{"id":620,"date":"2010-10-02T15:36:03","date_gmt":"2010-10-02T21:36:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coloradoconfluence.com\/?p=620"},"modified":"2010-10-02T21:32:18","modified_gmt":"2010-10-03T03:32:18","slug":"the-mad-hatters-tea-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coloradoconfluence.com\/?p=620","title":{"rendered":"The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party"},"content":{"rendered":"

The October 15 issue of Rolling Stone includes a nice little article which explores the tangle of internal inconsistencies, pure irrationalities, simmering hypocrisies, and just plain random folly of the ultimately\u00a0elusive Tea Party “ideology” (http:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/politics\/news\/17390\/210904?RS_show_page=0<\/a>). The Kentucky seniors community,\u00a0many blithely\u00a0mounted on Medicare funded scooters or sucking on Medicare funded oxygen tanks, raptly\u00a0worshiping at the\u00a0anti-government alter while suckling at government’s teat; Rand Paul followers not batting an eye at their candidate, who wants to cut every government program but is indignant that the government might cut Medicaid payments to doctors such as\u00a0himself, because, after all, “physicians\u00a0should be allowed\u00a0to make a comfortable living”; the life-long government employee who thinks it’s okay that he’s taken money from the government all his life (but that it’s not okay for anyone else to) because he doesn’t earn too much. All willing to take their share of the pie, but all eager to deny it to those far more in need.<\/p>\n

But the author sums this mess up with a very cogent observation: The Tea Party isn’t really about issues; it’s about “us-versus-them,” about opposing those out-group members that they revile because they revile them, those “socialists” who are somehow inchoately evil and committed to a policy that will cause all that is good and holy to shrivel up and blow away. They are about “taking back their country” from whoever stole it, from whoever contributed to the\u00a0discovery of electricity and the freeing of the slaves and the relative equality of women and, most of all, the invention of Velcro. It’s just blind, irrational, angry, ignorant rage. And it’s coming to a theater of culture war near you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The October 15 issue of Rolling Stone includes a nice little article which explores the tangle of internal inconsistencies, pure irrationalities, simmering hypocrisies, and just plain random folly of the ultimately\u00a0elusive Tea Party “ideology” (http:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/politics\/news\/17390\/210904?RS_show_page=0). The Kentucky seniors community,\u00a0many blithely\u00a0mounted on Medicare funded scooters or sucking on Medicare funded oxygen tanks, raptly\u00a0worshiping at the\u00a0anti-government alter […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[4,22],"tags":[428,429,380,426,425,427,383,254],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coloradoconfluence.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coloradoconfluence.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coloradoconfluence.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coloradoconfluence.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coloradoconfluence.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=620"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/coloradoconfluence.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":624,"href":"https:\/\/coloradoconfluence.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620\/revisions\/624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coloradoconfluence.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coloradoconfluence.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coloradoconfluence.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}