Our friends seem to have enjoyed their first experience of teabagging on Tax Day so much that not one, but two governors are promoting a return to that practice. This diary is an attempt to explain the dangers of this practice and practical measures people can take to proactively avoid these dangers.
The Boston Tea Party is a celebrated event in American history:
The Tea Party was the culmination of a resistance movement throughout British America against the Tea Act, which had been passed by the British Parliament in 1773. Colonists objected to the Tea Act for a variety of reasons, especially because they believed that it violated their constitutional right to be taxed only by their own elected representatives.
Modern day patriots have, in patriotic emulation of their forebears, taken up teabagging as a protest against paying taxes levied by their own elected representatives:
The events are in protest of President Obama[4]'s budget and, more specifically, his stimulus package, which the protesters perceive as examples of wasteful government spending and unnecessary government growth. The protesters also objected to alleged future tax increases, including those on capital gains and dividends, energy[citation needed] and those earning more than $250,000 a year, resulting in many of the protests being held on April 15, 2009 to coincide with the annual U.S. deadline for submitting tax returns....
The Tea Party protests have been guided by a leadership team of 27 conservative-leaning political and media figures[5] Estimates of the total number of protesters nationwide at the April 15, 2009 Tea Party protests range from 240,000 to more than 500,000.[6]
Since teabagging had been in practice even before these modern day protests, captured most memorably in a scene from "Sex and the City" - Charlotte has a Teabag Situation, it is important that those planning continued practice take precautions.
The main danger from teabagging, other than being caught in airport restrooms if you are a Senator, appears to be from hairballs. Humans have rarely encountered this danger before, so we are forced to look at animal research for clues. A simple Internet search for hairball remedies gives a host of expensive methods of curing this problem. But take heart, a simple, cost-efficient and green method exists:
- Try a dab of non-petroleum jelly on your (cat’s) nose. When she licks it off, it will coat her stomach and prevent hairball build-up.
So please, next time you or your friends venture out on those parties, keep a jar of Petroleum Jelly handy. Note that in humans, this substance has been known to be used on the other end of the body too. Regardless, friends should not let friends teabag without petroleum jelly.
Note: We are certainly not encouraging Democrats to show up at Republican events waving jars of this stuff, please.