You don't know Jack about T.E.A.

I write this on the occasion of having read my umpteenth OpEd which portrays the TEA party as loonies, rebels, racists and anti-government whackos. For those of you who get the majority of your information from the mainstream media, I would like to introduce you to the real TEA party. Those running opinions on the left have decided that the TEA Party is dangerous and must be stopped at all costs. The easiest way to do this is to have the mainstream media paint a picture of heinous, deplorable people who cannot identify with 'normal' folk and thus show their displeasure by demonstrating and plotting against the government. The left's hatred of the TEA Party is only rivaled by their hatred of Sarah Palin who has shown nothing but class in the face of unending misinformation, misquotes and poor jokes. Sadly, the sheeple take this as all facts because they saw it in the paper or heard it on The View or saw it on MSNBC. (Most of the 'quotes' lefties attribute to the former gov. were actually uttered by Tina Fey in a SNL skit, but we weren't fact-checking those ones, were we!) But I digress. Let me prove your sheepleness to you. Raise your hand if you have heard of the TEA Party. Good, most of you. How many know that TEA is an acronym for Taxed Enough Already? About half of you...OK. How many of you have referred to the TEA Party members as "Teabaggers?" Great! And lastly, how many of you understand that "teabagging" is a derogatory term that refers to a sex act between a man's genitals and another person or animal? Whoops...I guess some of you didn't. But you sure looked smug when you said it as did all the news anchors who think it's soooo damn funny. It is NOT funny and you make yourself a fool when you say it.
Lately it seems, every kook on the planet is attributed to TEA party type people. It took GMA about 30 seconds this morning to tie in the Pentagon shooter with the idiot who flew his plane into the IRS offices and then the TEA party. In fact, Steffanopolis made the next huge leap and heaped those two guys in with the Ft Hood shooter and the men who shot up recruiters in Alabama last year. He called this part of a "pattern of anti-government sentiment" that is emerging in the face of the terrible place that George Bush left us in. (Certainly Obama has nothing to do with all the continuing decline of jobs, money, loans, hope, change...) Again, the fastest way to turn the majority of the folks away from the TEA party is to lump all the kooks in with them. I have an endless supply of friends who ASSUME that talking heads like Limbaugh and Beck would cheer anything along those lines. Anyone who actually listened to those guys would have heard them DENOUNCE the actions of the kooks and distance themselves as much as possible from any association to their way of solving the countries problems. The TEA party does not believe in violent action to achieve goals. Change is made through the power of information and the vote. (You'll see that come Nov.) The piece I read today painted TEA party folk as fringe whackos, racists, birthers and truthers. Let's look at those individually. Fringe whackos? You might assume that by the few pictures of TEA party gatherings that actually see the light of day. The papers seem to pick the one loony looking person in the crowd to show. But watch any NFL or NBA game and you'll see much sillier stuff. Hanging tea bags from a hat does not make one a fringe whacko. Racists? Well, to tell the truth, the three top Officers in the TEA party movement have more diversity between them than the entire lineup of MSNBC. Birthers? Yup, I am certain that there are some of them amongst the ranks. But they are not the rabid loonies the press paints them to be. They just want fair treatment. John McCain had to show his birth certificate, naturalization certificate, citizenship papers, etc. Because he WAS born in another country. What the heck is so hard about seeing Obama's birth certificate? (or his college transcripts, or anything from his past at all???) The last one is easy. Truthers are an invention of the left. TEA party folk do NOT believe that the government was involved in 9/11 in any way, shape or form. You want proof? The recent republican primary race for Texas Governor included a "TEA party candidate," Debra Medina, who was making a sizable dent in the votes for the incumbent, Perry(stumped for by Palin) and the challenger Hutchison. Then she went on the Glen Beck show and let on that she was a truther. Her numbers fell faster than the snow in the northeast. She ended up with an embarrassing 16% of the vote. TEA party members are NOT truthers. (Van Jones, former Green Jobs czar appointed by Obama, on the other hand, IS!)
So let us wrap this up by talking about just what the TEA party is. It is a melting pot of America consisting of people who have had enough of the out-of-control spending cycle that Washington cannot seem to get out of. We are not anti-government, we are anti-BIG government. We believe in the open and free market solutions that have served the nation well for over 200 years. We believe in having a choice of where to get our health care and how much of it we wish to have. We believe that wind and solar power will one day be viable solutions to oil and coal, but the way there is not to demonize the fossil fuels that hold up the economic engine of the country. We want cars that get better mileage, but not at the expense of our safety on the road. We come from all races and socio-economic backgrounds. And yes, we have been here all along. When Bush was bailing out banks, we were right beside you yelling no in unison. You just thought we were one of you. And when the first stimulus was signed, we were demonstrating and calling and emailing our congressmen and senators as we do now. They just thought that we were with you. So when Obama continued the process we continued to say no. (At that point, you realized we were NOT with you and retorted with "but look what Bush spent!" Like that is a viable excuse for what 'your' president is doing. Y'all sound like fourth graders when you do that.) No one has been arrested at a TEA party event. We are not neo-nazis, KKK members or unibomber wannabees. We are your neighbors. We are your bosses. We are your employees. We are your relatives and friends. We are well informed and loosely organized. We do NOT want a third party, we want the Republican party back in its conservative roots. We are Taxed Enough Already!