I talked with a Tea Partier yesterday

[Freeper]

yardwork  (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Sun Apr-17-11 10:39 AM
Original message
I talked with a Tea Partier yesterday
   
She and her boyfriend spend a lot of time at Tea Party rallies. He's been unemployed for four years and has no interest in finding a job. She has a small service business that has been hit hard by the economic downturn. She's the only employee. He recently had serious surgery. I have no idea how this was paid for but I assume that he is on public assistance of one kind or another.

I asked her why they belonged to the Tea Party movement. She said that they are "fiscal conservatives." She said that she used to be a socialist but she read a book called Rich Dad, Poor Dad and that opened her eyes. Also, she said that when she was learning her current business she met people who had poor business sense and she equated that with being a socialist. She equates being a good business woman with being a Tea Partier.

She told me that banks are running the country and have been for hundreds of years. (This is invariably a prelude into anti-Semitic rants so I changed the subject before she went there.)

She said that people need to realize that we can't afford social security and Medicare anymore. She said that we need to ask wealthy people to stop using social security and Medicare since they don't need it, they say so themselves. I pointed out that if wealthy people no longer have any incentive to protect social security and Medicare then the rest of us won't have it for long, either. I suggested that a more straightforward approach to fiscal conservatism might be to simply raise the taxes on the very wealthy. She said that they would never agree to that. (She seemed to think that the wealthy would have no problem dropping their own social security and Medicare but leaving ours alone.)

There was kind of a longish pause and then she came back with, "Last week the IMF warned the United States that we have to do something about our out of control spending! That's never happened before!"

She mentioned that she feared that the U.S. Constitution was being dropped in favor of mob rule. She said that lots of "ultra-liberals" said that the Constitution was out-dated and no longer relevant. I said that I had never anybody say that but she was very insistent. I think that she might be thinking about amendments.

That was the end of the conversation. Their political activism is built on belief in scams, anti-Semitic and racist conspiracy theories, confusion and gullibility, all playing on the fears and economic anxieties of people already living at or over the edge. This is the face of the Tea Party. How do we reach these people?
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yourout  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Sun Apr-17-11 10:43 AM
Response to Original message
3. "How do we reach these people?".....we don't. Like an addict...beating it comes from within.

When your beliefs suck, you can't reach other people.

Cirque du So-What  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Sun Apr-17-11 10:44 AM
Response to Original message
5. Some people are inherently unreachable
   
From the way you describe them, the teabagger movement has tapped into their unshakable bigotry and paranoia. My advice: give them a couple bottles of cheap hooch the night before every election and if they're able to stagger to the polls the next day, they'll get turned away for being stoopid drunk.

More of the racist bullshit.

skepticscott  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Sun Apr-17-11 10:45 AM
Response to Original message
7. You don't
   
Edited on Sun Apr-17-11 10:46 AM by skepticscott
Any more than you "reach" the fundamentalist loons and bigots who are the other driving forces behind the current Republican party. They are, as a mindthink group, largely immune to reason or facts. Even if you manage to undermine the groupthink mentality for a few people, the core remains.

All you can do is expend every possible effort to limit their influence on public policy. Trying to change their minds about these issues is a waste of valuable time and effort.

A mindthink group?

[blitzkrieg_17]

No one is calling out this bouncy?

[Airwolf]

No one is calling out this bouncy?

Can't be a bouncy if it don't bounce even once. Its most likely a big assed lie.

[GOBUCKS]

Just yesterday, I was wondering why we've seen so very few bouncy tales recently, then bingo, here comes the unknown, faceless, anonymous unterprimitiven DUmmy yardwork with this beauty. Aside from DUmmy yardwork's other silly fiction, reminiscent of Pitt's "Ty the bouncer" classic, there's an obvious question raised: How does one "spend a lot of time at Tea Party rallies"?

Republicans work. Most confine their political activity to financially supporting pro-American organizations. A relative few are inclined toward the public, obnoxious, mob-type activity so beloved by democrats, and if they are, it's confined to their limited free time. Republicans don't spend weekdays parading around with obscene messages on poster boards. They're busy making America work, and paying the taxes that democrats live on.

So it's not possible this DUmbass is telling the truth about people  who "spend a lot of time at Tea Party rallies". They couldn't even if they wanted to.

[BlueStateSaint]

Republicans work. Most confine their political activity to financially supporting pro-American organizations. A relative few are inclined toward the public, obnoxious, mob-type activity so beloved by democrats, and if they are, it's confined to their limited free time. Republicans don't spend weekdays parading around with obscene messages on poster boards. They're busy making America work, and paying the taxes that democrats live on.

Dead on.  H5.

[jukin]

ZERO bong.

[true_blood]

Opening sentence brings in the bounce.

[LC EFA]

yardwork  (1000+ posts)  Sun Apr-17-11 10:39 AM
Original message
I talked with a Tea Partier yesterday
...

I said "Large Supreme with Garlic Bread and coke ? That will be $10" , He responded "Yes - and no tip asshole, you were late".

I left cursing him out under my breath.

That will learn him to diss the proletariat.

FIFY.

[Karin]

Wait a minute.

She told me that banks are running the country and have been for hundreds of years. (This is invariably a prelude into anti-Semitic rants so....

You DUmmies rail against banks all day long.  Your use of the term "bankster" is obviously anti-Semitic, and possibly disrespectful and insensitive toward Italians as well.  Racists.  

JohnnyRingo  (1000+ posts)      Sun Apr-17-11 01:46 PM
Response to Original message
39. Start breaking off random car antennas so they can't listen to AM radio

[DLR Pyro]

JohnnyRingo  (1000+ posts)      Sun Apr-17-11 01:46 PM
Response to Original message
39. Start breaking off random car antennas so they can't listen to AM radio

what an excellent example of the tolerance the left has for ideas that conflict with their own.

[Tantal]

Can't be a bouncy if it don't bounce even once. Its most likely a big assed lie.

That one was just simply a SPLAT.

[delilahmused]

So, you people are being beat out by people you consider your intellectual inferiors. The majority of the country, center right whether you choose to believe it or not, agree with these uninformed minions of corporate America.

But, all your intellectual prowess, your deception (because the best thing about Obama is that he's helping the citizens of this country to remember what's exceptional about America), and condescension has gotten you nowhere. You can taint your classrooms with bias instead of honesty, honor men like Castro and Marx but you can't take the exceptional out of the citizens. You can have your angry protests with a bunch of union thugs, hurl expletives at children, throw your public tantrums (good example to your students, teachers) and you still lose. Because America is an idea, the majority feel it somewhere deep inside their souls and no pc bullshit or ill placed guilt can take that away.

Here's what's important...that perceived intelligence of your has gotten you exactly nil! The only thing that matters...WE WON!!!

Cindie

[Thor]

It must be a fable manufactured by the author. Of the TEA Party folks I know, most ALL of them have jobs or want to work, unless there's some sort of REAL, honest to God disability involved.