Contract From America

[Lynnie]

Idlewind,

I don't think we are on the same page. I'm not posting as a liberal or an anti-TP guy. I'm not telling you that the TP isn't about those core ideals. I don't want to debate what it is about.

I'm telling you as someone who is entertained by/interested in politics how the tea party appears to nonmembers and what I theorize it will mean. I'm providing the perspective of someone who agrees with these core principles but who cannot get behind the movement and I'm providing you with the reasons why.

It isn't self serving for TP folks to assume that liberals are trying to paint the TP in this way. But it is serving to get real about what the TP looks like to a curious outsider.

I believe for every passionate American who showed up at Beck's rally there are 1,000 who would support the movement were it perceived to be about those cornerstones and not the other nonsense.

I am on your page, I am just dyslectic.:roll:
You have identified the main challenge facing the tea party movement. How to draw in like-minded individuals as regards fiscal policy who are not social conservatives. We have argued so much in the last 30 years over social issues that we have not watched our fiscal store and have allowed politicians to drag us into a fiscal doomsday. We all must set the social battles aside for another day and fix the problems fiscally or we will not have a society to battle over.
What I would suggest is to get involved. You are a smart articulate person. You can help keep everyone on message. The good thing about the tea party is there is no central leadership or monolithic organization. You can do your own thing as long as you support the narrow goals of less spending, less government, less taxes and more freedom.

So glad Y'all are on the same page that Y'all are not on the same page.

 

[idlewind]

Since I am getting "labeled" again - Why exactly am I not a social conservative?

Because I don't hate/fear gay people and minorities, think people should use birth control, and don't think changing our country to a Christian theocracy solves everything?

"The tea party has no central leadership" - seriously, you need to do some research on who is REALLY financing and promoting the Tea Party. Hint - it's lobbyists and big business who will benefit from all those pesky regulations that were not in the Constitution.

Do ya'll get money for every time you chant "theocracy?"

 

[scooterbug44]

Do you get money every time you use a label to deflect a question about actual substance?

 

[idlewind]

Do you get money every time you use a label to deflect a question about actual substance?

" Social conservatives in many countries generally: favor the pro-life position in the abortion controversy and oppose public funding of embryonic stem cell research; oppose both Eugenics (inheritable genetic modification) and human enhancement (Transhumanism) while supporting Bioconservatism [1]; support a traditional definition of marriage as being one man and one woman; view the nuclear family model as society's foundational unit; oppose expansion of civil marriage and child adoption rights to couples in same-sex relationships; promote public morality and traditional family values; oppose secularism and privatization of religious belief; support the prohibition of drugs, prostitution, premarital sex, non-marital sex and euthanasia; and support the censorship of pornography and what they consider to be obscenity or indecency."

I took a guess and decided that you do not fit the above Wikipedia description.;-) Since I was answering Geo, I really don't know when I "labeled" you one way or the other. If I misjudged you though I apologize.

 

[LuciferSam]

Why on earth would anybody want to be considered a social conservative?

 

[idlewind]

Since I am getting "labeled" again - Why exactly am I not a social conservative?

Because I don't hate/fear gay people and minorities, think people should use birth control, and don't think changing our country to a Christian theocracy solves everything?

"The tea party has no central leadership" - seriously, you need to do some research on who is REALLY financing and promoting the Tea Party. Hint - it's lobbyists and big business who will benefit from all those pesky regulations that were not in the Constitution.

"I've never been able to understand why a Republican contributor is a 'fat cat' and a Democratic contributor of the same amount of money is a 'public-spirited philanthropist'. " --Ronald Reagan

 

[Lynnie]

" Social conservatives in many countries generally: favor the pro-life position in the abortion controversy and oppose public funding of embryonic stem cell research; oppose both Eugenics (inheritable genetic modification) and human enhancement (Transhumanism) while supporting Bioconservatism [1]; support a traditional definition of marriage as being one man and one woman; view the nuclear family model as society's foundational unit; oppose expansion of civil marriage and child adoption rights to couples in same-sex relationships; promote public morality and traditional family values; oppose secularism and privatization of religious belief; support the prohibition of drugs, prostitution, premarital sex, non-marital sex and euthanasia; and support the censorship of pornography and what they consider to be obscenity or indecency."

I took a guess and decided that you do not fit the above Wikipedia description.;-) Since I was answering Geo, I really don't know when I "labeled" you one way or the other. If I misjudged you though I apologize.

Gee - looks like I don't qualify either. In fact, there is only one item in this definition that I might get on board with. Who defines this crap anyway?

 

[idlewind]

Gee - looks like I don't qualify either. In fact, there is only one item in this definition that I might get on board with. Who defines this crap anyway?

My point is that we have spent so much time arguing about these items that we let a bunch of politicians from both parties drive us to the brink of bankruptcy. Most of these things should not be federal issues anyways, the states should decide for themselves.
What I see from the majority of the tea party rank and file is a desire to concentrate on bringing our fiscal house in order. It seems to be the Democrats who want to argue about social items to deflect attention from the abject failure of their fiscal policies. Same goes for many establishment Republicans.

 

[Lynnie]

Can we just censor a few obscene politicians, then?

 

[scooterbug44]

They want to ban non-marital sex? Isn't that adultery - which I think is technically already illegal in most states?