At the Nashville Teabagger Convention in February, Sarah Palin will be joined on stage by numerous religious authoritarians. One of them is Judge Roy Moore. The American Prospect today offers a bit of telling background on this lovely man, and it makes you want to ask, “What do the Teabaggers mean when they use the word ‘freedom’ and embrace a person like Moore?”:
Roy Moore, a hero of the Christian right just a few years ago, also has much to gain by joining forces with the tea-party movement. In 2003 Moore, then-chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, installed a 2.6-ton granite Ten Commandments monument in the judicial building. After defying another judge’s order to remove it, he was stripped of his position, a martyrdom that turned him into a conservative folk hero. But Moore’s attempt to parlay his cult status into public office was a debacle; he challenged the state’s governor in the Republican primary but lost overwhelmingly.
As mainstream evangelical leaders like Rick Warren and Joel Osteen cultivated a kinder, gentler image, Moore’s fierce, punitive moralism came to seem like a throwback. This is a man, after all, whose judicial opinions seem to sanction the execution of gay people. In a 2002 decision awarding custody of three children to their allegedly abusive father over their lesbian mother, he wrote that homosexuality is “abhorrent, immoral, detestable, a crime against nature, and a violation of the laws of nature and of nature’s God upon which this Nation and our laws are predicated.” The state, he wrote, “carries the power of the sword, that is, the power to prohibit conduct with physical penalties, such as confinement and even execution. It must use that power to prevent the subversion of children towards this lifestyle, to not encourage a criminal lifestyle.”
Remember, this is someone who will be speaking at the Nashville Teabagger Convention, not just sitting in the audience.
Prometheus Unbound 
It’s had to put into words, the feelings of gratefulness I feel for our former mayor of Wasilla. Where else can you go when you are too loopy to be a republican? Thank the big man in the sky for pointing her in the direction of the tea baggers. We can only prey? that they can get the devil out of Haiti. My lands what a week it has been for the faithful.
The Mudflats, she brought up this little turn yesterday. http://www.themudflats.net/
Could this be a big shift in the Republican Party?
This blog post just inspired me to write one of my own.
Dear Andrew,
Are you really that thick headed and thin skinned?
The Tea Baggers coined their own name, not the Democrats, or your evil liberal MSM. I have never seen a comment about the Tea Baggers being gay from the MSM or in any forums.
Elitists? Do you have your tickets for the Tea Baggers convention in February yet? The one where tickets are over $560.00 apiece? Where one of the only sponsors is a jeweler selling Tea Bags made of faux jewels for $89.00? Where Palin is being paid $100,000 to speak?
The convention where there will be no press? Hypocrite!
Do we ROFL at your movements own choice of a name? Yes, because it shows how clueless you are.
Lastly, where were all you “patriots” when Bush tripled the national debt?
Regards,
neo
I voted for Kerry because of the violations of our civil liberties that were taking place under Bush. And it’s the “Tea Party” movement. MSNBC did start the “tea bagger” thing (the video is in the blog post I linked to.) Please inform yourself before spewing so much ignorant hate next time.
Andrew:
I’m sorry, but I cannot offer anything but ridicule and resistance to so reactionary and ridiculous a movement. I know you’re in a thrall to its libertarian elements, and if that was all that was going on with the Tea Party people I’d think it a healthy phenomenon. But it’s not. The professed libertarianism is a front for authoritarian and reactionary political and cultural elements—anti-gay theocrats, torture advocates, racists, conspiracy fanatics, Obama haters, science denialists, and isolationists. It is a movement in a thrall to its own simplicity, juvenalia, and aggression. And it’s a form of stupidity fueled by Far Right Big Media. In a complex, diverse, fast evolving, and interconnected global civilization facing enormous environmental and collective threats, the movement is an indulgence in unicultural 1950s (white) nostalgia.
What the world needs is not more silly Glenn Becks and Sarah Palins whining over the loss of big cars and hot running energy inefficient lightbulbs, but more young people studying climate science and biology in college. The future is not going to be shaped by Tea Party people reading Ayn Rand novels and young earth creationist screeds against evolution, but by people at MIT figuring out how to feasibly shift from an oil economy to a green economy.
The Teaparty movement imagines its very existence as a sign of the far right’s growing strength, but it’s the exact opposite. It is, in fact, the sign of a broken wheel squeaking ever louder before rolling off its axel into the grassy ditch of total irrelevancy.
This is not to say that a catastrophe (like a nuclear bomb in Long Beach Harbor) might not bring an authoritarian right-wing movement to power in America. I think it very well could. But whatever temporary victories such a reactionary movement might achieve near-term, its broad historical curve is in precipitous decline. 40 years from now, the ugly way the Teabaggers act toward our first African American president, and talk about science, gays, and the environment etc., will be seen as totally shameful. It will be as difficult for people 40 years from now to understand the Tea Party people as we have difficulty understanding the mentality of the white South in the 1940s.
Why?
Because the movement is a form of reaction to large historical forces running away from it. At least know what you’re joining.
—Santi
Andrew:
One aspect to the “teabagger thing” is that, throughout history, groups have been named by their enemies, and then nevertheless embraced the name for themselves. Examples: “Christians” (“Christ-ers”), and “Quakers” and “Shakers.”
I know that there has been some talk among the tea-partiers about whether they should now embrace the name teabagger (even though it was used unconsciously by some tea-partiers, and MSNBC jumped on it from there).
—Santi
I have provided evidence of MSNBC calling the movement the “Tea Bagger” movement. Please proved evidence of this label being taken by the movement itself prior to the MSNBC clips I posted.
Andrew:
I thought that a single tea-partier had used the phrase and that Rachel Maddow jumped on it—and it went from there. I doubt there was ever any “official” or general recognition of the term before MSNBC jumped on it. But why not embrace it? What’s wrong with it (from a libertarian vantage)? I was under the impression that libertarians supported freedom.
—Santi
I will except a single supporter being quoted as calling himself / herself a “tea bagger” as acceptable evidence. Otherwise you’re just spreading hearsay to justify MSNBC propaganda.
I also will not take that name willingly because it is being used in a derogatory manor which makes it innately homophobic (considering the actual meaning) and I support gay rights.
Here is some evidence of the rightwing corporate media using “teabag”:
Fox calls 300-person Philly event a “tea bag” party, whines about weather:
http://www.dailykos.com/tv/w/001166/
Insani-Tea: note (0:55, 0:58, 1:19, 1:23. 1:28)
P.S. Teabagging is not a homosexual act. It requires only one man. The Teabaggie can be a man or a woman – nice try.
To your first link: Saying that Fox likes the Tea Party movement does not mean that Fox speaks for the Tea Party movement.
To your second link: So a video of MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow trying to push political propaganda ‘humor’ as news is supposed to convince me of anything?
We can each attack Fox or MSNBC all day because they’re both bias. I’m not really sure I get what you’re trying to say. Sounds like your just repeating the same old party line and pretending like it’s an independent thought.
#1 a Fox “news” “reporter” calls the event his boss’ sponsored a TEABAG EVENT
#2 Maddow airs clips of people on Fox using the term TEABAG as well as other example of teabaggers embracing the term. Watch again: (note 0:55, 0:58, 1:19, 1:23. 1:28)
Your silly argument that: “There’s a new trendy way for self-righteous bigots to attempt character assassination of the political right.” is BOGUS as is your assertion that the term is somehow homophobic.
Took me less than two minutes from your posting time to get a clip of Fox saying that “tea bag” was the term used by detractors for the tea party movement.
Well, if Fox say it after the fact, correcting the record, it must be true. Nothing ever goes down the Orwellian memory hole at Fox, does it?
—Santi
Andrew:
It’s only homophobic if you were to think of the act as evil or shameful. And I applaud your support for gay equality.
—Santi
Fear, disapproval are two different things. Being gay is not wrong, living gay is. I am an addict, that in itself is not wrong, but feeding that addiction is. I feel for gay people, just as I do I people with cancer, or whatever. Flaming is what turns my stomach. It’s unnecessary and is disgusting to people with natural sexual dispositions.
There is also the fact that what these anti-Obama teabaggers are doing has nothing whatsoever to do with the intent of the Boston Tea Party.
We have elections which provide us representation – sometimes we don’t like what our reps do – I had to endure 8 years of a vile constitution scoffing cheney/bush admin and I protested but I never wasted tea like an idiot who has no concept of history.
This so called ‘tea party’ nonsense is just a catchy slogan someone at Freedom Works or some other corporate master came up with to market their corporatist agenda to average (and gullible) Americans.
My apologies if the political right is more motivated and less apathetic than the political left.
Never noticed those anit-bush anti occupation marches? At least there was a point to those. Corporate media didn’t cover those so much – Fox “news” certainly did not cover those unless to say that protesting a president during war time is treason – somehow that all changed on 1/20/09!
I brought coffee and donuts out to a friend of mine who protested the war every Wednesday. (I didn’t bring it out to him and the other people there every week, but often enough.) They did it outside of a recruitment office. And don’t pretend that Cindy Sheehan wasn’t all over the news. I was on the left’s side when it came to Iraq (though I supported the war in Afghanistan, and still do.) I’m on the right’s side with protesting the massive spending that’s going on now.
The difference I’m noticing is that there’s a lot more energy here with this than there was with the wars. People protested the war for a bit, then largely became complacent. People on the right got made when the banks got bailed out and they’ve stayed mad. Is that a good or a bad thing? i couldn’t say. but it’s what I’m seeing, and to pretend like it’s the result of media bias promoting the tea parties and not covering the anti-war protests is history revision at its finest.
Who were the corporate sponsors of anti-war protests?
Which “news” network sponsored anti-war rallies on each and every show?
NONE.
From the start the FNC (Fox News Channel) Tea Party Protests:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-hamsher/the-corporate-lobbyists-b_b_186367.html
Now you can pay hundreds of dollars to hear Sarah palin babble alongside the bigot profiled here. So much for “grass roots”!
Andrew and Tim:
I really don’t think that the left or the right have the courage of their (stated) convictions. Thoreau knew the score, and laid it out a century and a half ago: If you don’t like what your government is doing, and you have a serious moral objection to it, stop paying your taxes. Stop cooperating with the government. Stop accepting the benefits the government doles out, and stop contributing to the government’s upkeep.
The pious pronouncements of left and right function in the same way that contemporary people who call themselves “Christians” function. You might call yourself a resister to what’s going on in the world, but you never actually sell all you have and give your all (as Jesus instructed).
In the political “discourse” of the left and right in America, it amounts to public media posturing and manipulation for short term seizures of power and advantage—little more.
Here’s the truth: Obama is a much, much better president than this country, with its sick political culture, deserves. He’ll probably be a one termer precisely for this reason: he’s a decent, moderate, sane, and sensible man caught in a maelstrom of demagogues and nihilists.
I would also caution against authoritarianism in the United States. I think we’re one (or perhaps two) large terrorist events away from it. The fascists in 1930s Germany came to power because the liberal Weimar Republic seemed unable to meet the crises of the day. The right in this country is trying to drive Obama into failure and then fill the vaccuum with illiberalism and authoritarianism, which will only get worse should a large trauma hit the country. Those on the left better stop enabling the far right and get behind this president. And the same goes for those who are moderate-right. They need to support this president as well. If bourgeois democracy fails under Obama, the country’s moderate-liberal future is at stake.
—Santi