years – a practice that is shared each
  > day by Rush and Beck – and I never hear a peep from you about that. As
  > much as it bothers you to hear the word “teabagger,” how would you
  > like it if folks regularly called you a “communist”? My brother, my
  > father, and my grandfather fought in wars against communists to help
  > secure our freedoms and I can tell you I don’t like it one bit. I’ve
  > never heard you condemn the usage of that term in reference to
  > liberals and progressives.
  > 
  > I’ll tell you what. The next time that Donovan Arnold, or some other
  > Christ Church dupe, writes an insulting comment following a post by
  > Nick, or Tom, or Keely and you make a similar condemnation of his
  > language, I’ll apologize for calling you a “hypocrite.” A slight
  > parenthetical remark here is not convincing. Sorry. Back it up with
  > action. Please.
  > 
  > 6/ I’m going to continue to use “teabaggers.” It reminds everyone of
  > how out of touch the movement is, and how hastily developed it was.
  > Anyone who forms a political movement without taking enough time to
  > research the alternative connotations of the NAME of their group
  > deserves to be reminded of it regularly!
  > 
  > The term is a reminder, also, of how narrow and conservative the true
  > aims of the Tea Party are. They are concerned merely with limited
  > economic relief for some, not liberty and freedom for all. They don’t
  > even want to think about gays, let alone afford them equal rights. It
  > is faux-libertarianism disguised as the real thing, the government
  > telling us whom to marry but giving us tax relief. Yipes! Essentially,
  > they are saying that they’re willing to accept the governmental
  > suppression of others just as long as they get some tax money back!
  > What a perverse “libertarian” nightmare.
  > 
  > Libertarianism is a tough row to hoe. It entails giving folks the
  > right to do things that are against your own personal beliefs, for it
  > puts freedom from the state ahead of all other concerns. I am far more
  > libertarian than ANY teabagger I know!
  > 
  > Best, Joe
  > 
  > 

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