Progressives, Moderates, Liberals, Independents..... need to open up their minds a little and not be so frightened and intolerant of the Tea Partiers. The Tea Party is a big mix of many homegrown ideas. There are some very important areas of the Tea Party philosophy...that of Liberals, Progressives, Independents, Moderates, etc. can and should embrace. By not doing this...we push all the Tea Party people into the conservative's and Republican's open arms and can count on their voting against every and any liberal or Democrat that runs for office anywhere.
So what's to like about their Tea?
If you listen to Ron Paul and many of the other Tea Party Protagonists... you will find that they (some of them) do not like: 1. Overseas wars (Iraq, Afghanistan) 2. Government intervention in our private lives (soft drugs, government eavesdropping/spying) 3. Spending more than we make (out of control deficits, war spending), Government support for big business at expense of the poor (government bail outs for banks, unbridled spending on "pork").
While there are positions taken by some of Tea Partiers that I don't like (hate) and strongly disagree with, such as: intolerance toward "others" (closet racism, anti foreigner mindset), Mindless "No more government and no more taxes" rants, no matter what the impact (who will run the firetrucks when your house is on fire?), Mindless village idiots unwilling to learn the truth (climate science, evolution)..... there is still room to find some common ground and take away this block of voters from the Republicans, who now can count them in their back pocket on every vote.
We need to divide and conquer. We need to find areas of agreement between these two seemingly opposites forces in American Politics.... Progressives and Tea Partiers.....and work it and work it hard.
There is no reason why this populist uprising called the Tea Party should be helping only the Republicans. While they share some philosophy with the Republicans.... they also are opposed to much of the Republican platform: Tea Partiers really don't like more wars, more war spending, government "Big Brother" spying on them, America as the Global Policeman, Domestic police violently enforcing laws regarding social and moral behavior, government helping big business.... yet these are all prime meat for traditional Republicans.
I think we should reach out and try to find common ground... and find time to sit and talk with these populists who so many Progressives simply count out as being insane players in the current political drama.
My thought?.....Perhaps its time for Tea?