I've been mauling this over for a while and wanted to float this thinking by all of you. The Tea Party patriots of 1773 took action to oppose undemocratic taxation and trade laws. The key word here is undemocratic. As I am sure you all remember from 8th grade social studies, the colonists were not allowed to have directly elected representatives in the British Parliament. The laws the colonists were required to follow were passed without their input or vote.
Fast forward to today. The current "Tea Party" folks are trying to cloak themselves in the same cloth as the original colonial patriots. This connection is FALSE! The current tea party movement lost an election that they had a vote in. The duly elected representatives of the people have passed a law that they as a minority group disagree with. The two tea party groups could not be further from each other in their aims...
I call on the group that currently calls themselves the Tea Party to STOP denigrating the memory of the real patriots of the revolution. The current group is seeking to undermine our elected government because they did not get their way. The Republican leaders on Sunday were encouraging and leading the tea party protestors. The Tea Party protestors did not articulate a message of democracy; but one of hatred, racism, brutish intimidation, and homophobia.
So what should this group be called? Certainly not tea party patriots. The best historical analogy I can see is that of the Confederates. They were disloyal to the union and our democracy. They tried to undermine our country because they lost elections. They were brutish and racist. Yes folks, our current Tea Party group is nothing more than disloyal Confederates with no commitment to democracy.
So stop dishonoring the real tea party patriots. Start to call the current group of protestors that the Republicans are nurturing CONFEDERATES. That is their cause - the undermining of our Union that was formed as a vehicle to ensure the creation of our representative democracy.