Posted on 03/08/2014 11:20:41 AM PST by SeekAndFind
The theme of Michael Tanner at the National Review is that the Tea Party has become unpopular because it’s against gay marriage and illegal alien amnesty.
Yet it’s also true that the Tea Party’s clout is waning. According to the most recent Gallup poll, just 30 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of the movement, the lowest level in its history.
While this may technically be the lowest level, the Tea Party spent most of its time with a favorable rating in the 30s.
In 2011, the Tea Party had a favorability rating of 33 percent. So the notion that this is some sort of recent development in response to social issues has no basis in reality.
Sparked by outrage over the Wall Street bailouts, the original Tea Party was motivated by an opposition to Big Government. The motto of the Tea Party Patriots, one of the largest and most influential groups, was “fiscal responsibility, limited government, and free markets.” The Tea Party’s core issues were the skyrocketing national debt and opposition to Obamacare…
But the Tea Party has drifted away from its strict economic-conservative origins. Yes, opposition to Obamacare and government spending remain priorities. But increasingly issues such as abortion, gay marriage, and immigration have become the tail that wags the dog.
Tanner doesn’t provide any evidence that the Tea Party is now more focused on abortion than ObamaCare. He can’t provide that evidence because it doesn’t exist.
But the Tea Party also recognizes that economic issues can’t be divorced from social issues in many cases.
Tanner complains that Tea Party Patriots were “organizing not against Obamacare or raising the debt ceiling, but against immigration reform.” But Tanner doesn’t seem to understand that illegal alien amnesty will make it that much easier for the left to get through nationalized health care and even higher spending and taxation.
Importing large numbers of illegal Democrats who are the opposite of fiscal conservatives make fiscal conservatism unsustainable. Libertarians who refuse to accept the fact that open borders are incompatible with small government are committing suicide and asking everyone else to join them for the ride.
Amen.
I have only ever see the Tea Party formally involved in lowering taxes and opposing amnesty. These reports are ridiculous. Those cultural issues are not things the Tea Party is directly involved in, though many in the Tea Party agree on those issues.
Geeze. Another “Demise of the Tea Party article.”
They have been coming regularly once a week for the last 6 years.
Hundreds of millions a year worth of free negative press a year by the main stream press and entrenched politicians.
Years of slander with no vehicle to fight back with on the national scene.
A Tea-Party candidate that wants to ignore social issues will get elected as often as Liberaltarian candidates do, which means never!
If the TEA Party seeks to avoid social issues, they are nothing more than a bunch of libertarians, in my view. They will be jeopardizing their support from Christian conservatives such as myself.
The tea party is about the Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence!
It isn’t involved in social issues unless they are enumerated in those documents.
Again people muddying the fresh flowing waters. NO taxation/mandates without representation is a social issue. When the government uses their power to tax US to pay for their liberalism that is a social issue.
God said thou shall NOT steal. This still applies and even to the lords and ladies of government.
enumerated hell, those documents get their pulse from what animates "social issues". What part of "inherent" and/or "inalienable" assigment do we think comes from a signed piece of paper?
The republicans can avoid whatever they want. I want the Tea Party to stand for what is right.
“The tea party is about the Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence! It isn’t involved in social issues unless they are enumerated in those documents.”
Freedom of religion isn’t part of the Constitution? Maybe you haven’t noticed the major war being waged against religion in general, and Christianity in particular, by atheist, humanist, and hedonist types. You, sir, sound like a libertarian..of which most are the aforementioned types.
The TEA Party (remember, it's an acronym for Taxed Enough Already) has to get back to its roots. Anyone is free to be both a Christian fundamentalist and a TEA Party supporter; or a libertarian and a TEA Party supporter; or even a neo-isolationist and a TEA Party supporter.
But the TEA Party itself should focus on fiscal and monetary policy: a lower, flatter tax structure, slashed social spending, slashed foreign aid, and reduced or eliminated government interference with the private economy.
The TEA Party's deliberate lack of formal structure has allowed other interest groups to hijack its label. More than once, I've heard people deride the movement because they are under the impression that TEA Party supporters think the universe is only a few thousand years old.
I’m not a sir, and I am religious and I despise the war against white Christians going on.
I believe that fighting over specific religious issues is not for the main fight here. We need ONE OVERARCHING GOAL and I believe that is to go back and govern from the Constitution, period. That includes freedom of religion, meaning freedom of lifestyle for all. Allow everyone to live as they wish and worship as they wish, as long as it doesn’t hurt others’ rights to the same. No one should affect the rights of others.
Let the social issues take care of themselves while we FIGHT for a constitutional government, period. There is a statist bloc with their hands over our hard earned money, just as King George once was, so I think we need to go back to the Declaration at this point, too.
If we can get back to a constitutional government, no one will be able to compel others to leave their religious tenets. Step by step. Let’s focus like a laser on the constitution right now.
The TEA party is dead. Long live the TEA party.
The TEA party is a zombie for they are the undead.
Who are these people who keep telling me I am dead?
enumerated hell, those documents get their pulse from what animates “social issues”. What part of “inherent” and/or “inalienable” assigment do we think comes from a signed piece of paper?
Parchment, but we completely agree. A constitutional government is a government based on Gd given rights. These rights work for atheists too, and if they don’t like it, find a more godless country.
Maybe you didn’t notice what I said in my recent post, it deserves repeating:
“Freedom of religion isn’t part of the Constitution? Maybe you haven’t noticed the major war being waged against religion in general, and Christianity in particular, by atheist, humanist, and hedonist types.”
Your comments seen strange coming from southern North Carolina. Looks like the Bible belt isn’t as strong in those parts as it used to be.
Agreed. Libertarians, lacking faith in anything except their own brilliant intellects, are horribly disorganized and doped-out lethargic.
Libertarian kids are, like, way too cool to demonstrate for political causes and get hauled away to jail — as pro-lifers at abortion clinics are willing to do. Libertarians are too lazy to traipse through snow to political caucuses in freezing cold Iowa like Christian Coalition volunteers. Libertarians sleep in on Sunday morning when Christians go to church and unite for the glory of God — and for the betterment of man.
Drunk libertarians are the first to get run over when a coup finally comes and tanks rumble through the streets.
The TEA Party and religious doctrines should remain separate. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is best taught one on one through the Holy Spirit. Constitutional government should be taught to the masses.
Hey, go the way of the Europe. This nation was founded, prospered and was blessed and protected because of:
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” The Preamble
http://www.ushistory.org/Declaration/document/
.......We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world........
Here is our Constitutional government.
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