Posted on 08/17/2011 10:12:49 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
If you thought the Tea Party was a product of GOP masterminds or the Great Recession, think again.
In an op-ed in today's New York Times, big-name political scientists Robert Putnam and David Campbell examine the origins of the Tea Party movement.
Turns out, it is basically just the latest iteration of the Christian Right.
According to Putnam and Campbell, next to being a Republican, the best predictor of a Tea Partier was the desire to see more religion in politics:
"Tea Partiers continue to hold these views: they seek deeply religious elected officials, approve of religious leaders engaging in politics and want religion brought into political debates. The Tea Partys generals may say their overriding concern is a smaller government, but not their rank and file, who are more concerned about putting God in government."
As Putnam and Campbell point out, the religious inclination of the movement explains why disapproval of the Tea Party is actually on the rise even as Americans have grown slightly more fiscally conservative as a whole, they have become more opposed to mixing God and politics.
A recent NYT/CBS poll revealed that 40% of Americans have an unfavorable opinion of the Tea Party, compared to just 18% in April 2010. Meanwhile, Tea Party supporters have slipped from 21% to 20% in the same period. The Tea Party ranks lower than Republicans, Democrats, "Muslims," and "atheists." The only group with the same degree of unpopularity is the Christian Right.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Double posting due to I-phone buttons sticking.
Your posts have spurred me to post a relevant, somewhat existential question...
I think most FReepers agree that freedom decreases in proportion to government, regulation, laws, taxation, etc.
I think we also agree that nothing would make us happier than to have the ‘face’ of government hidden away more often.
But does our fervent interest in and commentary on politics lead us at times to put our foot in the trap so to speak? In other words, is the frequency and depth of our interest the same as the frequency and depth of the Left’s interest albeit from the complete opposite direction in terms of means and ends? Leftists worship the state and therefore will never abandon their argument-framing in order to perpetuate and grow the state.
Many of us have sat through those ridiculous diversity programs at universities or at our places of work. The one question they don’t like and can never adequately answer is: “How can we stop talking about race if we never stop talking about race?”
Substitute “government” for “race” and perhaps you will understand my question.
Or perhaps the question answers itself since the last 100 years or so of history have shown that constant vigilance is the only bulwark against wholesale encroachment upon man’s rights.
The Tea Party has SOME of its recent beginnings in the Big Fight over Illegal Immigration and Amnesty - heavily fought in 2005-06-07... and for the most part we won - in at least it became a stalemate. This was a time when many large and small groups formed and had significant impact on the Congress. In June 2007 millions of phone calls melted the Senate phone system - scared the Senators - and the legislative debate came to a halt. This was a time when Americans began to understand that our Congress was going to go whatever the hell it wanted despite citizen objection - until that objection became MASSIVE and could not be ignored... This realization was a spark that got carried over to the Tea Party protest demonstrations that were held all over the U.S. beginning in early 2009 after Rick Santinni made his famous statement. April 15, 2009 was the recent beginning of the many protest culminating with the massive turnout for the March on D.C. Add in the Town Hall meetings and BOOM - MUSHROOM !!! The Tea Party MINDSET became a powerhouse. Tea Party folks are made up of some Christian Conservatives, some Fiscal Conservatives, some just Patriotic Americans who are fighting for a sane, sensible and responsible government. All propaganda putting the Tea Parties down will fail... because it is a MINDSET of what is right - not a hollow dogma.
You and me both! Of course this is an OP ED piece from an msm "newspaper" in NY....so one can discount or safely disbelieve over 95% of what is presented.
I am - like yourself - about 179.9998 degrees opposite of "christian right"...yet am pretty much "T Party".
One wonders exactly where they migh be obtaining their data...or am I correct in assuming they're just making it up as they go along??
So I guess if you are fiscally responsible, and you are Christian, those things should be mutually exclusive. Sigh, that is sooo pathetic. Man, they are really out to destroy the Tea Party movement. I guess it is a civil war. http://www.futurnamics.com/civilwar.php
Once again, that isn't what it stands for. "Taxed Enough Already" was a slogan at a rally, it is not the heart of the movement. The movement predates that slogan. The movement is about the same issues which animated our Founding Fathers to hold their Tea Party enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. Read it again... it's still true today and it's about more than taxation.
The TEA PARTY must be destroyed. How did this little group of piss ants derail the Democrats 2/3 majority in government?
I’m not a Christian
I’m not a Republican
Yet the ideas espoused by the TEA party agree with me. Simply Taxed Enough Already. Government spending is out of control and it is about 10 times larger than it need be. As long as this is the litmus test for people of the TEA party, count me in.
That’s an easy question, and answer to just flip in order give an answer with some insight:
Who is really behind the ANTI-Tea Party Movement?
Turns out, it is basically just the latest iteration of the Anti-Christian Left.
Tea Partiers sometimes make me think of the movie Spartacus when each man claims to be Spartacus. That’s okay, isn’t it?
It hearkens to a framework that emphasizes personal liberty and freedom for society in general, that gives boundless opportunity to the fuller realization of each individual dream.
It emphasizes the individual, rather than the collective, which history over time has revealed as one of the great failings of mankind's social experiments.
As our birthright, this philosophy is branded deeply into our psyche, so that it's adherents intuitively know that people were not born individuals so they could grow up to be part of a collective; that “all men are created equal” does not mean that all men must be the same, so that, rather than equality of opportunity, we must have equality of outcome; that whenever our eyes cast upon the wealth that our society creates, and can create, we know in our hearts the best answer to embrace is, “all men should live like this”, not “no man should live like this”.
Socialism, Communism, “progressivism” - it doesn't really matter what terminology you use here, as the end result for all is the same - by it's very nature runs against the grain of human life, human thought, human development. A failure everywhere it's been tried, these collectivist theologies bring nothing but poverty, despair, moral degeneracy, and the eventual collapse of society and, yes, even civilization, if permitted to run to it's logical conclusion.
These anti-human toxicologies, it should be remembered, are not really political and philosophical justification for the poor and “downtrodden” to embrace as a political system based on such. Socialism and it's bastard brethren are really a vehicle for the very, very wealthy and cultural elites to hold and and rule a society for their own benefit.
With the election and ascension of Barack Obama, the Left really felt it was in the end game for control of this country, and consequently, the West. They did not foresee the emergence of this political movement that cannot be shot down with the loss of a “leader”, cannot be numbed into silence with persistent media savaging, and cannot be outargued by a pernicious and failed ideology that, quite really, while moderately interesting from a philosophical point of view, never really should have left the halls of academia.
The concept of the TEA party continues to grow precisely because it strikes a resonant chord within the hearts and minds of Americans who know, at it's most basic, this is the age-old story of right and wrong, good and evil, come to life again in their own time, their own generation.
We are, I'll admit, in a race against time, as the left has had a big head start on removing America's infrastructure and replacing it with it's own.
Will we win?
I dunno.
But I know this. As long as there are free men who are willing to fight and die for something so valuable, so human, and so right as the ideas and principles that are America, we'll have a chance.
Embrace this country, and the ideals upon which it was founded, and don't let go.
Do it for yourself, your family, your children, your future. But do it.
CA....
You’re all wrong !
That right-wing conspiracy Tea Party movement has roots that go very deep.
It’s a conspiracy, definitely !
I’ve done some research.
It goes way back.
There are moneyed interests that supported it.
Even at least one foreign power.
And a bunch of very radical and very extreme religious groups.
Most of the early members were people who were agitators and most of them stockpiled guns and ammunition.
And the roots of it start with large groups of right-wing agenda extremists who conspired to remake America into something totally new.
A whole new country.
Yee-haa !
Wow. Complete and total ignorance. they cannot comprehend that it was a true grass roots movement to combat the massive spending/encroachment of the Imperial Federal Government.
The author would never wish to confuse his narrative with facts.
In the end it comes down to power, pure absolute murderous power. As I have said elsewhere, the desire to harm others and to do so without fear of consequences is irresistable for these power lusters. It's the grand prize, the ultimate goal, and it trumps sex, greed and anything elase. It is nothing less than pure, naked smirking evil. Most people can;t even comprehend that sort of thinking.
This lust for dominance over every sphere of human thought and endeavor, this lust for cruelty and atrocity beyond imagination constitutes an ongoing assault against humanity itself. It continues without pause. And we're going to have to stop it from happening here. With methods we can hardly countenance ourselves. It's our burden, our consequence, our price that we must pay for allowing it to go on for so long.
Throw out some cloudy sort of thought fragment, and some brilliant wordsmith of a FreepeR will fill it in for ya'.
Thanx, CA ... that's the beauty and love of FR ... some of us can't formulate thought as well as (we think ... /8^) ... ) we used to, but someone else is close enough and good enough to flesh it out.
“They just cannot believe U.S. citizens care enough about the country to not turn over like whipped dogs.”
But it upsets me that the public disapproval is growing so much against the TP simply because of the Left’s propaganda and BHO’s bully pulpit. I think the vast majority of people would agree with the TP if some on our side spent the time (and even some $ to run ads) educating them on what it’s really about. Same goes for the TP members of Congress who’re trying to do the right thing. But as it is, the disapproval rate for Republicans and Congress only continues to grow - and it’s just not right.
Good Luck trying to hang the Christian Right around the neck of the Tea Party......the RinoCracy is starting to publicly lose its marbles...probably will do so as ‘Bammy does simultaneously. The American Elite are slowly coming to realize their election of this fraud will cost them decades of legitimate leadership....and they are panicking hard. Rick Perry is their last hope at keeping Flyover Country from implementing Constitutional Government.
“a lot of low information voters believe this BS and think the Tea Party is a Christian conservative plot, funded by the Koch brothers and evil Rove, to foist a theocracy on the US.”
The tragic part is that we have a POTUS who, I believe deep in my heart from all evidence, is a member of a truly evil “religion” that DOES want to foist a theocracy (and worse) on the US.
“But it upsets me that the public disapproval is growing so much against the TP”
Is it really? Or is that the current truth that is being pushed by the mediaobamacracy?
“Im not a Christian
Im not a Republican
Yet the ideas espoused by the TEA party agree with me.”
Then you, and others like you, can be VERY helpful, even instrumental, in dispelling all the myths and propaganda spread by the Left that the TP is only a group of right-wing, evangelical, obstinate naysayers who don’t put the good of our country first.
I’m serious - you can do a lot of good that way!
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