Like Andrew Malcolm (FAIR Blog, 4/6/10), Bill O’Reilly (O’Reilly Factor, 4/5/10) has a bone to pick with how the “left-wing media” have representing the Tea Party movement.
First, he complained, “Tea Party folks were labeled stupid, too dumb to understand complicated issues.” Then the media said that “many Tea Party people are racist and far-right cranks.”
O’Reilly then refuted these charges by citing a poll that suggested that “the majority of Tea Party supporters in America are not Republicans.”
If I were a Republican, I’d be offended.
Then what are they, Bill?
They’re self-defined “Independents”, most likely. 99% of which vote, the cynic in me claims, votes Republican year after year.
Well sure, the Tea Party may not be ALL Republican, but we can still be pretty sure they’re all stupid and racist. Anyone who wasn’t one or the other wouldn’t be caught dead with them. In fact these days, if someone who wasn’t stupid and racist was caught with them, he probably could wind up dead.
Only stupid and lazy people would say the tea party participants are all republicans, racist and stupid. It takes but a small amount of research to notice that the bulk of these people are mothers, fathers, retired people, veterans, independents and democrats.
The common theme is that they want smaller government and financial responsibility by those in Washington.
If anyone thinks that is stupid and racist, then they are village idiots.
Yes they are Stupid AND Racist AND Republican by any other name. If it has fur, is black, has a white stripe down its back, and stinks, its a skunk.
thehill.com 4/04/10 : The national breakdown of the Tea Party composition is 57 percent Republican, 28 percent Independent and 13 percent Democratic, according to three national polls by the Winston Group, a Republican-leaning firm that conducted the surveys on behalf of an education advocacy group.
Funny, even O’Reilly equates stupid and racist with being Republican.
Just remember this about the Tea Partiers: for the most part, they’re functionally illiterate, racist, and bitter people, stupid enough to continually vote against their own interests, and:
They’re all proud owners and operators of firearms.
Racists and stupid is kind; how about unconscious imbeciles walking themselves to the cliff, like sheepeople/lemmings–because their actions sabotage their own interests, leaving their leaders, the
Karl Rove’s, Dick Cheneys, Glenn Becks, Rush Limbaughs, and all their greedy Corporate counterparts laughing like the ghouls they are, lining their pockets and jacking themselves off ALTHOUGH when these guys take the whole world over the cliff with them, they’ll be the ones crying and cannibalizing each other to grasp at the ashes they leave clinging to their pathetic level of existence.
bbuc: They’re probably all ignorant, except those running the show, but stupidity surely can’t be that rampant.
To JOHNE:
they may be “mothers, fathers, retired people, veterans, independents and democrats”, but that doesn’t preclude anyone from being racist or stupid/ignorant/uninformed. They are also all white. The fact that you, and others like O’Reilly, fail to point to that fact is indicative of you’re inability/unwillingness to have a candid discussion about what continues to happen in this nation when large numbers of angry white people gather in groups.
i think it was Bill Maher that said it–not all Republicans are racist, but if someone is racist, he/she is probably a Republican.
the Tea Partiers are an interesting bunch. they view the state as a tool of oppression. as a result, they condemn socialism, conflate it with communism, and present to the public a mere caricature of both ideologies. what they fail to see, however, is that Marx also viewed the state as a tool of oppression. he saw it as a revolutionary necessity to eliminate classes, eliminate capital, and promote social justice; afterwhich, as Engels has stated, would eventually whither away.
i wonder if Mr. O’Rielley as ever noticed this…
to be fair, however, Tea Partiers would say that their main platform is smaller government. yes, there are stupid, ignorant, and racist members. yes, there are some who would resort to violence to get their messages across, but this is not necessarily indicative of the movement’s agenda. they see themselves a grassroots campaign, which i welcome–provided they remain civil. this type of discourse is important to democracy–i might even say that it is an indespensible element thereof.
If you hate white people, you are certainly a Democrat.
Not that all Democrats hate white people (don’t misinterpret me!)
But the people who hate white people are Democrats.
Just sayin’.
I get frustrated when I see people spout such venom about anyone, especially about any group. It is a wildly unproductive practice at best, and it usually results in significant heating of a debate, making rational conflict resolution far more unlikely than it would be otherwise.
On the subject of small government – As far as I can see it, we’re playing a happy medium here. Some people are willing to take more abuse from their environment and fellow man in order that they may have more liberty to do as they please. Every law is a limitation on a man’s legal actions. With every new law, freedom (in a theoretical, if not always practical sense) is impinged upon. Sometimes the loss is worth the gain in security, stability, or justice. Sometimes it’s not.
The thing to remember is that as individuals we can exist on a multi-dimensional political continuum, but in groups we must exist in discrete political camps. We join groups because they serve our purposes to a greater degree than they hinder them. Taking a group’s ideology as one’s own simply because one is a member, or ascribing a group’s mentality to another group member denies the human potential for individual thought and opinion.
One could say that the Tea Party’s policies (nebulous as they are) promote injustice and perhaps defend one’s claim. But to call the entire party racist is foolish. Some certainly are. Others certainly are not. In either case, literally no good can come of an ad hominem approach to the characterization of the Tea Party, or any other for that matter.
So please don’t do it. It irritates me, and I think with good reason.