tea-(surprise)party

The Tea Party, as it's been sold by the lame-stream-media, represents the following:

1. reduce the deficit
2. smaller government
3. libertarian/federalist principles

or...at least that's what we've been told. A short read over the news today, however, and it appears as though (as Andrew Sullivan puts it), they are just normal republicans wearing different hats (three pointed with powder wigs).

Why, you ask? Well, let's look at each point.

First, they are not anti-deficit, they are anti-tax. That's why they pushed so strongly to extend the Bush Tax Cuts even though it would INCREASE the deficit. Here is Freedomworks (headed by former House Speaker Dick Armey) explaining why. Basically (again, Sullivan says it best) the Tea Party doesn't care about the long term deficit, but only in the short term gain provided by lower taxes.

Second--smaller government. Here's Tea Party Nation and their advice to go back to an era when one had to own land to vote (no, seriously).

The Founding Fathers originally said, they put certain restrictions on who gets the right to vote. It wasn’t you were just a citizen and you got to vote. Some of the restrictions, you know, you obviously would not think about today. But one of those was you had to be a property owner. And that makes a lot of sense, because if you’re a property owner you actually have a vested stake in the community. If you’re not a property owner, you know, I’m sorry but property owners have a little bit more of a vested interest in the community than non-property owners.

And, lastly, federalism. Former Governor Gary Johnson was giving a talk at a Tea Party rally when he was asked about marijuana. When he explained that making it illegal was a burden on the government, a tax on the prison system and generally bad policy, he was booed. Yes, booed. Also, a recent poll shows that the Tea Party is actually more Anti-marriage equality than even Senior Citizens.

So, what's my point? My point is just that we've all allowed ourselves to buy into this make believe "Tea Party" when it's not really true. What the Tea Party is is:

1. anti-tax
2. regressive government
3. socially conservative/fiscally conservative (small c's)

None of those are "bad" things on their own, but they are vastly different from what we've been sold. So, before you tie a tea-bag to your head, be sure you know what it is the group you are part of espouses...it may not line up with what you think it does, or what you've been told it does.