My problem with the Tea Party

Ok, this cheeses me off. A rant must be had.

The Tea Party is a bunch of shit. It really is. They claim to care only about removing the government, lowering taxes, and letting the market fend for itself, but a quick glance at their official website clearly shows that isn't the case. The core values, according to their website, are "Fiscal Responsibility, Constitutionally Limited Government, and Free Markets," which are all fine. I agree with all three of those (to a degree). However, a quick glance at their blog section, and it's abundantly clear, they have an agenda that stretches far from those three items.

For example, there is an article linked entitled "The Homosexual Agenda Could [sic] Care Less About Marriage." Herein lies the problem. Social mommy-coddling is not stated in the core values. Tea Partiers claim not to be bigots, yet they put a bigoted story on the website. Your website represents you as a whole - not individuals. So by putting a story that says, and I quote, "Homosexual activists are attempting to forcibly impose their views of morality and decency, and their definition of marriage, on American society. They want to foist their behavior on society, to have the homosexual lifestyle acknowledged and accepted as legitimate," it clearly shows that the tea party at least agrees with this line. This goes well beyond the scope of fiscal responsibility, limited government, and free markets, folks.

I understand that many of your members are conservative. I understand many of your members are Christian. Both of those are fine, but don't claim that your movement is there only to ensure a small government that spends wisely, in a market that monitors itself, when you are trying to push religious stances on the law. Believe what you want. Believe in the tea party's core values. Stay within the bounds if you want the 'movement' to seem credible. Do not hide behind the pretense of political correctness ("oh, we're not racist, we like social equality, etc") just to garner votes. Say what you mean, mean what you say. That goes for any party, but for a radical group, it means much more.

They also claim that they can know the original intent of the Constitution, which is the same problem I have with holy texts. You can't. You just can't. The people that wrote it are dead, and you have no idea what they were thinking. You can INTERPRET, but that is not the same as knowing. And by holding the Constitution (in their eyes, not a living document, but rather a hard law) as the highest letter of the land, it just so happens that the first line of the Bill of Rights says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion," so by placing a story on the website that states "some may be shocked to discover that religion and morality motivates traditional marriage. However, it is clear that religion and Judeo-Christian morality were explicitly and justifiably responsible for most of our laws, customs and social definitions, including those related to marriage," it's more than just a little hypocritical. We don't need that. Your party doesn't need that.

Incidentally, in the news lately, we've heard talk of stopping citizenship to babies born to illegals in the country, despite the Constitution, via 14th amendment,  stating quite clearly that they are. The tea party (among others) holds the Constitution to be indivisible.... except where they think it's wrong. Wait, what?

Conservatives and Tea Partiers are an entirely exclusive group. If you don't think like us, you are wrong, and we'll make laws to ensure that our views, and our views alone are enshrined, seems to be the cry. The same can be said for the liberals, sure. If you don't think like us, you are wrong, and we'll make laws to ensure that our views, and our views alone are enshrined, seems to be the cry. However, the difference is that the liberal view is INclusive. The liberal view is that everyone should have the same rights. Everyone should have the same opportunity. Rather than shutting your group out of the system, it's an open door. Naturally, extremism on both sides only ends in failure, so the solution lies somewhere in between, but which viewpoint is the better, more noble one? The one that says "I'm, sorry, you don't think or act like me, therefore you cannot have the same opportunities as me," or the one that says "You don't think or act like me, but have a go at it anyway." It's a thin line that is tread, but one that seems so obvious to me that it leaves me trembling and speechless that it even crosses the mind to think unequivocally "no" rather than "why not?"

Some say 'think before you speak.' How about 'think before you stomp on other people'?