7 February 2010 The Mad Hatters’ party

7 February 2010 The Mad Hatters’ party


At $549 per person the better off among the Tea Party Nation demonstrated their gullibility along with their dissatisfaction in Nashville. T-shirt sellers, pamphleteers, and other opportunistic merchants were the probable weekend winners along with the organizers of the event who got what Palin didn’t take.

Palin delivered a 40 minute speech. That in itself is perplexing as she used the opportunity to attack President Obama’s use of a teleprompter. I seriously doubt that Ms. Palin had her entire speech committed to memory so she must have read it from some source. I have yet to understand how a teleprompter has become an object of derision when used for by our current President. I suppose one could ask if Ms. Palin is too low-tech in capability to use a teleprompter. Perhaps that’s the catch?

Palin speaking about national security is, in itself, frightening. Her previous lack of geographic and political knowledge, described by multiple veterans of the 2008 campaign, indicate that she would need to repeat all of high school and university before even having the basis to consider foreign policy.

Palin criticizing the current administration for treating a captured terrorist as a criminal and affording him Miranda rights demonstrates both a lack of understanding of how our legal system is constructed and the ability to understand why it should properly be treated as a crime under our laws instead of a battlefield event justifying immediate execution. The GOP base and many of its leaders also seem to draw a blank on this. Unless we follow our laws and apply them, as written, to all suspects and admitted criminals, we have no right to refer to our nation as a nation of law.

The Tea Party base fails to understand the original event that they tap for their name. The Boston Tea Party was about taxation without representation, not about unwanted taxation. The TPN mob is being represented in Congress; usually by people they helped elect. Odds are that most of them also voted for Bush II twice. They object to taxation that might help someone else while many of them appear to be of an age that would grant them Social Security payments and Medicare. Others who weren’t able to afford the trip most likely benefit from some tax-supported entitlement, Medicaid, food stamps, Social Security, etc. It seems that they object most to any taxation that does not directly benefit them and them alone.

Palin made a comment about bringing “God” back into the government. She, and those who showed up to see her, fail to understand that the 1st Amendment was written by people who understood the danger of a state religion. The TPN mob either wants a theocracy or fails to understand what a theocracy is. The fact that they mostly belong to some protestant sect of Christianity does not give them any right to demand that we all pay and pray as they do. Their evangelical immorality, wishing to force their fears and superstitions upon the rest of the world, should be blocked at every turn. We can begin by taxing every church that involves itself in politics.

Palin called Obama to task, partially correctly, over his promise of transparency in government. But Palin talking about transparency, about truth, is a huge joke. She won’t release the amount of her speaker’s fee for her speech. It is purported to be $100,000. She’s got the greed part of GOP down just fine. Her promise that her speaker’s fee will be returned to the movement is about as reliable, about as likely to be true, as her previous comments about “death panels”, about… well, just about any statement she’s made in a public venue.

This is good for American politics. We have a possible new political party claiming it disavows racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, anti-intellectualism, and on, and on. But every video clip we see or hear shows us a white, southern, evangelical protestant, homophobic, group lacking in Asians, Latinos, African-Americans, Jews, Moslems, Hindus, homosexuals and lesbians. We hear them criticize intellectuals, education, science, and many other facets of American life that has benefited the nation to this point. What we have before us is a evangelical female who believes in witchcraft, who doesn’t believe in birth control education or any sort of science, who can’t tell you what she reads, who hasn’t ever finished out an elected job, who is sadly lacking in intellectual curiosity, trying to court support from a group of people who could just as easily belong to the KKK. Her only real qualification, as far as many of the males are concerned is her carefully made-up appearance designed to stimulate an aging male population’s lust.

Move down, new cup, move down!