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Marvel Comics' depiction of anti-tax protesters inspires anger, apology

As they always do, that, plus the media blitz giving them the limelight a well, has led to certain ilk to utilize the vulgar term at yours truly among others.

Not to mention the group I mentioned before which held the convention with Palin as the Keynote speaker. I think she's a quintessential opportunist in this whole thing, myself.

As far as the teabagger insult, my stance is that you should castrate the insult by not talking offense to it. Owning a term and not taking offense to it de-values the ability of others to use it as an insult.

For example, someone calling me an idiot is of no benefit to them because I self-apply the term all the time. Whenever someone does call me an idiot, I usually just embrace it and say something along the lines of "Well, aside from my well-established idiocy, what is your response to such and such idea...."

And guess what happens when I use this approach? In almost every case, that the insults stop.

Why?

Because they have no impact.

The purpose of an insult is to inflame the other person. But even more importantly, it gives the insulter power over you only if you allow it to. If you remove the ability of the person to inflame and offend, you remove their power.

You castrate it.

That's why I think the tea party proponents need to just embrace the title. It's never going to go away while they willingly give it power, and the only power it can have is the power to offend.
 
I think that many within the tea party movement are trying to make a legit movement, but the infiltration of opportunists and inflammatory rhetoric that has been associated with the movement have undermined the main goal.

I mean, the fact that Ron Paul is being contested by tea partiers is a sure sign that there has been some degree of hijacking that has happened. Nobody within the republican party represents the concept of small governemnt conservatism more purely than Paul, even if one disagrees with his foreign policy approach, his domestic record has been immaculate according to the average tea partier's purported domestic goals.

That harms the legitimacy of the whole movement in my eyes. It makes it look like nothing more than an opposition platform to the dems instead of a true conservative movement.

And embracing Palin is another de-legitimizing aspect of the platform. I find her approach to be purely opportunistic.

Contrary to what American will say about independents and liberals with regards to my views, I represent a very extreme version of 1790's-style anti-federalism, which is actually a very extreme form of small-government ideology.

The basic premises of the tea party claims is right in line with my way of thinking: small federal government etc.

To me, a legitimate movement will have a stance that is not merely based on mutual opposition to certain concepts.

A legitimate movement has specific goals and specific strategies that it wants to implement in order to achieve those goals.

I haven't seen any specific strategies proposed by tea partiers that would decrease the size of the government. I've seen a lot of anti-Obama rhetoric though.

I can agree to some of this - but relegating hundreds of thousands of people to the motivations of a few that you happen to see as opportunists or that you don't like for whatever reason, I think is selling things short. This is a new movement, it just started this past year so it'll take some time for them to figure out exactly what they'll adopt.

You might want to check out the goals they're adopting as well on their web page. And for right now, they are anti a lot of things... simply because they're trying to figure out what if any role they can play in this mess our country is in. I'm actually hoping from a 1,000 foot view they continue to be successful and attract more people as such movements do have positive changes to all the political party's who hold power. You may not agree with everything, few do in any political position. But my view is the Tea Party may not be the change in and of itself, but it may be the catalyst that removes and rejects for a long time this progressive nightmare that has taken over the Democratic party.
 
Except nobody in the Tea Party coined the term in reference to the Tea Party movement. Your link certainly did not prove that. In fact you will be hard pressed to prove that a movement that began with mailing "tea bags" to elected leaders in reference to the Boston Tea Party, would then turn around and use the term to describe themselves while simultaneous adopting the name "Tea Party" to describe themselves. Even grade school children "get" what Tea Party means. The derogatory term "tea bag" has been around for quite a few years now, and nobody in the Tea Party suggested that be the name of the group for obvious reasons. Any argument otherwise is utterly stupid and plainly obvious as such.;)

It is kinda funny watching posters at DP line up to try and claim that the Tea Party called themselves "Tea Baggers" by "coining" the term "Tea Bag" in reference to jettisoning the current leaders and policies they disagree with in Washington DC.

Lastly the term "tea bag" was "coined" long before 2009 and the Tea Party came along. Jesus it is amazing just how willing some are to dissemble.
yes, they did. do you really think everyone in this movement is smart enough to recognize a derogatory term? i sure don't.

Best of the Angry Tea-bagger Signs : The Cotton Club

‘N-Word’ Sign Dogs Would-Be Tea Party Leader The Washington Independent
 
I can agree to some of this - but relegating hundreds of thousands of people to the motivations of a few that you happen to see as opportunists or that you don't like for whatever reason, I think is selling things short. This is a new movement, it just started this past year so it'll take some time for them to figure out exactly what they'll adopt.

You might want to check out the goals they're adopting as well on their web page. And for right now, they are anti a lot of things... simply because they're trying to figure out what if any role they can play in this mess our country is in. I'm actually hoping from a 1,000 foot view they continue to be successful and attract more people as such movements do have positive changes to all the political party's who hold power. You may not agree with everything, few do in any political position. But my view is the Tea Party may not be the change in and of itself, but it may be the catalyst that removes and rejects for a long time this progressive nightmare that has taken over the Democratic party.


Fair enough.

Personally, I hope they don't focus too much on just the Dems. To me there's a lot wrong with GOP that a third party-type movement needs to address as well.
 
Not to mention the group I mentioned before which held the convention with Palin as the Keynote speaker. I think she's a quintessential opportunist in this whole thing, myself.

As far as the teabagger insult, my stance is that you should castrate the insult by not talking offense to it. Owning a term and not taking offense to it de-values the ability of others to use it as an insult.

For example, someone calling me an idiot is of no benefit to them because I self-apply the term all the time. Whenever someone does call me an idiot, I usually just embrace it and say something along the lines of "Well, aside from my well-established idiocy, what is your response to such and such idea...."

And guess what happens when I use this approach? In almost every case, that the insults stop.

Why?

Because they have no impact.

The purpose of an insult is to inflame the other person. But even more importantly, it gives the insulter power over you only if you allow it to. If you remove the ability of the person to inflame and offend, you remove their power.

You castrate it.

That's why I think the tea party proponents need to just embrace the title. It's never going to go away while they willingly give it power, and the only power it can have is the power to offend.

Oh you are absolutly right. But do you really want me to embrace being called a teabagger?

Not cause i care. But im sure as a teabagger, my responses will cause far more reports on my retorts than you all are currently enjoying. :pimpdaddy:
 
Oh you are absolutly right. But do you really want me to embrace being called a teabagger?

Not cause i care. But im sure as a teabagger, my responses will cause far more reports on my retorts than you all are currently enjoying. :pimpdaddy:

You can't embrace the name while also employing retaliatory measures with it. That doesn't accomplish anything. If you want to see the thing truly disappear, it takes acting as though it's just a name, and nothing more. A label.

Retaliating means that it has goaded you, and thus, it remains just as powerful as before.
 
You can't embrace the name while also employing retaliatory measures with it. That doesn't accomplish anything. If you want to see the thing truly disappear, it takes acting as though it's just a name, and nothing more. A label.

Retaliating means that it has goaded you, and thus, it remains just as powerful as before.





Lol tuck you know me better than this.... I'd use it to demonstrste bombastic grandilloquence. ;)
 
Lol. I can show you ownage...... It may involve a little brinkmanship withthe rulez tho. :ssst:

I'd avoid the brinkmanship. :lol:

(By the way, "The Legend of Teabagger Case" didn't fit in my user title, but I thought it would have been a nice pun-like play on multiple concepts)
 
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