the Real Tea Party

[Vmarco]

Every Tea Bagger I've run across projects a prideful reactionary persona that they have it all figured out,...they're neo-neo-socio-cons extraordinaire. They fully believe that they are America's great last hope to return to the Founding Principles of the Country. If that was actually true, I'd be a Tea Partier.

 

Let's look at what the Founders Principles were:

 

 

"the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded upon the Christian religion".

 

drafted in 1796 by George Washington, then unanimously ratified by the US Senate and sign into law on June 10, 1797 by President John Adams

 

"It has often been said that anything may be proved from the Bible; but before anything can be admitted as proved by the Bible, the Bible itself must be proved to be true; for if the Bible be not true, or the truth of it be doubtful, it ceases to have authority, and cannot be admitted as proof of anything." Thomas Paine

 

"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason." Benjamin Franklin

 

 

John Adams (Deist) "As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?"

 

"In no instance have ... the churches been guardians of the liberties of people." James Madison (Deist)

 

 

Ethan Allen (Deist) stopped his own wedding until the presiding judge affirmed that "God" referred to the God of Nature and not to the God of the Bible.

 

Thomas Jefferson (Deist) "The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter."

 

The US Mottto "E Pluribus Unum" coined by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson, was illegally Christianized to "In God We Trust," in 1956,...and in October 2011, a Tea Party led Congress, during a time of grave economic instability, spent a month of the Tax Payers time to pass a non-binding resolution reaffirming "In God We Trust" as the national motto.

 

Forget about the over 40,000 new, socially intrusive laws passed by Tea Party legislatures in 2012,...Oct 2011 proves the lie of the Tea Party.

 

"Mr. Lincoln was not a Christian." Mary Todd Lincoln

 

"I have seldom met an intelligent person whose views were not narrowed and distorted by religion." James Buchanan

 

"You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it

turns out that God hates all the same people you do." Anne Lamott

 

 

 

V

[Vmarco]

[gendao]

Agreed. TP's are a shift away from the Republicans in the right direction...but Libertarians are probably the truest inheritors of the laissez-faire, anti-government Founding Fathers.

The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it.

 

The policy of the American government is to leave their citizens free, neither restraining nor aiding them in their pursuits.

 

I think myself that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.

 

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

 

The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

 

Liberty is the great parent of science and of virtue; and a nation will be great in both in proportion as it is free.

 

He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.

 

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.

 

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.

 

The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.

 

The man who reads nothing at all is better than educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.

 

I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature.

Of course, the irony is, none of the Founding Fathers could even get nominated, much less elected, today to any federal position. They would be labelled "far-right," uncompassionate, intolerant, militant, "gun nut," domestic terr0rist, 1%'r capitalist pigs..

[JustARandomPanda]

Liar's for Jesus' Chris Rodda debunking David Barton's book The Jefferson Lies

 

 

check this video out:

 

 

http://vimeo.com/39637421 < this one is really good!

 

 

And the following:

 

[ralis]

Liar's for Jesus' Chris Rodda debunking David Barton's book The Jefferson Lies

 

 

check this video out:

 

 

http://vimeo.com/39637421 < this one is really good!

 

 

And the following:

 

 

Just found this about the Tea Bagger David Barton. This guy is extremely dangerous!

 

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/david-barton

[ralis]

The Tea Bagger party represents and is fighting for a return to all the inequities of the past. Discrimination, education only for the privileged few that can afford it, neo-feudalism and a moving away from the enlightenment that this country was founded on.

[ralis]

Agreed. TP's are a shift away from the Republicans in the right direction...but Libertarians are probably the truest inheritors of the laissez-faire, anti-government Founding Fathers.

 

 

The founding fathers were anti government? That is very contradictory and makes no sense. What they were against was the 'divine right of kings' and this government was created to prevent a monarchy. That is why the 'rule of law' as opposed to the 'rule of a man' was clearly laid out in the Constitution. Have you read it or even have knowledge of what the founding fathers wrote?

[Vmarco]

[forum_jedi]

[thelerner]

I'm not a Tea Bagger, but as long as Joe isn't here to defend them I may as well take a stab at it. Christianity wise its a mixed bag, I think many founders were free thinkers, exemplified by Masonry and they kept their beliefs quiet and coded. Others were indeed fundamentalists which were the majority of the population.

 

While the majority of Tea Baggers seem to be old middle aged white guys, ultimately its not religious rewriting that gives them power and impact. Its simple math. We spend way more then we bring in, we've been doing it for years, and our economy will end in a train wreck unless we gravely tighten our belts and budget.

 

Thats the message that resonates and is hard to shake. It points to nasty medicine. Still the message has been co-opted by right wing crazies who won't touch the military budget, won't raise taxes (which Clinton & Reagan did successfully) and think in terms of 1950 glory days.

 

Still the main message of tighten our belts because massive borrowing will result in a depression and decline, is one we'd better heed. Its too bad there' s so little will in Congress to compromise.

 

Still I think/hope Obama's policies will make a dent in the deficit while keeping the U.S. safety net functioning. It'd be cool to have single payer universal health care by the end of his 2nd term too (we can dream).

 

Swinging the other way, let me say that the Occupy Wall Street movement gave me new respect for the Tea Party. That's because the Tea Party accomplished things. Not good things, but they got people elected, new legislature written and voted on. The OWS hasn't accomplished much. The thinking ' I'm gonna sleep in the park and march around until some law, somewhere, somehow is rewritten' hasn't and won't' accomplish much.

 

Like it or not, change is gonna come through politics. Votes and new legislature.

 

Get off my lawn hippie, and in the meantime put on a suit, get elected and pass some fair laws.

[Vmarco]

I'm not a Tea Bagger, but as long as Joe isn't here to defend them I may as well take a stab at it. Christianity wise its a mixed bag, I think many founders were free thinkers, exemplified by Masonry and they kept their beliefs quiet and coded.

 

While the majority of Tea Baggers seem to be old middle aged white guys, ultimately its not religious rewriting that gives them power and impact. Its simple math. .

 

 

You appear to have no comprehension of the facts. Many of the Founding Fathers were quite vocal regarding their dislike of Christianity. Perhaps George Washington kept somewhat quiet,...but he was among the few.

"Gouverneur Morris had often told me that General Washington (a Deist) believed no more of that system (Christianity) than did he himself." Thomas Jefferson

 

"I have examined all the known superstitions of the word, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth." Thomas Jefferson

 

"The Christian system of religion is an outrage on common sense." Thomas Paine

 

Let's look at the facts. Every study I've read regarding the Tea Party and their supporters, show that they're highly partisan and overwhelmingly religious,...in fact, they demand that religion, predominately the Christian religion, and their faith-based agenda's are part of the political debate,...fully contrary to the US Constitution.

 

A read of the transcripts of the first Tea Party Convention bears this out,...explicit Christian social conservatism was on display throughout. Even Pastor Rick Scarborough who opened the Convention with a prayer first declared, "I'm not a Republican; I'm not a Democrat; I'm a Christocrat," followed by wild cheers. Sarah Palin demanded that one of Congress's top priorities should be "asking for divine intervention from God." It was like a nightmare out of Margret Atwood's 'A Handmaids Tale'...a fascinating and horrific look into the near future. In the Republic of Gilead, formerly the United States, far-right Schlafly/Koch Brothers/Dick Armey/Michele Bachmann ideals, based on the God of Jacob, have created a monotheocratic government following a terrorist attacks using 'radiation dispersal devises' and subsequent suspension of the Constitution. The resulting society is one of strict control, inablity to have jobs or money and assignment to various classes (like the Theodosian and Justinian Laws which helped establish today's Christianity). The New America, now the Republic of Gilead, is a strict and dangerous political scene, where any type of crime can result in an execution and a public hanging on The Wall, where former abortionists, transsexuals and gays, Quakers, and Liberaterians, are with signs posted for their crimes.

 

Poll after poll shows that the Tea Party is disproportionately social conservative, and that they are fundamentally more concerned about putting God in government, than any other issue. This Christocratic zealousness can be seen in many of the over 40,000 new intruse laws spawned by Tea Party Legislatures in 2012,...although they try to project an image of concern over Big Government.

 

The second most prominent trait of the Tea Party is a belief that all the ills of the Nationy are caused by high taxes and liberals. The Group Think on this is unwavering.

 

Third, is that the Tea Party believes it is in harmony with the US Consitution.

 

Again,...let's look at the facts,...October 2011, a Tea Party led Congress, during a time of grave economic instability, spent a month of the Tax Payers time to pass a non-binding resolution reaffirming "In God We Trust" as the national motto,...an unConstitutional, impermissible government endorsement of religion. Not only has the Tea Party agenda enlarged Government in a most hideous and intrusive way, it has done so in full disregard to the US Constitution.

 

The Tea Party is the greatest threat America and the US Constitution has ever faced.

 

V

[Vmarco]

Sgt. Gary Stein, the 26-year-old Marine was less than honorably discharged yesterday for saying on his Armed Forces Tea Party Facebook account (which included a photo of Obama with the word, "Jackass" written underneath) "Screw Obama, I will not follow all orders from him....Obama is the religious enemy ... He is the 'fundamentally change' America enemy … He IS the Domestic Enemy."

In that statement is the essence of Tea Party mentality,...it is an unAmerican mentality.

 

Service members, under oath, vow to obey Directive 1344 of the Department of Defense. Stein violated military law.

 

Stein said afterwards. "I'm disappointed. Not only in the Marine Corps, but in myself."

 

I'm disappointed that Stein still doesn't get it!

[joeblast]

wow V, hate christians much? now, do you hate all religions equally, or does christianity have a special place reserved in your heart that is the default path for vitriol?

 

your narratives are such a wafer thin slice of reality...better, sir? better get a bucket! careful with that reality, if you ingest too much of it you'll blow your guts all over

 

love the MSM narrative that the entirety of the tea party is old white guys I guess that's where V gets his idea that if he simply clicks his heels and repeats the words 3 trillion times, people will begin to believe it and agree with him, regardless of how irrational it is. lots of mom & grams in there fellas - now how is it that a tea party rally happens and 350K descend on washington spanning the entire boulevard there and not a single scrap of garbage is left behind? oh right, those are the people that dont care about anyone else. versus...hm, what's best represented by OWS....the man shitting on the side of the police car? the vermin infested tent fields? the murder, rape, theft that went on there? the misuse of all the donations? I'm not sure which to choose.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOSps0pnZyc

 

I dunno, apparently there's something wrong with demanding fiscal sanity from the government? Demanding accountability? Demanding that they do not mismanage all of the funds they take from us? There's something wrong with securing the borders? ("What is sovereignty if you can't protect your own borders?" ) There's something wrong with being incredulous that progressives (was going to say democrats...but the party is gone, there are few of them left, the progressives have taken over the leadership of the party, that's why the most flamboyant and ridiculous of them are getting put in positions of power...pelosi, dWS, obama...and that is why I cant say "there's no difference between R&D, though in the past a lot of them have gone along to get along, but with the progressives getting further and further out of whack, notice that there is no such thing as a blue dog democrat any longer...why is that?) will break rules to get their ends met? How's about that 2007 D passed legislation to half the student loan rate and set it to expire just before the 2012 election so that it can be made into a campaign tool? Or for that matter, getting your PR folks to drum up false straw men like the fluke controversy, then turn around and be their representation...hm, yeah, nobody will notice that obama's former PR person's head PR person is quite close with fluke...I mean its just ridiculous.

 

And then the progressives have the gall to call tea partiers "un american" when damn near everything the progressives do is un american? Who's the joke on? The american people, that's who.

 

V, not going to be responding to your fantasyland posts any longer. You've been brainwashed by anti americans into thinking good ol traditional american values are anti american, its so obvious its just...not even funny anymore, I mean it would be, if it wasnt a serious issue. We have a genuine ideological struggle on our hands in this country - so are we going to be a country that punishes success, rewards laziness, or are wee going to be a country that realizes proper self interest is also coincident with the self interest of the people? Sorry, that requires yall to get up off your asses and make a living. Laziness is selfishness.

[Vmarco]

Edited April 27, 2012 by Vmarco

[ralis]

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120746516

 

 

Along with the threat of the Tea Bagger party is a little known group in D.C. known as 'the family'. This right wing fundamentalist group wields much control over certain members of the government especially the House and Senate. Sharlet's book is a well documented expose' on the dangers of right wing religious fundamentalism.

 

Several names mentioned here are members of the Tea Bagger movement.

 

The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power

By Jeff Sharlet

 

The Family, or the Fellowship, is in its own words an "invisible" association, though it has always been organized around public men. Senator Sam Brownback (R., Kansas), chair of a weekly, off -the-record meeting of religious right groups called the Values Action Team (VAT), is an active member, as is Representative Joe Pitts (R., Pennsylvania), an avuncular would-be theocrat who chairs the House version of the VAT. Others referred to as members include senators Jim DeMint of South Carolina, chairman of the Senate Steering Committee (the powerful conservative caucus co-founded back in 1974 by another Family associate, the late senator Carl Curtis of Nebraska); Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa); James Inhofe (R., Oklahoma); Tom Coburn (R., Oklahoma); John Thune (R., South Dakota); Mike Enzi (R., Wyoming); and John Ensign, the conservative casino heir elected to the Senate from Nevada, a brightly tanned, hapless figure who uses his Family connections to graft holiness to his gambling-fortune name. Some Democrats are involved: representatives Bart Stupak and Mike Doyle, leading anti-abortion Democrats, are longtime residents of the Family's C Street House, a former convent registered as a church and used to provide Family-subsidized housing for politicians supported by the Family. A centrist occasionally stumbles into the fold, but the Family is mostly conservative. Family stalwarts in the House include Representatives Frank Wolf (R., Virginia), Zach Wamp (R., Tennessee), and Mike McIntyre, a hard right North Carolina Democrat who believes that the Ten Commandments are "the fundamental legal code for the laws of the United States" and thus ought to be on display in schools and court houses.

 

The Family's historic roll call is even more striking: the late senator Strom Thurmond (R., South Carolina), who produced "confidential" reports on legislation for the Family's leadership, presided for a time over the Family's weekly Senate meeting, and the Dixie-crat senators Herman Talmadge of Georgia and Absalom Willis Robertson of Virginia — Pat Robertson's father — served on the behind-the-scenes board of the organization. In 1974, a Family prayer group of Republican congressmen and former secretary of defense Melvin Laird helped convince President Gerald Ford that Richard Nixon deserved not just Christian forgiveness but also a legal pardon. That same year, Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist led the Family's first weekly Bible study for federal judges.

 

"I wish I could say more about it," Ronald Reagan publicly demurred back in 1985, "but it's working precisely because it is private."

 

"We desire to see a leadership led by God," reads a confidential mission statement. "Leaders of all levels of society who direct projects as they are led by the spirit." Another principle expanded upon is stealthiness; members are instructed to pursue political jujitsu by making use of secular leaders "in the work of advancing His kingdom," and to avoid whenever possible the label Christian itself, lest they alert enemies to that advance. Regular prayer groups, or "cells" as they're often called, have met in the Pentagon and at the Department of Defense, and the Family has traditionally fostered strong ties with businessmen in the oil and aerospace industries.

 

The Family's use of the term "cell" long predates the word's current association with terrorism. Its roots are in the Cold War, when leaders of the Family deliberately emulated the organizing techniques of communism. In 1948, a group of Senate staffers met to discuss ways that the Family's "cell and leadership groups" could recruit elites unwilling to participate in the "mass meeting approach" of populist fundamentalism. Two years later, the Family declared that with democracy inadequate to the fight against godlessness, such cells should function to produce political "atomic energy"; that is, deals and alliances that could not be achieved through the clumsy machinations of legislative debate would instead radiate quietly out of political cells. More recently, Senator Sam Brownback told me that the privacy of Family cells makes them safe spaces for men of power — an appropriation of another term borrowed from an enemy, feminism. "In this closer relationship," a document for members reads, "God will give you more insight into your own geographical area and your sphere of influence." One's cell should become "an invisible 'believing group'" out of which "agreements reached in faith and in prayer around the person of Jesus Christ" lead to action that will appear to the world to be unrelated to any centralized organization.

 

In 1979, the former Nixon aide and Watergate felon Charles W. Colson — born again through the guidance of the Family and the ministry of a CEO of arms manufacturer Raytheon — estimated the Family's strength at 20,000, although the number of dedicated "associates" around the globe is much smaller (around 350 as of 2006). The Family maintains a closely guarded database of associates, members, and "key men," but it issues no cards, collects no official dues. Members are asked not to speak about the group or its activities.

 

"The Movement," a member of the Family's inner circle once wrote to the group's chief South African operative, "is simply inexplicable to people who are not intimately acquainted with it." The Family's "political" initiatives, he continues, "have always been misunderstood by 'outsiders.' As a result of very bitter experiences, therefore, we have learned never to commit to paper any discussions or negotiations that are taking place. There is no such thing as a 'confidential' memorandum, and leakage always seems to occur. Thus, I would urge you not to put on paper anything relating to any of the work that you are doing ... [unless] you know the recipient well enough to put at the top of the page 'PLEASE DESTROY AFTER READING.'"

 

"If I told you who has participated and who participates until this day, you would not believe it," the Family's longtime leader, Doug Coe, said in a rare interview in 2001. "You'd say,'You mean that scoundrel? That despot?'"

 

A friendly, plainspoken Oregonian with dark, curly hair, a lazy smile, and the broad, thrown-back shoulders of a man who recognizes few superiors, Coe has worked for the Family since 1959 and been "First Brother" since founder Abraham Vereide was "promoted" to heaven in 1969. (Recently, a successor named Dick Foth, a longtime friend to John Ashcroft, assumed some of Coe's duties, but Coe remains the preeminent figure.) Coe denies possessing any authority, but Family members speak of him with a mixture of intimacy and awe. Doug Coe, they say — most people refer to him by his first and last name — is closer to Jesus than perhaps any other man alive, and thus privy to information the rest of us are too spiritually "immature" to understand. For instance, the necessity of secrecy. Doug Coe says it allows the scoundrels and the despots to turn their talents toward the service of Jesus — who, Doug Coe says, prefers power to piety — by shielding their work on His behalf from a hardhearted public, unwilling to believe in their good intentions. In a sermon posted online by a fundamentalist website, Coe compares this method to the mob's. "His Body" — the Body of Christ, that is, by which he means Christendom — "functions invisibly like the mafia. ... They keep their organization invisible. Everything visible is transitory. Everything invisible is permanent and lasts forever. The more you can make your organization invisible, the more influence it will have."

 

For that very reason, the Family has operated under many guises, some active, some defunct: National Committee for Christian Leadership, International Christian Leadership, National Leadership Council, the Fellowship Foundation, the International Foundation. The Fellowship Foundation alone has an annual budget of nearly $14 million. The bulk of it, $12 million, goes to "mentoring, counseling, and partnering with friends around the world," but that represents only a fraction of the network's finances. The Family does not pay big salaries; one man receives $121,000, while Doug Coe seems to live on almost nothing (his income fluctuates wildly according to the off-the-books support of "friends"), and none of the fourteen men on the board of directors (among them an oil executive, a defense contractor, and government officials past and present) receives a penny. But within the organization money moves in peculiar ways, "man-to-man" financial support that's off the books, a constant proliferation of new nonprofits big and small that submit to the Family's spiritual authority, money flowing up and down the quiet hierarchy. "I give or loan money to hundreds of people, or have my friends do so," says Coe.

 

The Family's only publicized gathering is the National Prayer Breakfast, which it established in 1953 and which, with congressional sponsorship, it continues to organize every February at the Washington, D.C., Hilton. Some 3,000 dignitaries, representing scores of nations and corporate interests, pay $425 each to attend. For most, the breakfast is just that, muffins and prayer, but some stay on for days of seminars organized around Christ's messages for particular industries. In years past, the Family organized such events for executives in oil, defense, insurance, and banking. The 2007 event drew, among others, a contingent of aid-hungry defense ministers from Eastern Europe, Pakistan's famously corrupt Benazir Bhutto, and a Sudanese general linked to genocide in Darfur.

 

Here's how it can work: Dennis Bakke, former CEO of AES, the largest independent power producer in the world, and a Family insider, took the occasion of the 1997 Prayer Breakfast to invite Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni, the Family's "key man" in Africa, to a private dinner at a mansion, just up the block from the Family's Arlington headquarters. Bakke, the author of a popular business book titled Joy at Work, has long preached an ethic of social responsibility inspired by his evangelical faith and his free-market convictions: "I am trying to sell a way of life," he has said. "I am a cultural imperialist." That's a phrase he uses to be provocative; he believes that his Jesus is so universal that everyone wants Him. And, apparently, His business opportunities: Bakke was one of the pioneer thinkers of energy deregulation, the laissez-faire fever dream that culminated in the meltdown of Enron. But there was other, less-noticed fallout, such as a no-bid deal Bakke made with Museveni, the result of a relationship that began at the 1997 Prayer Breakfast, for a $500-million dam close to the source of the White Nile — in waters considered sacred by Uganda's 2.5-million–strong Busoga minority. AES announced that the Busoga had agreed to "relocate" the spirits of their dead. They weren't the only ones opposed; first environmentalists (Museveni had one American arrested and deported) and then even other foreign investors revolted against a project that seemed like it might actually increase the price of power for the poor. Bakke didn't worry. "We don't go away," he declared. He dispatched a young man named Christian Wright, the son of one of the Prayer Breakfast's organizers, to be AES's in- country liaison to Museveni; Wright was later accused of authorizing at least $400,000 in bribes. He claimed his signature had been forged.

 

"I'm sure a lot of people use the Fellowship as a way to network, a way to gain entree to all sorts of people," says Michael Cromartie, an evangelical Washington think tanker who's critical of the Family's lack of transparency. "And entree they do get."

 

"Anything can happen," according to an internal planning document, "the Koran could even be read, but JESUS is there! He is infiltrating the world." Too bland most years to merit much press, the breakfast is regarded by the Family as merely a tool in a larger purpose: to recruit the powerful attendees into smaller, more frequent prayer meetings, where they can "meet Jesus man to man."

 

In the process of introducing powerful men to Jesus, the Family has managed to effect a number of behind-the-scenes acts of diplomacy. In 1978 it helped the Carter administration organize a worldwide call to prayer with Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat. At the 1994 National Prayer Breakfast, Family leaders persuaded their South African client, the Zulu chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, to stand down from the possibility of civil war with Nelson Mandela. But such benign acts appear to be the exception to the rule. During the 1960s, the Family forged relationships between the U.S. government and some of the most oppressive regimes in the world, arranging prayer networks in the U.S. Congress for the likes of General Costa e Silva, dictator of Brazil; General Suharto, dictator of Indonesia; and General Park Chung Hee, dictator of South Korea. "The Fellowship's reach into governments around the world," observes David Kuo, a former special assistant to the president in Bush's first term, "is almost impossible to overstate or even grasp."

Edited April 27, 2012 by ralis

[Vmarco]

Edited April 27, 2012 by Vmarco

[thelerner]

You appear to have no comprehension of the facts.

Yawwnn, You find everyone who disagrees with you to have no comprehension of the facts. Or is naive. You think in stereotypes, you disagree with a group and immediately paint them all as villains. You pull Limbaugh's, ie find an extreme story that backs up your thinking and declare it to represent the whole picture.

 

Fact is 56 people signed the Declaration of Independence (vs say 204 'founding fathers' by some counts), some of the big names weren't religious, most were. In grade school you learn story book history; mostly sanitized nice stuff. In high school there's more depth and you're surprised to learn about the Mason's and Free Thinkers role in the founding fathers (that may be where Vmarco is).

 

In college and beyond you learn about the world of the founding fathers, their lack of cohesion, their fights and causes. By no means did they share the same religious or irreligious beliefs. The deeper you study, the more diversity you find and how miraculous the pulling off the independence comes.

 

I could put in facts, but it wouldn't make a difference to you. You write first, close your mind second. No, you stereotype first, write 2nd, close your mind third.

[Vmarco]

Yawwnn, You find everyone who disagrees with you to have no comprehension of the facts. Or is naive.

 

Are you suggesting that there was some sort of evidentiary facts in your post #10? All I saw was opinion, that was not expressed through anything other than the Tea Party's own propaganda.

 

In this latest post you bring up a discussion of the Founding Fathers,...much of which for the Tea Party is based on WallBuilder revisionism.

 

Sure, one could consider a few hundred people were influencial during America's founding. Most historians today name seven key Founders, which highlights the incompetency and Christian brainwashing that is America today.

 

According to experts, the seven key Founders were John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington. That BS list alters the whole subject. (By the way, only Hamilton and Jay were Christians, and Federalists,...the other 5 in this list despised the Federalists. If the Federalists had their way, no Catholics could ever accept Public Office, and the Louisiana Purchase would have never happened.)

 

"Washington's (Deist) sword would have been yielded in vain had it not been supported by the pen of Paine (Deist)" James Monroe (Deist)

 

The actual Father of the American Revolution was Thomas Paine,...although Christians has revised that, and designated (Christian)Samual Adams as the Father of the American Revolution. At best, Sam Adams could be called the Father of the Tea Party.

 

The Tea Party, like most American Sheeple, believe, since the McCarthy era, that 52 of the 55 delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention were Christian. Again, this is Christian revisionist history.

 

Although there are many sources to the contrary, I'll state one specifically. According to Herman C. Weber, DD, an expert in religious censuses and statistics, few early Americans were members of a Christian church. In the 1933 Yearbook of American Churches, for instance, it says that just 6.9% of U.S. citizens belonged to a church in 1800. By 1850, religious membership had risen to 15.5%. By 1900, Christians had doubled their percentage to 37%. However, not until 1942 did Christian affiliation exceed 50% of the U.S. population.

 

6.9% of Head of Households were Christian in 1800,...but 98% of the delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention were Christian. Can you not see the deception?

 

1942 should be an important date, for in a short few years, Christianity, and all its BS revisionism, begain infiltration all aspects of what is media-ted to the Sheeple,...the beginning of the McCarthy era,...which never ended,...just taken on different names like Moral Majority, and now, the Tea Party,...each time getting stronger,...each time bringing more and more inflicting Americans with their viral meme.

 

V

[thelerner]

You are right, the majority of the big names were deist. But not all and in the greater majority they were not. America was very lucky to have such people in our founding. I agree with you the Tea Party claims a legacy it should not, our founders were not all fundamentalist christians out to found a Christian country. I also agree with you we were not the Christian country many paint us as. In the 1700's and 1800's the majority would say they were Christian but most weren't very religious and regular church goers.

 

Within the 'major' 7 mentioned, most were free thinking some were not and amongst the greater majority most (I believe) weren't. Which only reflects that they were men of their time, whereas Jefferson, and Franklin (I can't add Washington here) were men in many ways ahead of there time. At the time Deism was a radical idea, it informed their thinking but was not discussed widely and publicly. (ie Jefferson's bible was held in secret most of his life) I think we have to be careful to see the reality of the situation of the time and not make the mistake generalizing the situation like the Tea party does.

 

Still, my main point is to understand the Tea Party and it's popularity you need to see that their power comes as much from the doctrine of smaller, less intrusive government with a balanced budget, as from the fundamentalist potentially regressive policies. Though some Tea Partier's are whackos, most are regular people in fear for the economy of the U.S. To reach them you need arguments on the economic side, and can't paint the whole movement as insane.

[Vmarco]

Still, my main point is to understand the Tea Party and it's popularity you need to see that their power comes as much from the doctrine of smaller, less intrusive government with a balanced budget, as from the fundamentalist potentially regressive policies. Though some Tea Partier's are whackos, most are regular people in fear for the economy of the U.S. To reach them you need arguments on the economic side, and can't paint the whole movement as insane.

 

And again my point is, that your conjecture is not in alignment with the facts,...which are that everything the Tea Party does, even justified rants about "Big Government", do not jive with their proven social christo-fascist agenda.

 

Yes,...Tea Party supporters have justifiable fear for the economy,...but their way of addressing it is through their deluded theistic memes. If you can see it,...see it in the over 40,000 new and intrusive laws enacted in 2012,...you're blind. If you can't see it in the month (October 2011) that the Tea Party Congress spent, at Tax Payers expense, during an economic crises, to pass a non-binding resolution reaffirming "In God We Trust" as the national motto,...which is an unConstitutional, impermissible government endorsement of religion,...then you're blind.

 

Although the Tea Party talks up the propaganda of "smaller, less intrusive government" their actions speak otherwise,...in BIG Black-n-White. They want a Theocracy,...not a Constitutionally lawful society. They want their god in everything,...not E Pluribus Unum.

 

They don't give a damn about the environment,...the economy,...the Constitution,...nor the American people, except those Americans in lock-step with their Christian values.

 

Tea Party supporters are like pedaphiles who think they are truly loving their victims,...only in this case, half the Country believe their nonsense. Americans as a whole are some of the most ignorant and selfish people on the planet. Just as much of this film suggests:

[JustARandomPanda]

Can someone post a link to the transcript of the First or Second Tea Party conventions? I've tried searching on the web for them but keep turning up empty. All results I've obtained so far lead to articles about various aspects of the conventions but not the transcripts themselves.

[ralis]

From my observation of the Tea Bagger movement, there is an obsession with orderliness and the western ideal of the rugged individual. Their obsession with wanting to eliminate social programs which they believe creates a lackadaisical mindset in the recipients of, would be a rapid transformation of this country to neo-feudalism.

[Vmarco]

Can someone post a link to the transcript of the First or Second Tea Party conventions? I've tried searching on the web for them but keep turning up empty. All results I've obtained so far lead to articles about various aspects of the conventions but not the transcripts themselves.

 

 

Yes,...I wouldn't want any decent American reading that Convention filth either,...good move of the Tea Party to remove it.

 

http://www.examiner.com/article/religion-tea-party-politics-and-the-new-christocrats

 

http://article.wn.com/view/2012/03/01/The_Christocrats_never_really_went_away/

 

http://rwor.org/a/039/religious-voice-against-christian-fascism.htm

[JustARandomPanda]

Hmm...

 

 

Well I did some searches on YouTube and found these vids that seems interesting.

 

 

 

 

[Vmarco]

Or