The tea party is a highly conservative grassroots organization that, according to their mission statement, brings awareness to any violations of our nation's secutiy, soverignty or domestic tranquility. The three most important issues in the tea party platform are fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government and free markets.
Definitions of each issue are as follows:
Fiscal Responsibility: Fiscal Responsibility by government honors and respects the freedom of the individual to spend the money that is the fruit of their own labor. A constitutionally limited government, designed to protect the blessings of liberty, must be fiscally responsible or it must subject its citizenry to high levels of taxation that unjustly restrict the liberty our Constitution was designed to protect. Such runaway deficit spending as we now see in Washington D.C. compels us to take action as the increasing national debt is a grave threat to our national sovereignty and the personal and economic liberty of future generations.
Constitutionally Limited Government: We, the members of The Tea Party Patriots, are inspired by our founding documents and regard the Constitution of the United States to be the supreme law of the land. We believe that it is possible to know the original intent of the government our founders set forth, and stand in support of that intent. Like the founders, we support states' rights for those powers not expressly stated in the Constitution. As the government is of the people, by the people and for the people, in all other matters we support the personal liberty of the individual, within the rule of law.
Free Markets: A free market is the economic consequence of personal liberty. The founders believed that personal and economic freedom were indivisible, as do we. Our current government's interference distorts the free market and inhibits the pursuit of individual and economic liberty. Therefore, we support a return to the free market principles on which this nation was founded and oppose government intervention into the operations of private business.
(http://www.teapartypatriots.org/mission.aspx)
Other core beliefs:
Illegal Aliens Are Here illegally.
Pro-Domestic Employment Is Indispensable.
Stronger Military Is Essential.
Special Interests Eliminated.
Gun Ownership Is Sacred.
Government Must Be Downsized.
National Budget Must Be Balanced.
Deficit Spending Will End.
Bail-out And Stimulus Plans Are Illegal.
Reduce Personal Income Taxes A Must.
Reduce Business Income Taxes Is Mandatory.
Political Offices Available To Average Citizens.
Intrusive Government Stopped.
English As Core Language Is Required.
Traditional Family Values Are Encouraged.
Common Sense Constitutional
Conservative Self-Governance
These three definitions reflect the direct attacks at liberal policies and bias toward conservatism in their mission statement. The power word "liberty" is used often to reflect the "other side (liberals) is taking away freedoms and overstepping the rule of law.
The founder of the tea party is a 22 year career Navy Lieutenant, Dale Robertson, whose protest that has turned into a successful, elected, national political party was started as a protest to Obama's so called "unconstitional" stimulus bill.
Yesterday, over 60 seats up for election were won by the republicans, several of which were actually tea-party candidates. This organization had most definitely made an impact on the elections.
The "Rent is Too Damn High" party platform is mainly to say that government should focus on the domestic issues first before any other policies come into place. It is based of the New York State, and did not take too much effect on the election nor has it spread. It's outrageous name gets the party more publicity than anything else.
This week in class:
A) The first thing we did in class this week was discover our "political compass" in terms of whether we truly do lean right or left on issues. We took two different surveys, one short and one long, to determine our political standing. In both, my standing was a slight "left libertarian" but mainly a centrist. As you can see here on the graph, I am in the left-libertarian block, but more toward the center than usual. Left-Libertarian signifies that on my social issues I am liberal, while on government systems and some economics and I am more conservative. I had never thought of myself at all conservative, so the results suprised me a little. The next thing we did was watch another documentary, "The Divided State" about a controversy at in Utah.
B) A student at Bringham-Young University made a film of the controversy of Michael Moore speaking at Utah Valley College. Why is this a controversy? Utah is the most historically conservative state in the US. The film illustrates the true divide between-truly- democrats and republicans- during this time. The community outside of the College actually filed a lawsuit against the student government, and metioned in public hearings that school administration should step down after letting this kind of abomination happen. In a way, Micheal Moore is an intrusive figure into their safe-haven of conservative beliefs, but when you see the rally of Republics by Sean Hannity before Michael Moore comes, you see why Utah needs to hear the other side. Hannity singles out Liberals and blames everything on them: his speech/rally was completely one sided, as was Moore's.
C) Combining the two themes from this week, I have to wonder how many of the people in Utah's "cult" of conservative republicans actually believe in the conservative platforms. So many people are influenced by where they live, their parents and other experiences to shape which political party they are. To prove my point I did yet another "typology test" at this the following website: ttp://typology.people-press.org/typology/results.php. This survey ask several questions on your beliefs, and then asks you what party you associate yourself with. The first time I went through, my response was that I considerred myself a liberal democrat, and my result was liberal. Keeping all the same responses on my beliefs, I re-took the quiz. This time, I reponsded that I considered my self a conservative republican--but with the same beliefs. I got a completley different result! I was now part of the "upbeat" party. How does what I consider myself affect which political party platform matches most with my beliefs? Unfortunately, society has decided it does.
Question for next week:
How many different political parties are there in the US? How many different little factions make up the two policial parties?
Sources:
The Rent Is Too Damn High Party. Web. 04 Nov. 2010. http://www.rentistoodamnhigh.org/.
C) Combining the two themes from this week, I have to wonder how many of the people in Utah's "cult" of conservative republicans actually believe in the conservative platforms. So many people are influenced by where they live, their parents and other experiences to shape which political party they are. To prove my point I did yet another "typology test" at this the following website: ttp://typology.people-press.org/typology/results.php. This survey ask several questions on your beliefs, and then asks you what party you associate yourself with. The first time I went through, my response was that I considerred myself a liberal democrat, and my result was liberal. Keeping all the same responses on my beliefs, I re-took the quiz. This time, I reponsded that I considered my self a conservative republican--but with the same beliefs. I got a completley different result! I was now part of the "upbeat" party. How does what I consider myself affect which political party platform matches most with my beliefs? Unfortunately, society has decided it does.
Question for next week:
How many different political parties are there in the US? How many different little factions make up the two policial parties?
Sources:
The Rent Is Too Damn High Party. Web. 04 Nov. 2010. http://www.rentistoodamnhigh.org/.
State, By. Tea Party Patriots | Find Your Local Tea Party. Web. 04 Nov. 2010. http://www.teapartypatriots.org/.
"Typology Test." Pew Research Center Political Typology. Web. 04 Nov. 2010. http://typology.people-press.org/typology/.
Welcome to TeaParty.org. Web. 04 Nov. 2010. <http://www.teaparty.org/>.
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