Why Obama Should Love the Tea Party.

Obama should get down on his knees and thank the powers that don't exist for the Tea Party movement. Obama was leading the Democrats into a slaughter. He did as much harm to the Democrats as Dubya did to the Republicans in the last election.

It was clear all along that the Republicans would make substantial gains in the House. As bad as that would be for Obama, it would be absolutely disastrous if he lost the Senate to the Republicans as well.

But, out of nowhere, the Tea Party came riding in on their extremely white horse (all the brown horses were arrested and deported) to save the president's ass.

Let us recount exactly how the Tea Party rescued Obama from his self-brewed disaster.

As things stand, as I write this, the Democrats will retain control of the Senate 51-49. All they needed was to lose two more seats and the Republicans would be in charge there.

So why didn't the Republicans pick up these seats?

Start in Delaware where Tea Party candidate Christine O'Donnell knocked Mike Castle out of the race in the primary. This was widely seen as a safe seat for Castle, who ought to have won rather easily. But O'Donnell was the sort of Religious-right loons that are attracted to the Tea Party like moths to a flame. Her views were simply too extreme for the voters to stomach. So what probably would have been a win for Mike Castle was easily turned into a defeat for Christine O'Donnell. It appears that she will lose the race by 16 points, a landslide defeat in most cases. O'Donnell moved a fairly safe Republican seat to the Democrats.

Now move to Nevada where Senate majority leader Harry Reid was fighting for his life. Sharron Angle was perhaps the most extreme of the Republican Tea Party types. Reid was in big trouble and his seat was a strong pick-up opportunity for the Republicans. But Angle's campaign was just too extreme and Reid won with a 5 point margin. That was much better than it ought to have been.

Those two seats alone gave the Democrats the Senate. But I suspect there is more at play still.

It appears to me that the Tea Party candidates had a direct impact on the California race. Barbara Boxer was in trouble. She was so closely tied to Obama that she was in trouble. It would have been a good thing had she lost, in my opinion.

Carly Fiorina ran against Boxer but she is going down to defeat. Fiorina was the victim of a vicious smear campaign by Boxer, and it worked. And the smear that seemed most effective was Boxer's linking Fiorina to "extreme" positions. Californians were skeptical of the Tea Party movement and to extreme Right positions. Linking Fiorina to "extremism" was effective. I won't say it scared people into Boxer's camp. But what it did do was give Democrats a reason to vote.

People in this election did NOT vote for anyone. They voted AGAINST someone. For Boxer to win she needed to give Democrats a reason to come out and vote against Fiorina. The "too extreme for California" smear was the means of doing that. There were enough, very extreme Tea Party Republicans running, and saying monstrous things, that the "too extreme" campaign resonated with many California voters and Boxer benefitted from that. Fiorina was not a Tea Party candidate and Boxer succeeded by making it appear as if she were.

Utopian libertaians and the fantasy tea pot

This blog has argued that the so-called Tea Party movement is nothing for libertarians to get excited about. But many libertarians don't listen, particularly the Utopian types who believe that some radical libertarian agenda is going to sweep America. Sorry, but that is simply moronic. It isn't going to happen. This doesn't mean that a libertarianish vision may not come to dominate American politics but the types who imagine some radical vision of that libertarianism are not going to find it happening in their lifetime, or even that of their great-great-great-great grandchildren.

Since these types simply ignore the reality of the situation they find succor in imagining libertarian successes where they aren't. Yet, ironically, they ignore libertarian reforms where they are. Witness how they still cling to the illusion that Ron Paul is a libertarian. Or, even worse, that Randal Paul is libertarian. But the wackiest bunch are those who honestly think the Tea Party movement is libertarian.

We have seen phenomenal successes in watching Americans become more tolerant of gay people, with support for equality of rights rising at a rate that pollsters find astounding. Normally social values change slowly but in that area there has been rapid change. One reason is that the equality movement often argues their case on the basis of traditional American values about the individual's right to equality before the law.

Quite honestly, where the hell are the libertarians? Now and then some libertarian puts out a press release. But all these Utopian frauds are silent about this issue. They can imagine healing the world and yet can't get their brains around a single issue where libertarians could be leading a successful charge against the power of the state. Instead, these libertarians are embracing the knuckle-draggers in the Tea Party movement.

Why? The reason is simple, simpletons don't look any deeper than the surface. Polls show that Tea Party members want "smaller" government, so do most Americans actually. Tea Party activists loudly talk about that and the crank issues like auditing the Fed—which won't accomplish a thing.

The rhetoric of the Tea Party can sound vaguely libertarianish provided you don't actually bother to look at any of the other beliefs held by these people. I reported here about my visit to a Tea Party rally, which I argued was filled with hateful xenophobes who were more worried about bashing Mexicans than they were taxes. But they would get up and say they want smaller government and the libertarians would drool in response—like mindless Pavlovian dogs.

What did this smaller government mean? Talk to the "patriots" and they want government regulating the workforce heavily to prevent Mexicans from getting jobs. They want government to go after landlords who rent to Mexicans. They want Mexicans stopped from opening bank accounts. How do they accomplish all of this—with a system of rigid controls to monitor the ID of people seek jobs, try to rent apartments, or open bank accounts. The particularly inane libertarians will even applaud the bigots for wanting to "protect the borders" (from maids, busboys and gardeners) but urge them to ignore the ID requirements. You can't have the one without the other. The xenophobia of the loony Right fuels the laws that libertarians are find onerous. Yet libertarians applaud movements that throw gasoline on the fires that libertarians say they want put out.

Now we have a survey of Tea Party movement activists. The Public Religion Research Institute looked at the make-up of Tea Party activists, who they are, and what they want. And guess what? They aren't libertarians by any stretch of the imagination.

Who they most closely resemble are the worst elements of the Religious Right. They have more in common with the Neanderthals in Christian fundamentalism than they do with libertarians. A survey of Tea Party activists shows that they say they support small government—not this is what they claim they want but their other values betray that claim.

About half of all Tea Party activists told the pollsters that they are active in the Religious Right. They are almost exclusively Republican in party preferences and they are less libertarian on social issues than average. Realistically they are less libertarian than the average American not more so.

What the survey found was that the Tea Party was mainly a white, evangelical movement. These are people who think Fox News is a source for accurate information and who think Sarah Palin is the messiah.

Here are a few of the findings regarding the Tea Party.

First, only about 11% of all Americans consider themselves as part of this movement.

Second, they are not politically independent as they are often portrayed. According to survey: "More than three-quarters identify with (48%) or lean towards (28%) the Republican Party. More than 8-in-10(83%) say they voting for or leaning towards Republicans candidates...." In the general population about one-third of Americans identify with the Republican party, one-third with the Democrats and the rest are independents. These Tea Party types are more Republican than about any other group, right up there with fundamentalist Christians.

Third, the survey found that: "Americans who identify with the Tea Party movement are mostly social conservatives, not libertarians on social issues. Nearly two-thirds (63%) say abortion should be illegal in all or most cases, and less than 1-in-5 (18%) support allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry. In other words, on these issues they are actually less libertarian than the average voter.

When the survey looked at the demographics of the Tea Party they found a "striking similarity between the demographic of Americans who consider themselves part of the Tea Party movement and Americans who consider themselves part of the Christian conservative movement." The survey found: "On nearly all basic demographic characteristics, there are no significant differences between Americans who identify with the Tea Party movement and those who identify with the Christian conservative movement." The only significant difference was the fundamentalists were more likely to be women and Tea Party activists were more likely to be men.

Tea Party activists are more likely to say they are conservatives, than do fundamentalists. They are more likely to say they are Republicans than do fundamentalist Christians. In this sense the Tea Party is actually worse than the Republican Party.

When compared to the general population the Tea Party nutters are more likely to be white evangelicals (36% to 21%). About one-third of the American people imagine that the Bible is the "literal" word of God. With the Tea Party it is 47%. Only 64% think God "is a person with whom one can have a relationship" but 71% of the Tea Party believe that. When it comes to the delusion that America was, or is, a Christian nation the Tea Party types are actually more deluded that evangelicals or the public. About 42% of all Americans buy into the "Christian America" theory, about 43% of evangelicals do, but 55% of the Tea Party thinks that way.

And, as I have argued, the Tea Party movement is far more antagonistic to minorities than the general public. Asked if government has "paid too much attention to the problems of blacks and other minorities" 37% of public says that is true. But for the Tea Party members agreement with the view is 58%.

Where immigration has divided the general public it has unified the Tea Party. About 48% of Americans think immigrants are a burden while 44% say they make the country better—almost an even split especially if margins of error in polling are taken into account. But 65% of Tea Party members take the anti-immigrant view, which is similar to the view that evangelicals take on the matter (64%).

When it comes to marriage equality rights for gays the Tea Party is on par with evangelicals in their fervent opposition. When given three choices for gay couples, about 37% of the general population opt for full marriage and 27% support civil unions, with one-third wanting no legal recognition for gay couples at all. But only 18% of the Tea Party movement support marriage equality, a statistical tie with the 16% of evangelicals who do.

The survey found that 58% of the general public think undocumented immigrants should have a means by which they can become legal citizens. Evangelicals are not quite so supportive with only 48% favoring such a move. The survey quite naturally found that the most anti-immigrant group around, even more anti-immigrant than Republicans in general, were Tea Party members, were 61% said they opposed immigration reform.

What it comes down to is that the Tea Party advocates want small government for themselves and organized state oppression for groups they dislike. These people are not libertarians and this survey shows that. So when will these deluded libertarians wake up and realize that?

From Whackjob to Weasel

Christine O'Donnell, a rising star of the so-called Tea Party movement, was shown to be a whackjob during the primary. We, along with many other sites, showed the video of her preaching how masturbation is adultery and sinful. The pathetic Republican Party in Delaware, however, nominated her to be their Senate candidate, something which makes Democrats very happy. Previously there was no way for the Democrats to pick up this seat from the sitting Republican. But as the Republican Party has become more extreme—and not in the pursuit of liberty—it is replacing electable Republicans with whackjobs like O'Donnell. This race alone may be sufficient to prevent the Republicans from gaining control of the Senate, which is something that they wanted very badly.

O'Donnell now has GOP handlers advising her and someone wrote a well-crafted "weasel" statement about her anti-masturbatory campaigns of the past. I call it a weasel statement because it actually evades the issues entirely. It sounds good, and the average member of the public, who isn't used to dissecting material for real content, may be assured by it. But anyone who actually thinks about, for a second, shouldn't be fooled. Allow me to quote the statement that O'Donnell made and then dissect it for you. Here is how the LA Times reported her statement:

"Yes, I have my personal beliefs," she said when asked about her views. "These are questions from statements I made over 15 years ago. I was in my 20s and very excited and passionate about my new found faith. But I can assure you, my faith has matured. And when I go to Washington D.C., it will be the Constitution on which I base all of my decisions, not my personal beliefs."

Let us go through this statement to see what she is actually saying and what she isn't saying. She says the statements were made when she was young. At that time she had a "new found faith," which means a belief system she adopted wholesale from dead books without any intellectual scrutiny. But "I can assure you, my faith has matured."

What does that mean? Previously she held beliefs without reasons, on the basis of faith. Now she has a mature faith, which means what? How does the mature faith differ from the youthful faith? Faith is faith, it is still not reason. Was she previously a young fool but is now just an old fool? All she said is her faith is mature. People say that they have "faith" when they merely adopt a view without rational reasoning behind it. They hold the belief on the basis of "faith." All this does is tell us how she comes to her beliefs, not what those beliefs are. And both are rather critical here.

She does not indicate at all that her views on masturbation, sex and abstinence have changed at all. In fact, she rather strongly hints that she has NOT abandoned her beliefs whatsoever. She begins her statement saying: "Yes, I have my personal beliefs." This is present tense, not past tense. At best she is hinting that she now understands that there are other ways for her to express the same viewpoints without creating a firestorm. She has not repudiated her "personal beliefs" nor has she said that they have changed, only that her "faith" is now more mature.

Reporters are notoriously bad at interviewing politicians and allow them to make weasel statements all the time. But someone needs to ask O'Donnell: "Do you now believe that masturbation is not adultery?" I'd bet you a doughnut that if she were asked this she would evade the question entirely.

The first half of her statement is meant to address the issue of her past beliefs in contrast with present day beliefs. But nowhere does it actually indicate that these beliefs are now different, only that she has a more mature faith—and what that means is never explained by O'Donnell.

The second half of her statement is meant to address how she would vote on issues. It too avoids indicating anything of substance. She says that she will base all her decisions on the Constitution. Whoopee! What a meaningless statement!

If there is one thing that most politicians agree upon it is that they all think they vote according to the Constitution. Believing the Constitution is like believing the Bible. It means nothing. Why is that?

We can all debate what the Constitution means and we each come to our own conclusions. O'Donnell can happily vote for moralistic legislation, if offered the chance, and still proclaim she is within the Constitution as she sees it. The problem is that we have no idea how she sees the Constitution.

She campaigned for abstinence education within the state school system. Nowhere does the Constitution actually authorize a system of government education, nor does it sanction using tax monies to preach abstinence. In the Constitutional litany of government powers granted neither of these powers are listed. Remember the Constitution was meant to be a specific grant of powers to government with individual rights broadly interpreted. The Constitution quite clearly says that all individual rights could never be itemized, but government powers can, and should be.

So O'Donnell's abstinence campaign promoted two unconstitutional powers: government preaching about sex and state schools. Does she now think that this was unconstitutional? I would bet you she doesn't. Since we have no idea what she believes the Constitution sanctions or doesn't sanction we have no idea what she means by the statement.

A lot of statists want local tyranny via a "states rights" doctrine. Is this her view? It is certainly not a libertarian view which argues for individual rights. Conservatives argue that the separation of church and state is a myth and that the real Constitution sanctions government-mandated religion on the state level. Is that what O'Donnell means? We don't know and she isn't saying.

Invoking the Constitution is meant to have the appearance of substance without actually saying anything specific. Most the Congresscritters that voted for Obama's health care debacle will say that it is within the confines of the Constitution. Few will acknowledge that it is not. Many simply assume that anything they vote for is Constitutional and anything they oppose is not.

This is how the Constitution, like the Bible, is essentially meaningless when it comes to defining a person's beliefs. I can line up Christians who are absolutely convinced the Bible sanctions gay marriage and find others who say the Bible demands we kill all gay people. I can find politicians who say that nationalized medicine is constitutional and those that say it isn't.

It is easy to say: "I believe the Bible," as long as one is allowed to interpret it personally. Similarly the Constitution can be interpreted in very widely differing ways. We can fight about which is the "correct" interpretation but that is irrelevant to this discussion. What is relevant is what the individual, in this case O'Donnell, means when she says she will vote according to the Constitution. For most conservatives it means that any morality that dominated 200 years ago can still be imposed by the State today.

Here are the sort of questions that O'Donnell needs to be asked before her invocation of the Constitution has any merit whatsoever.

Does the Constitution permit government schools imposing religion on students in state schools?
Are sodomy laws regulating the private sexual lives of consenting adults constitutional?

Do the states have the right, according to the Constitution, to violate individual rights, in ways that the federal government does not?

Were state laws forbidding interracial marriage constitutional?

Are state laws forbidding same-sex marriage constitutional?

In what ways are these two issues constitutionally different?

Does government, at any level, have the constitutional power to ban sexually-explicit material?

Does government, at any level, have the constitutional power to wage a war on drugs?

Answering these questions will give us some idea of what this whackjob means when she invokes the Constitution as the litmus test she will employ. But without specifics all she has done is issue a weasel statement that tells us absolutely nothing.

Worse yet, such weasel statements are ingenious because each person interprets them according to their own personal opinions. So the reader who thinks government has no right to mandate school prayers will be assured by it equally as much as the reader who thinks the Constitution allows mandatory prayer.

When a public person says they believe the Bible every person who invokes the Bible them self, no matter in what way, feels a bit reassured. Each assumes that this at least means some agreement with them self, when it may mean no such thing. Similarly, invoking the Constitution is meant to reassure everyone because most listeners will assume that by "constitutional" O'Donnell means pretty much what they mean when they use the term. As long as the politician doesn't get forced to be more precise these weasel statements do a wonderful job of pulling the wool over the eyes of the voting public.

Tea Party, neither tea nor a party.

I did something unusual today. Since it was tax day I went to the big metro-wide Tea Party rally. I was there from 2 pm until 10 pm. I talked to dozens of people, listened in on dozens of conversations and heard many speakers. They also had a booth area for organizations, and I checked out every single booth at the event, probably around 50 or 60 of them in total.

First, the big news: the Tea Party is not libertarian oriented. Not in any way, any shape, or any form. What I saw was the worst of the conservative movement, which these days is pretty bad since even main stream conservatives have become repulsive to all decent people.

First, even though today was tax day, taxes weren't the issue that motivated this crowd. I saw few signs protesting high taxes, few protesting Obamacare and none referring to the bailouts of Wall Street and corporate America. Two things drove these people to frenzied disgust: Obama and immigrants.

The Obama hatred was pervasive. I'm no fan of Obama, but I dislike the man because I dislike the policies he promotes. I consider him another George Bush, just one who can finish a complete sentence. But the worst Bush policies are pretty much the same as the worst Obama policies. I see Bush and Obama much like I see Hoover and FDR. The one started the bad policies that the other completed, but they aren't opposites just horrifyingly similar.

That the Tea Party movement didn't protest the big government policies of Bush, but are rabid about Obama, tells me that there is more here than a love for liberty. Actually I saw little indication for a love for liberty among these people.

What they wanted was Big Brother government using all its power to root out and find illegal immigrants looking for jobs. These were people who would applaud government monitoring work places, setting up ID check points, having the police randomly stop people in the streets to check their "papers" to make sure they are "legal" residents. These are the type of people who as children, thought the hall monitors were good guys making sure everyone had a "pass" from teacher. I would call them closet authoritarians except I don't think they're in the closet.

One woman was lecturing a camera about "my country is like my house." She thought that silly analogy valid."And I have the right to say who comes into my house." I couldn't stand it any more and from where I was seated yelled to her: "It's my house too." Not being too bright she smiled, pointed at me and yelled, "EXACTLY!" To that I replied: "And I don't care who comes in." She was not thrilled with that reply.

My point was that this is as much my country as it is her own. The idea that the country is a big version of her house is absurd unless she thinks that my house is somehow just a room in her house and that I have to live under her thumb. There are plenty of people who welcome anyone who wants to work, and are willing to hire them, willing to rent to them, and willing to be friends with them. The country as "private property" scenario is absurd, mainly because everyone I know who makes that assumption also assumes that all of us are as xenophobic as they are. Actually some of them aren't xenophobic in general, at least not if the immigrants are white.

One t-shirt that was being sold had Uncle Sam pointing his figure at the reader, in the old "I want you" motif. But this time the slogan was: "I want YOU to speak English." Think about that for a second. Uncle Sam is supposed to be a benevolent stand-in for the government. When Uncle Sam says something, it is the federal government saying it. So these "small government" conservatives were hawking t-shirts that make what language people are speaking a matter of federal concern. I am not saying the t-shirt is the equivalent to policy but that they thought it worth hawking indicated their mentality.

My view is libertarian, of course. The government doesn't have any business telling any private citizen what language they should speak. Talk in ancient Aramaic for all I care. One thing studies show is that the fastest way for new residents of a country to learn the local language is for them to get a job—something these people are trying to prevent for Mexicans, while still demanding they learn English. I know how hard it is to not speak the main language of a country—I've been there. I've also lived in multi-lingual countries and spent 10 years listening to my other half chatting in Afrikaans on the phone. It's no big deal except to xenophobes.

I did not think that the Tea Party movement was inspired by racism. And I don't think the racism is overt. But what I saw today did cause me to believe that a large percentage of the protest is racist inspired. The focus on Obama the man, with some rather crude caricatures, and not on the policies, only fed into that. And you know when these people talk about "illegal aliens" they don't mean Canadians.

The politicians who showed up, with on exception, were the worst sort from the Republican Party. I won't go into names since most are only locally known. But we are talking hard-core, law and order authoritarians. These are the kind of politicians who want stricter state control of people's sex lives, want the police to have few restraints because of the pesky Bill of Rights, who think the 2nd amendment is important but the 1st amendment is a myth. These are the politicians who think the number one issue in America is not runaway government but Mexicans wanting to bus tables and clean yards.

One person told me Ayn Rand was a genius. I am not one to disagree with that since I have some idea what her IQ was, and it was impressive. And I'm generally sympathetic to Rand with some areas of disagreement. But another was equally as quick to tell me she was evil because she was an atheist. He was unhappy when I responded, "So was Milton Friedman, F.A. Hayek and Ludwig von Mises." He clearly had no idea who Hayek and Mises were but said, "Oh, well Friedman was good." The only thing he knew about Rand was she was a non-theist but that was all he needed to know.

But isn't that the conservative creature in a nutshell? An atheist must be bad because he or she is an atheist. Nothing else need be known. A homosexual is bad because he/she is a homosexual. A "illegal" immigrant is bad because they don't a permission slip from a politician to be here .

I have a tendency to find libertarians where I go and I found very few today. A few spotted me and came over to speak. But out of the thousands of people there today I got a sense that less than 10% could be remotely described as libertarians. Even one alleged libertarian group was handing out flyers headlined: "Stop Illegal Immigration. Yes!"

When I attended the American Humanist Association convention, with a much smaller audience, I found far more libertarians than I expected. I was surprised and would have estimated that 20% of the audience was libertarian. At the Atheist International conference with Richard Dawkins I again got the sense that around a quarter of the audience was libertarian oriented. Michael Shermer and I were discussing the matter and he said his sense of such events were that one-quarter to one-third were libertarian.

When I last saw Carol Ruth Silver, Harvey Milk's good friend and ally on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, I felt nothing but respect from her for libertarians. And she really did seem to understand where libertarians were coming from and while she disagreed on some important matters she was respectful and sympathetic. But when I talk to conservative leaders I don't feel the same respect, but a dislike. To them a libertarian is merely a conservative who wants to take drugs, or is gay.

Carol Ruth told me that libertarians interest her because they take ideas seriously. Conservatives, don't take ideas seriously and dislike libertarians because they do. But more than anything the conservative has this haunting suspicion that a libertarian is merely an immoral conservative. They don't get us. Sure, some on the Left don't get us either. But many do.

I can talk to friends on the Left. They are willing to debate based on evidence, facts, information, etc. They have some sense of being reality-based. But what I get from the Right today is a disdain for the facts and reality. They don't need such pesky things since they speak for God, and they know what God wants—God, to their great fortune, happens to agree completely with them. And since God said it, that settles it, and evidence is immaterial.

Look at the Right-wing debate on marriage equality. They are against it because God is against it. Because their God is the only God, and their God thinks they are 100% correct. Anyone who says God disagrees has a false God since God hates fags. Hey, they won't be as honest as the Westboro Baptist crowd but in their hearts that is what they believe.

One old libertarian friend of mine was there. When I saw him I said: "I'm so glad to see you. You are an island of sanity is a sea of crazy." He found it amusing, saying he thought I always saw him as touched himself. But he had the same reaction I did. He was really disgusted by the tone and tenor of the participants. He was sick of the Godly preaching at him, pushing religion on him, and claiming that everything is based on the Bible. He couldn't stomach the event as long as I did and left with his wife, telling me he was looking forward to the upcoming gay festival instead. If anything his few hours among the tea party crowd made him more anxious to attend the festival.

There is a great line in the remake of Hairspray (2007). One actress I've always enjoyed, Queen Latiffah, plays Motormouth Maybelle. Her son is dating a white girl, this in the late 50s, or early 60s. When Maybelle realizes it she tells the couple: "Well, love is a gift. A lot of people don't remember that, so you two better brace yourselves for a whole lot of ugly comin' at you from a never ending parade of stupid." Listening to the Tea Party crowd here today I thought of that quote repeatedly. What I saw was a " whole lot of ugly coming from a never ending parade of stupid."

I certainly hope the mood wasn't the same at other Tea Party events. But I know the other major local rally, held earlier in the day, which I didn't attend, was similarly ugly—with a lot of immigrant bashing going on there as well, and the two thousand attendees applauded a well known law enforcement figure who likes to find excuses to stop anyone who looks Hispanic as an pretense to search them for a green card. He was considered a hero at that rally.

What I got out of this rally, other than some nasty sun burn, is a sense of despair, not on the part of these people, but on my part. What was made clear to me is that the Tea Party people are not the great hope for America that they think they are. They are no more freed0m-oriented than President Obama. These activists struck me as angry people, looking for scapegoats. These were the people who see anyone who disagrees with them as purely evil in nature. I got no sense that there were libertarian sentiments amongst these people. They are NOT libertarians but conservative authoritarians. They are driven by a law & order mentality and a fear of the different. They are more likely to see people as evil than wrong and less accepting of the choice of others. For them, to choice other than they do, threatens them. They want a world where they are surrounded by pale versions of themselves.

They are not my kind of people. This Tea Party reminded me more of the one thrown by the Mad Hatter and not the one thrown by the Founders at Boston harbor.