The Glade 4.0

That sounds like every rally I've ever heard of with the exception of the civil rights movement. When has a rally ever accomplished anything? You can make the argument they raise awareness and prompt discussion but I don't see people changing their minds and voting over posters, chanted slogans and mobs of people.

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I would say that at political rallies, President Obama was rather successful at inspiring people to get out and volunteer for his campaign. What's going to come out of Stewart's rally? People write letters to the media, who won't care because they're in the business of getting higher ratings and making money because sensationalism sells?

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The Dude abides.

Blech.

Ah well, if I think too hard on how depressing that is, I just remember that I'm in Canada where--while things aren't perfect (and a few trends are quite alarming), we seem to be much closer to my ideal. We're far more fiscally conservative, and far more socially liberal, than the USA.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
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That is the polar opposite of my experiences. There have been zero mentions of Christianity; there have been zero advocates for military expansionism or "more personal regulation" at any of the Tea Party functions I have attended. On the other hand, there has been considerable discussion of, and speech-ifying about, drug legalization, military non-interventionism and open borders/immigration controls. The only time homosexuality has come up is in reference to the the outmoded policy that is DADT.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Perhaps I wasn't clear. I don't think anybody doubts that Sir Dr. Stephen T. Colbert, D.F.A. is a character. I've seen speculation both ways as to how Stephen Colbert, the real comedian, leans politically. Is the character a parody meant to ridicule and marginalize the right? Or is it an exaggeration meant to be crazy in order to command an audience and make them laugh in order to make a living?

RD, I'd love to see sourcing on those claims about the Tea Party split. Are we talking about articles with a strong undertone of slander and undermining, or serious polls with good statistical practices and wide samples?

It wouldn't surprise me if there was a heavy mix of Christians and pro-lifers in the Tea Party alongside the serious libertarian types, but my experiences with it would lead me to be very surprised if those Christians and pro-lifers were predominantly politicizing their faith. And I have no idea where your articles are getting aggressive military stances from when reporting on the Tea Party.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I know a lot of people are quoting this post, but I'd like to point out that the Tea Parties have been independent of any party affiliation, and once they became more then the flavor of the week group of nut jobs with Gadsen flags, Palin, Beck and certain Republicans have tried to buddy up to the movements. So I feel it's not about the Tea Parties affiliating themselves with those people, as much as it's those people trying to associate themselves with the Tea parties in order to gain popularity.

Unfortunatly without a central organizational structure, the Tea Parties can be copied by the normal partisan idiots.

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

By the by, here's the actual announcement of the Rally to Restore Sanity, from The Daily Show:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-s ... ore-sanity

I can attest to my positions about military spending being part of the problem receiving gasps of disbelief at several Tea Party events and meetings. Going so far as pointing out that our military spending is more than the combined military spending of all other nations combined and hearing cheers to that effect.

Individual Tea Parties are often of mixed minds and some entire Tea Party organizations are filled with one or the other. This is because an individual Tea Party is likely to be compossed of people who share beliefs with the founder - who often is the first person to grab a webpage or make some phone calls.

I find the national TP organizations tend to be much more aligned with social conservatives and pro-war neo cons than I find the average local mix to be.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

I don't think Obama inspired people to volunteer via rallies. John Kerry and Al Gore were both pretty wooden and still mustered the volunteers to run their campaigns. Some people are naturally passionate about politics and they will volunteer to campaign for Howdy Doody if he's the guy.

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Except, you don't believe the Obama Administration represents one of those extremes, which is problematic in and of itself. To quote Vox Day, "One can only begin to understand American politics when they accept that the Republicans are the moderate arm of the Democratic Party."

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Vox Day, is, of course, wrong.

The Republican party as an entity is not moderate. It's just batshit crazy extreme in a few different ways than the Democratic party.

The only centrist or moderate types left in American politics get marginalized by both sides.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Sorry for the delayed response, Kaffis. My view of the Tea Parties is a gestalt formed over the last year or so of reading articles, catching the highlights of polls, etc., so I had to go digging for specific references to provide. Anyway, here are a few links:

NY Times / CBS poll from April. Some of the relevant highlights are: (i) Tea Partiers favor Palin (social con) over Ron Paul (libertarian) by more than a 2 to 1 margin; (ii) 40% want to restrict legal immigration and 82% think illegal immigration is very serious problem (more of a social con than libertarian perspective); (iii) 40% oppose any legal recognition of gay couples; and (iv) 77% think abortion should be more restricted or outright banned. However, contrary to my premise, this poll and others that I found definitely show that economics issues are providing the passion - 78% said economic issues were the biggest problem facing the country, while only 14% said social issues were the most important.

That said, there's a difference between what people say their concerns are in polls and what they actually seem to care about when they decide which politicians to support. Accordingly, Tea Party-backed politicians have been one of the biggest influences on my impression of what Tea Partiers care about. People like Palin, Beck, DeMint, Angle, O'Donnell, Rubio, etc. are all solidly in the cultural conservative camp. And again, I think it's noteworthy that Tea Partiers like Palin so much more than Paul.

And here's Hitchens with what I think is an insightful commentary on the social/cultural currents in the Tea Party (at least the Beck/Palin part of it).

Lastly, here are a few Cato blog posts that discuss the question of a split between the libertarian and social con wings:

Libertarians, Independents, and Tea Parties
Was it a Church Picnic or a Freedom Rally?
Social Conservatives Left Behind?

Anyway, my take-away from the reconsideration your question prompted is - The Tea Parties are indeed a mix of social cons and libertarians, but the actual policy issues on which Tea Party supporters focus really do tend to be economic rather social/cultural (other than immigration), and hence the "split" is more nascent than actual. That said, there is a diffuse cultural ressentiment underpinning much of the movement, which is what explains the Tea Party support for social con and culture war rhetoric from folks like Palin, O'Donnell, Angle, DeMint, etc. What happens next - whether the Tea Parties and their preferred candidates focus on economic issues in practice or mix in more social con policies - will depend on what the high-profile leaders do and whether the rank-and-file choose to follow them.

I don't disagree -- I think your reconsidered perspective is probably far more appropriate. And, really, that's symptomatic of any true grassroots movement. It ends up being a lot of very different individuals coming together based on their strong underlying opinions on a particular topic, and differing a lot elsewhere. I don't think the Tea Party Movement is in any way viable as a long-term political party, but I think that it's doing a fantastic job of shaking up the political landscape and getting some churn into the thought processes and accepted status quo at the upper levels of the existing parties. Short of a viable 3rd (and 4th!) parties, I think that's what I'm looking for.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Obama is definately left of center, but he is by no means extreme in his positions. Further, he's been the most level headed and accomodating President we've had in years.

And that Vox Day quote is just assinine.

Level headed...accomodating...No - that would have been Clinton.

He was focused on what he wanted - no stress and for people to like him.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Those two statements aren't contradictory.

It's completely possible to be focused on what he wanted while being level headed and accomodating, which he has. The issue is that the Republicans just pissed around a bunch of rhetoric instead of actually taking him seriously and coming to the table. That's their problem, not his.

I don't think anything Obama has actually done can be called level-headed. I'll name just three:

1. Continuing and even expanding upon George W. Bush's already batshit-insane bailout policy.
2. Pushing forward a poorly thought out (and that's being generous) and utterly unworkable "universal health care" law. (And this is coming from someone in favor of universal health coverage.)
3. Increasing already batshit insane US spending levels.

The fact that I don't see him as substantially different than the republican he replaced (other than an ability to appear in public without coming across as an utter moron, anyway) doesn't mean he's not at the complete lunatic fringe extreme. The problem is, almost the entirety of both parties are at that same extreme.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

I completely disagree with your assessment Talya.

1. This was a necessity to prevent a worse scenario.
2. I don't believe the bill that was passed is unworkable. Sure there are going to be some bumps, because everyone's scared of change and dragging their feet trying to kill it. I'm certain that any issues will be worked out and smoothed over in time.
3. This is just tied to number 1.

I'm not really going to get into any further detail on these, as everyone is firmly intrenched in their opinions. We'll just have to agree to disagree.

None of the bailout spending was necessary or beneficial. I've explained, at length, how demand shift policies and government spending actually prolong and intensify economic troubles.

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Clearly it was necessary, because it was done.

setting aside the economic issues for the moment, politically it was necessary for the administration to be seen to do something

No, no it really wasn't. This is part of the problem. Government has set itself up as your great protector, the nanny-state, that can fix anything. Put your trust in Washington! They can solve all!

Government should rarely be visible. In fact, we should easily be able to forget it exists. We should never count on it to solve economic or social issues. In fact, we should demand that it remain the **** out of said issues.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

No, it was politically expedient to setting the tone for the administrations ability to be able to claim either success, or pass the buck, depending on the outcome. It was the soft pitch to start off their administration. Since that point, the policy has been everything other than the economy. You can debate whether action or inaction is better or not in terms of actually spurring a recovery, but I believe the major backlash about the economy is the lack of being "seen doing something".

Why?

Of course, we didn't really get much of either when you net out the decreases in state and local spending.