Ethics

Tea Party Fun

By Ed Brayton

July 4th brought another round of tea parties and all the attendant absurdity that goes with them. As I've said before, I think there is a perfectly reasonable core to the tea parties. For those libertarian-minded people who really do object to fiscal irresponsibility, I'm all for speaking out and condemning the spend-fest going on at the federal level, about which I have grave concerns as well.

The problem, as many have pointed out, is that these events quickly turned in to little more than general spasms of anger, a good portion of it racist, xenophobic and based on paranoid delusions. Just as we saw in April, the tea parties did not focus only on taxes and spending but included every imaginable form of crankery, from the birthers to the Birchers to the downright insane.

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on July 08, 2009 (boomark / email).