Essay talk:Tea party versus the Founders

Good essay. However, you mention that trial by jury is not an issue today. Have you heard about a bill proposed by 8 Republicans and Lieberman that would strip away this right in certain circumstances? It's not really connected with the Tea Party, I guess, but it is coming from the right, not the left. It could deserve mention. DickTurpis (talk) 15:20, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, nice work! Do you mind if others fix typos? ħuman 22:36, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Go right ahead. Just don't make substantive changes, of course. MDB (talk) 22:42, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Human, I've fixed some of my own, but please fix others you might find.

Dick, I added a reference to the McCain/Lieberman "juries? we don't need no steenkeen juries" proposal. Thanks for the suggestion. I did try to make it clear that McCain and Lieberman aren't really friends of the Tea Party. MDB (talk) 22:58, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

There was a missing "from" in the jury section. Removed excess apostrophe. If I see anything else I'll fix, but those were all I'd seen after reading more than half of it. Cheers! ħuman 23:06, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Overseas trials - you might want to mention the rendition thing, although I don't know if Obama has continued it. Of course, that isn't (supposedly) used on US citizens. ħuman 23:07, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

"ravaged our Coasts"

Well, if you buy into the claim that he caused the Deepwater Horizon disaster... ħuman 23:09, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

That was what I meant by the reference to "conspiracy theories". MDB (talk) 23:26, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Possible Expansion/Other Essay

I considered closing with a quote from the late, lamented Molly Ivins about Republicans when she was still around, charging that if this were 1776, most of the Tea Baggers would have been Tories. I don't think that's justifiable, but if anyone wants to expand the idea, you're welcome to it.

And speaking of Molly Ivins, god, I wish I could hear what she thinks about the Tea Party. We need her... MDB (talk) 23:26, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

?

Has there been someone saying that the two groups have the same grievances? It was my understanding that the Tea Party believes they have the same spirit as the Founders, but that their complaints mostly stem from nebulous notions of "constitutionality" and overtaxation (absurd since taxes are at their lowest in decades). I don't know of anyone complaining that Obama is trying to quarter troops in their house.--^talk 09:38, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Valid point, but my essay's point was really that the tea party has nothing on the Founders. MDB (talk) 12:40, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

But your essay made that point by seeing if they had the same grievances, rather than comparing severity of complaints. The test of their similarity wouldn't be whether or not the Tea Party was being oppressed in the exact same ways, but rather would be whether they were being oppressed to the same degree. I don't think they are - their complaints are generally unfounded - but your essay doesn't make your point, I think. Sorry :S --^talk 02:34, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

He has a point. Does the TP have a "list of grievances" we can compare in the opposite direction, or at least analyze? ħuman 03:52, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Obama flagrantly continues to be black - David Gerard (talk) 07:01, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for not responding sooner -- I've not had much time at RW lately. Anyway, I don't know if there is a standard list of Tea Party grievances, because

* There's not one unified 'Tea Party', it's a multitude of groups.

* Their list of grievances is ill-defined, beyond a (newly found...) opposition to government spending and to "socialism" (when they probably couldn't recognize real socialism if it, as I like to say, ran up and bit them on the proletariat.

MDB (talk) 13:22, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

an unofficial list Jack Hughes (talk) 14:48, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Usefully WRITTEN IN ALL CAPS I see... Well, they copied the Declaration, so they apparently thought they come close to the Founders.

Though I note they said, "AND LET THESE GRIEVANCES BE HEARD IN THE HALLS OF POWER IN 2009, JUST AS THEY WERE HEARD IN THE PALACE OF BRITAIN’S KING GEORGE THE THIRD, AS THEY THUNDERED FORTH FROM THE TEXT OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE ON JULY 4TH, 1776." Well, supposedly, George III's diary for July 4, 1776, included something to the effect of "nothing important happened today." (Yeah, I know, communication being what it was in 1776, he probably had no idea us Yanks had declared independence.) MDB (talk) 15:45, 8 July 2010 (UTC)