Haven't we had enough diaries about the Tea parties, teabagging jokes, and making fun of the wingnuttery over the outright ignorance of their position?
Nope.
One thing that I find so far greatly overlooked is the base meaning behind the Tea Parties and their symbolism. Before all the jokes about teabagging, the conservative movement wanted to make a statement. They are trying to further the meme that Obama et al is taxing them to death. They couldn't make it stick during the past few elections, so they are going further and further out on a limb to try to make a point.
So they are organizing events on Tax Day, April 15th, to protest what they deem undue taxation. They have chosen to conjure memories of the Boston Tea Party to make their point. Everyone remembers the Boston Tea Party: protesters in the young American colonies dumping tea into the bay as a statement against taxation without representation; the same type of argument that right-wingers are trying to make today. But there is one major difference.
Conservatives HAVE representation in the government making tax policy.
It's just that they are in the minority, and they are not getting their way any more. Representation does not mean getting your way. It mean that you get to have a say, amongst the discussion. You get to be heard. You have a place at the table. But you know what? The American People spoke, and the Head of the Table, you know, the one occupied by Teh Decider, now belongs to someone with different ideas from yours. Deal. Say your part, then kindly STFU.
As John Stewart so eloquently put it the other night:
"Now you’re in the minority, it’s supposed to taste like a shit taco."
This seems to be something completely lost on the wingnuttery. Sore losers, and getting more sore every day.
Whatever. Some people will never learn.
In any case, any discussion about tea, even in the outrageous context invoked by our friends on the right, is sadly incomplete without mentioning Douglas Adams (Rest His Soul). After all, it seems that no matter what shape they take, or who shows up, or how Faux News chooses to spin the outcome, these events will produce
a plastic cup filled with a liquid that [is] almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea
A tip of the pinkie to them!