In keeping with George Lakoff's principle of
not accepting the frames the far Right wants to give everything, I refuse to use the word "Tea Party." What we are actually dealing with is a propagandized and secretly financed
Far-right fringe group that has successfully channeled a good deal of the righteous populist rage that Democrats have been too politically inept in the last couple of years to make their own.
The
candidates who claim this association, however, are
truly radical far right wingers. I am certain, as certain as I am of anything in American politics (which isn't rock-solid, I'll admit), that if the majority of people who think of themselves as sympathetic to this phoney grassroots movement would realize that their so-called leaders actually believe the following established laws are unconstitutional and should be repealed, they would turn away from these wingnuts in droves:
- Social Security
- Medicare
- Civil Rights Act and other Civil Rights legislation
- Minimum Wage
- Unemployment Benefits
- U.S. membership in U.N.
- Health Care Reform
See
this post.
With many of them, such as Ken Buck in Colorado, Christine O'Donnell in Delaware, and Sister Sarah, you could add that they (really quite incredibly) believe that the Constitution doesn't provide for separation of Church and State. (An amazingly ahistoric view, as anyone who's read
any of the original documents on the subject from the time of the Founders would know. Not to mention that the language of the 1st Amendment could hardly be clearer).*
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*
«Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.»