Just Went to a Tea Party Rally

[Ramulux]

So, I was just at the tea party rally down the street and I ended up getting into a discussion that lasted like 2 hours. I was just chilling listening to a guy give a really stupid speech and after he was done I decided to talk to one of the people hanging out. I kind of played stupid and asked her what was going on and what this was all about. She then proceeded to tell me some of the basic conservative beliefs and such. I then began asking her to explain certain beliefs and offering up my response in a very moderate way.

She said all sorts of stuff I could of really pushed her on but I didn't because I wanted the conversation to last as long as I could. One of the more surprising things I began to understand is that this woman didn't seem to have a problem with many of Obamas policies in theory, but rather the way in which they were implemented and what she viewed to be wasteful spending and unnecessary government intervention. I also found that if you explain your position slowly, carefully and pretend that you are just a person who is interested in what they think as opposed to some liberal, then they are surprisingly open to reason.

After a while, she called over her husband who had his little graph of debt under each president that I am pretty sure was bullshit. We then started talking and he was much more intelligent than his wife so it was a little harder to feign ignorance, but we ended up having a fairly polite and substantive conversation about all sorts of things from the bailout, to the wars, to health care. I sometimes forget what its like talking to an actual conservative when all you hear in the media are fake neocon republicans. We found many areas of agreement from the bailouts, to the Iraq war, the Bush tax cuts and medicare part d, all of which he was against. I even got him to agree with me about increasing financial regulation and even setting up an independent consumer protection agency. He understood why we pay taxes and didn't have any problem with how much paid although we disagreed when I tried to explain that taxes decreased for 95% of the country over the last year.

He was a serious guy and at times it seemed to pain him to agree with me, but I ended up agreeing with him about a lot of stuff. After I thanked them for the healthy discussion and began walking home it occurred to me just how much worse than democrats the republican party is at representing actual conservative beliefs. I realized that the crazy extremist ideology of people like Glenn Beck simply isn't held by a lot of conservatives. This experience was very surreal and just made whats going on in Washington even more perplexing, where are the actual reasonable conservatives? They exist all throughout the country and are completely ignored by the media in the same way actual liberals are rarely seen on TV.

My main point is that, our elected representatives are so fucking bad at simply having beliefs that are actually aligned with their respective political ideology. I was listening to this guy and I was just like "Wow, a conservative saying things that match up with reality", and it just bummed me out. Neither side is truly represented and if they were we wouldn't have the problems we are seeing right now. Or at the least there would be republicans willing to vote for bills that made perfect sense instead of coming up with ridiculous illogical reasons not to.

[Skittles]

1. here's the thing about conservatives, especially the teabagging crowd

where the FUCK where they when bush was wiping his ass with the constitution and running up huge deficts? Really now, WHERE THE FUCK WERE THEY?

[Cronus Protagonist]

2. + ten grand!

lol

[Skittles]

7. I'll never be convinced that teabagging primary motivation is not racism

they can all FUCK themselves

[Flying Dream Blues]

28. I agree 100000%. nt

[HughBeaumont]

29. Thus the moniker "Tea Klux Klan".

When THEY gather, the corporate media is like white on rice.

Anti-war? The bootshiner contingent avoids us like the plague.

You watch what happens on March 20th. The Friends of the Tea Klux Klan will give us nary a peep while giving beaucoup props to the likely foot-shooting counter-demonstrators.

[sharesunited]

3. They were opposing immigration reform.

[rurallib]

11. I once heard someone say that most repugs are poorly informed Dems.

I had a conversation with a woman one night who was calling for a contribution to the Republican Party ( long story). She asked me what my issues were. When we got to health care, I said I thought we should have universal HC. She told that is what the Republicans stood for.
At that point I asked where she got that idea. She said he husband told her so. I told her that he had lied to here and gave her some websites to go to. She said if I was right there would hell to pay for her husband.

Point being that rather than think for themselves, Rs look to some one they trust to tell them what to think. And they trust the snake oil salesmen and the ponzi schemers.

[suede1]

14. Damn!

She believed that?

[rurallib]

27. She was really, really mad at her husband when she hung up.

FWIW she was from Minneapolis.

[Historic NY]

31. Same ones that believe everything on the internet including those get rich quick schemes..

[calimary]

17. What you said!

Where were they, indeed? Besides off trying to have it both ways, maybe?

[Brother Buzz]

19. They were to busy sticking magnetic ribbons on their gas guzzling SUV's

:shrug:

[FreedomRain]

21. Asked my Neocon -ish Mom that.

She said "We weren't paying attention."

me - "So you see why we have little faith in your reliability now?" :D

[Skittles]

23. problem is

whether it is true or not, it very much looks like it took the election of a black man for them to start paying attention - and to start blaming this man for shit that started LONG ago :thumbsdown:

[Name removed]

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[Kablooie]

39. Yowsa, good sir. A valid question.

[hfojvt]

41. they don't mind deficits created by huge tax cuts

except for the war, which he kept on a separate set of books, Bush certainly did not increase spending all that much.

[B Calm]

4. They will soon learn that they discard teabags after they use them.

[monmouth]

5. Good story and your own analysis is spot on. I was at a party for a

neighbor with a great many people I had never met before. For some reason the subject went to the alien space ship picture that was printed I believe in the UK. One woman said she believed aliens were among us, and I stupidly said "Yes, we call them republicans." Of course the minute I said this I wanted to grab it back, I didn't know these people. Much to my surprise the room burst into great guffaws and laughter and "yeah, you got that right" and similar remarks. In talking with one of the women she said she had voted for McCain and I, like you, acted low profile and let her talk. I asked if she were disappointed in President Obama (I always call him President, always) and she said "Oh no, god bless 'em, he's doing a wonderful job" etc. etc. My point is you are right, the way conservatives have been played is sad. This woman also thought Sarah was a "hoot"....

[shireen]

26. +1

human beings are complex. not all of these people are 'racists' and 'retards,' as some here like to claim. They may have points of view based on wrong information, or we may even find that we have things in common with them. Start out by giving them the benefit of the doubt and treat them with respect ... see how it develops. too many at DU are so quick to demonize them all.

[Name removed]

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[gateley]

8. It's not just the Becks and Limbaughs giving them that rep -- they've

got some pretty whack elected officials, too. And I agree, it must pain the reasonable people that the rest of us view them all as looney.

[Froward69]

40. Hey gateley!!

:hi:
agreed, the intelligent and reasonable conservatives are pained by the mark of "loon, racist, crazy or otherwise detached from reality. However, those I know, do not have short memories and accept this is part of the sport of politics. Like the propaganda stuff about "liberalism is a mental disorder". It pained us, We Ignored it proved otherwise and it did not stick. the pain for us hurts just as much as the illiterate racist crazies pain them. as the illiterates are the ones in front of the camera now. In fact their pain is just a little bit harsher. as their crazies are their base and "one cannot fix stupid," nor prove otherwise... As We Dems have done and continue to do.

[Cleita]

9. If you could turn off Fox News and replace it with something more like

CNN used to be, these people would probably be quite reasonable with some good information to go on. I found out talking to friends, neighbors and family who seemed to me to have drank the Kool-Aid that they were taking these bozos at face value because they never believed that the press would lie to them, so if they said it then in had to be true. This I believe is the problem. These people of a certain generation who were brought up by journalists like Walter Cronkite don't realize that they are being propagandized every time they turn around.

[Historic NY]

33. The big difference is that Cronkite told us what we need to know..

not what we needed to think. News has become entertainment and the Beck, Hannity, Rush's of the world just go on expousing how they think...I don't need someone like them telling me anything. Why does their opinion matter more than say the guy on the other network..ratings or influence.

[NOLALady]

10. Was it a diverse rally?

[Ramulux]

42. No

My town is pretty predominately white, but yeah I didn't see any ethnic people at all. We do have a pretty large Hispanic population though and it was surprising to not even see one.

[varelse]

12. Thank you for sharing your experience with us (nt)

[emilyg]

13. k

[Hannah Bell]

15. elites present charicatured "liberals" & "conservatives" as red meat demagoguery.

so we'll rise to their bait & waste our time hating on ordinary folks.

but most people are nothing like the caricatures.

"one day soon the time will come, we'll rise & face our common enemy"

which is: the folks who own everything & lead us by the nose, forcing us into the "choices" they've already decided on.

[Last_Stand]

32. Fucking A...

Wonderfully put. Divide and conquer.

Thank you to the OP for this terrific story.

[DisgustedInMN]

36. Well put!

The Coke/Pepsi battle is just a distraction for the sheeple. Keeps the rubes attention elsewhere as the fatcats pick their pockets.

[sandnsea]

16. They're almost always like that

But it doesn't matter because they're all on a personal crusade against the liberal socialists and even if they exhibit a reasonable thought process in your presence, the second you're down the road, they're off on their rants again.

[Ramulux]

43. I dont think so

My entire point is that you cannot judge all these people the same way. Listen, 95% of the people at this rally were morons who didn't know what they were talking about but not all of them were. However I do agree that some of the things I got the guy to admit would never be said in the presence of other teabaggers.

[southernyankeebelle]

18. There is a new party in town now called The Coffee Party they don't hate government and want

to work with government to make things better for us all. They people aren't crazy like the teabaggers and they want civilty. Check into it.

[pansypoo53219]

20. yes, i see most of these people

as reagan democrats who got totally screwed by the ideology they voted for and are just angry at the wrong person and if we could just educate them, we'd get more on our side.

[mmonk]

22. Funny, I told a conservative that there was no liberal or Progressive

Party in the United States. He agreed and said there wasn't a conservative or libertarian one either. I thought that was interesting. He thought no one was being represented.

[The_Commonist]

24. Reasonable positions and polite conversation...

...don't make for good television.
Can't sell much beer or many SUV's without some blood and red meat to wash it all down.

[imnKOgnito]

25. I got a call from an old friend today.

Hadn't talked to her in years. Politically, she is a batshit crazy Teabagger, I'm sure (based on conversations we had years ago before they even existed), but as long as we dont't talk politics we get along fine. But it occurred to me today that aside from her politics, she is very warm, goes out of her way to help the less fortunate, is at least moderately culturally aware, works in her community for good causes, and espouses a LOT of the same viewpoints as I do. In fact, when we don't talk politics she sounds like a liberal. Which got me to thinking that she actually IS a liberal at heart, but there is some disconnect with who she actually is and the ideology she purports to follow. Fact is, I think it's because her father is such a staunch, dyed in the wool Reaganite and she worships the ground he walks on and that over-estimation of who her father is colors her perspective in ways she's not aware of.

But the funnier thing is, she is FAR from the only 'friend' I have like that. People that in casual conversation seem like they share a whole host of core beliefs with me that I consider liberal or progressive, but as soon as politics comes up, they become completely different people. I can't help but think that a lot of that has to do with the overwhelming propaganda we're exposed to every day.

[upi402]

34. Seems like the media froths people up too much

And that gets the chickens to vote for the Colonel. IMHO

Nice story, thanks for posting it.

[Kablooie]

38. I've wondered where the thinking conservatives were as well.

In the past, I rarely agreed with them but their arguments were often well thought out and were based on reason.

The criteria they deemed the most important were different than mine so our conclusions differed but it was not just propaganda hogwash.

Hearing arguments from a valid opposing view can often help you to reconsider some of your own views in a productive way.

Nothing like this seems to be going on today. It's just empty propaganda being spouted with no thought or basis in reality.

Also the extremists on the right have encouraged extremists from the left to be more vocal as well and this hasn't helped things.

Unless this changes I fear our country will continue to decline until we become a relatively minor, and possibly poorer player on the world stage.