The Tea Party is about Constitutional restraint on gov't and fiscal responsibility. That's pretty much it. It's focus has been limited to that, and it's been a pretty disciplined sentiment. Keep the feds out of our bidness and stop spending our tax money and borrowing further money to spend even more and stop taxing us so much.
That doesn't mean there are Social Conservative that participate in the Tea Party that care very much about abortion issues.
But the Tea Party is not about "going after your lady parts" or what have you, as RobertaX highlights, and quite correctly. Trying to pait the Tea Party as a bunch or retrograde Puritan Inquisitors is just standard lying by the other side.
There are RINOs and Security Conservatives, and Second Amendment Conservatives, and Libertarians and whatnot in the Tea Party, but they are there because of the shared values regarding the Constitution and Fiscal stuff. (or as a Me Too thing for the RINOs that they think will help get them elected.) Stuff overlaps. But it doesn't meld into a monolithic whole. When someone tries to meld them like that to criticize Tea Party policies call that person on it.
[Personally I look forward to the day the only time I even think about any Federal interaction is on April 15th. And I'd like to think 'well that isn't so bad' on that day. I'm looking at YOU TSA. Why do I interact with incompetent Feds just to fly to Topeka?]
A pretty good summary of what the Tea Party Movement is (and is not) is Elizabeth Price Foley's "The Tea Party; Three Principles".
ReplyDeleteThe (real) Constitutional Law Prof would add "Unapologetic U.S. sovereignty" as the third principle to what you've written.
I highly recommend this book.
Thank you, thank you. :)
ReplyDeleteMy local Tea Party adopted my proposed mission statement:
ReplyDeleteTo restore and preserve liberty through Constitutional government.