I've been rethinking my position. Maybe I've been too hard on the Tea Party (AKA Teabaggers).
- Maybe Sarah Palin IS a great intellect, just taken out of context.
- Maybe Delaware's O'Donnell is right that masturbation should be a crime and that the 1st amendment doesn't prevent government co-mingling with religion.
- Maybe Ted Danz the congressional candidate from upstate NY who says a no marriage should be recognized as legal unless it was sanctified by a "RELIGIOUS UNION" has a point.
- Perhaps Glenn Beck is right, that we need to put God back in our country.
- Maybe a founder of the Tea Party who says a sitting congressman should be prevented from serving and ousted from his duly elected position because he is a Muslim, has a point.
- Maybe churches who enjoy tax exemption SHOULD be allowed to promote one party over another from his pulpit and as a spokesman of God.
- Maybe Jefferson, Madison and Adams really wanted this to be a Jesus following, Christ embracing Christian Nation, and that only through some subterfuge were their personal writings vehemently against both it and the Jesus as resurrected divinity doctrine. Maybe someone expunged all references to God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit from the Constitution.
- Maybe that other candidate from Delaware was right...that it WAS Hitler who coined the term "Separation of Church and State", and everyone who accepts such a concept "is a Nazi."
- Perhaps the signs they hold depicting Obama as a terrorist, as Hitler, as an African witch doctor, and in white face really aren't expressions of bigotry and extremism. And maybe that email they circulate and signs they hold declaring him the"Anti-Christ" isn't so far fetched after all.
- Maybe we do need more prayer in school, and more religious symbols on public property; and less study of Jefferson and the 1st amendment's Establishment Clause's intent in our public school books.
Maybe I was just plain mistaken in believing that the Tea Baggers are largely made up of under educated ditto heads, fringe right wing reactionairies, religious fanatics, hate filled and bigoted racist homophobic white trash. Maybe I was wrong; maybe I owe them an apology. Maybe ... but I fucking doubt it.
9 comments:
Maybe? Nope. You get them right on.
Jon Stewart said this yesterday, and I agree with him. There are real bigots, and then there are people who are just plain scared. We have to learn to tell the difference. Here's the quote:
"If we amplify everything, we hear nothing. There are terrorists and racists and Stalinists and theocrats, but those are titles that must be earned. You must have the resume. Not being able to distinguish between real racists and Tea Partiers or real bigots and Juan Williams and Rick Sanchez is an insult, not only to those people but to the racists themselves who have put in the exhausting effort it takes to hate -- just as the inability to distinguish terrorists from Muslims makes us less safe not more."
Marie..there is something to be said for what Stewart said. Although I also reject some of what he said. I do not share his politcs, nor his perception of Juan Williams.
But he is correct that we can't paint all Tea Baggers as bigots, any more than all Muslims are terrorists. That said: The university of Washington survey from 2009 shows that there is a greater propensity toward racism, among Tea Baggers than the population at large.
http://www.examiner.com/progressive-in-portland/university-of-washington-survey-shows-tea-partiers-motivated-by-race
I tend to put more credence on the results of an independently conducted poll than the opinion of any talking head, from either side of the political spectrum.
Bravo Hump,
My sentiments exactly!!!
Sometimes I think of standing in the streets of a Delaware town at a Christie O’Donnell Rally and scream at the top of my lungs, “I am converted….I am now a true believer in the Tea Party!! I do believe that scientist are cross breading mice and humans to come up with mice with fully functioning human brains….they have to be smarter that anyone here at this Rally!!!”
Microdot sent me a link to a guy had a pretty bizarre encounter with O'Donnell on a drunken surprise halloween date three years ago. He claims they didn't actually have sex, but I think the punch line of the story was...
Q:How can you tell if Christine O'Donnell has an orgasm?
A:Who the fuck cares....
http://gawker.com/5674353/i-had-a-one+night-stand-with-christine-odonnell#photos
I highly recommend going to this site as I got a great laugh from it. She is such a full of crap twit!!
Keep up the good work my friend and lets hope for the best on Tuesday. :-)
Hump, it's hard to tell from the written quote, but Stewart was saying Juan Williams is NOT a bigot. And that we should be able to tell the difference between him and a real racist, but the media wants to take everything to an extreme....make people out to be racists etc when a more reasonable perspective is available. He also called out ABC, CBS and NPR because they wouldn't allow their employees to attend the rally on their own time for fear of appearing biased. I thought his speech at the end of the rally was brilliant, but then I think John Stewart and Stephen Colbert are brilliant. Any interview I've ever seen of them has shown them to be very intelligent, thoughtful people. They are brilliant satirists. And so are you, Hump! Loved this Satirical piece!
The thought of Christine O'Donnell (or anyone else with similar beliefs) gaining any kind of powerful position in government is utterly terrifying. Hopefully this whole witchcraft-dabbling thing scared a lot of her would-be supporters away.
Always a good idea to reassess, just to make sure one's decision was correct in the first place, and moreover, if it still makes sense for now. And ya, it was and it does :)
LOL! I doubt it too, Hump. LOL! These tea baggers make me (a liberal) miss the old school conservative Republicans--the fiscal ones who didn't get into the social issues. Most of those types have been forced out though, in favor of the far-right religious wing nuts. LOL!
Longhorn/Rachel.. thatnks for clarifying Stewart's reference to Juan Williams. I mis read it.
Rachelle: Something I find fascinating- Madness, theocratic idiocy, gross stupidity, ignoirance of history, and mental infirmity permeates this movement. But it's aherents, some of whom are atheists, are able to ignore or deny these things. It's tantamount to how fundie xtians ignore or deny scientific proofs inspite of overwhelming evidence.
I have always given atheists credit for being realists; people who analyze things and do not simply accept things blindly. I admit my mistake. Not all atheists are rational.
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