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I keep reading about the Tea Party being terrorists and I'm not sure what to make of that.
On the one hand I think their ideas and policies are foolish in the extreme. I think A) they want bad policy B) their policies would hurt a lot of good people and C) they want everything so fast that even if their policy were sound the sudden change would hurt the nation.
But I keep hearing this word "terrorism" thrown around. Either this is just hyperbole or it isn't.
If the former it is very foolish and self-defeating. If the Tea Party is built off of hysterics, and it is ("OMG! The democrats want to bankrupt us and tax us to death!") then we do not effectively counter hysterics by trying to out-hysteric them. That just feeds the emotional whirlwind. Worse, the low-information independent will look to see which side is most rational come election and if the competing memes are "We're going broke" vs. "They're maliciously trying to kill us!" the TP looks less crazy by default.
If those crying "terrorism!" are sincere then what do they propose? Do you really expect Obama to unleash the FBI, DOJ etc to wiretap the TP? Do you want arrests and if they refuse to submit to arrest do you want them shot down like Usama bin Laden? Are you really asking for Obama to turn the full force of the US government on to people with whom we have policy disagreements?
If you think calling people "terrorists" is an effective political strategy, think again. Trying to brand Obama a socialist, Muslim, foreign, Manchurian candidate backfired on D. Trump et al. If we're really smarter than they are let's prove it by not repeating such mindless fear-mongering.
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