Teabaggers are anti-drug, anti-abortion Libertarians

[jmowreader]

I've referred to Libertarians as Republicans With Weed on numerous occasions, and that's not a bad description of them. What it leaves out is that Libertarians are absolutely antitax and antispending--far more than Republicans. In a perfect Libertarian paradise, the entire government would be privatized, and you'd pay for services you wanted. House on fire? Sign here, please.

Teabaggers combine this tax and spending hatred with parallel disgust at abortion and drugs. In the perfect teabagger paradise, the prohibition on ex post facto laws would be repealed from the Constitution so they could prosecute doctors who performed abortions before it was made illegal.

I saw Sarah Palins suggestion the tea party and the Republicans merge. The problem with that is, she's trying to bring together a group of people who believe some things are properly the purview of the government--certainly they believe policing and fire protection are good government functions, if nothing else--with another group that believes "the government that governs least, governs best" means Somalia's got the best government in the world!

[tridim]

1. They're racist nihilists. nt

[Edweird]

14. They are not cool enough to be nihilists...

[Ohio Joe]

2. Repugs, libertarians, teabaggers... meh, they are all douchebags - nt

[LostInAnomie]

3. They're Bush's 23% and the dumber of the Ron Paultards.

[tblue]

4. They're like Granny Clampett, protesting the "revenuers."

Can you just imagine the world they envision? Somalia with a "Christian" face.

[jmowreader]

5. Granny Clampett was also a Libertarian, although she didn't know it

Her "let me live as I please" stance totally neglected the needs and desires of her neighbors. I'm pretty sure Mrs. Drysdale didn't enjoy smelling Granny's moonshining, possum boiling and soap making activities, especially since soap, meat and whiskey are readily available in California.

[tblue]

7. I saw an episode where she paraded around carrying a Confederate flag.

Turned my stomach, tho I liked that stupid show.

[Green_Lantern]

6. Libertarians are annoying..

They act like they invented the concept of freedom.

[Initech]

8. Teabaggers are just assholes, period.

No rhyme or reason, they're just assholes and dipshits.

[NoFace]

9. Devout Capitalists or Anti-Abortionists...hmm...both options appear crappy to me. NT

[ddeclue]

10. No .. Teabaggers are dumbass racist theocrats

who think America is a white Southern Baptist Republican nation.

[Alias Dictus Tyrant]

11. I have no idea who they are, but they aren't that caricature

I know several people in my daily course of life that are strongly sympathetic to the teabaggers. I meet even more when I travel around the country for business.

The problem is that I live in San Francisco, and these people are mostly well-educated atheists of mixed race with a mildly libertarian bent. So much for the southern religious redneck stereotype. If I had to tie it to a political region, it is more western than southern. I travel a lot and they are everywhere; the common thread in that group is a disgust with what is perceived with an out-of-touch Washington DC that is transparently corrupt. I find it hard to argue with the basic thesis even if I disagree with some of their overarching policy positions.

I see a lot of liberals casually miscasting the "teabaggers" as something they aren't. That is going to bite them in the ass at the polls if they don't make an effort to understand what they are actually up against. Ironically, they are not all that extreme politically, my own reading is that they are just a large group of disaffected voters who are tired of both Democrats and Republicans shitting on them. Either party could claim them if they made an effort. Painting them as racists or Nazis is just self-delusion.

If I had to classify them as a political aggregate, they are fiscally conservative and socially neutral. It is too big of a faction to ignore politically, so rather than making gratuitous insults it would behoove us to frame certain issues that would appeal to the biases of some of them. It would be highly ironic if we pushed pro-choice, pro-gay, non-white, atheists to the Republicans because no one is willing to listen to their concerns even when it would cost the Democrats very little to address them. It is not as though the Republicans are making any great effort with their ridiculous platform, but the Republicans are making an attempt to woo them.

It is politically dangerous to misunderstand who your opponent is. Insert pithy Sun Tzu quote here.

[JoeyT]

12. Um, quite a few of them most certainly are that caricature.

"Framing" doesn't make the least bit of difference. Most of them hate liberals. Period. If liberals are for it, teabaggers are against it. That's the only reason most of them have or need. They may not know what a liberal actually is or be able to define liberal policy, but they know they hate it.
(FWIW, the most common answer I get to "What do you think a liberal policy is?" is "NAFTA". Correcting them does no good. They're proud of ignorance. You can't educate or debate someone that thinks ignorance is a virtue.)

And before you insist I must not know any, I've actually been to several meetings in my state just to see what they were about.
The breakdown was pretty much(With some overlap between the groups):

25% libertarian wankers that didn't grow out of the Anarchy! phase when they turned 16 and don't actually have a policy position beyond "Government Bad!" These are the people with the "TAXES ARE THEFT!" and "GOING GALT!" signs, by the way.

25% White power/ANP/WWMP/etc assholes that just hated uppity minorities. These are the people that were lugging around the holocaust denial signs and blatantly racist signs. (Signs which I feel I should note your nonracist teabaggers didn't bother calling out.)

The other 50% were hardcore Republicans that were suddenly terribly concerned about the budget. At least concerned about the budget under a Democrat. Anyone that questioned the budget under a Republican was clearly a traitor that should have been exiled or worse. These were the people carrying the Obama = Nazi/Socialist/Fascist/Marxist/Muslim/etc signs. By the way, they're not actually in favor of responsible spending. They just think 80% of taxes should be military spending while the other 20% should be abstinence only education and juicing electric chairs for OB/GYN doctors. Don't believe it? Cut military spending and watch them scream like banshees.

I'm kind of curious which demographic you think we should shoot for. I think we could probably carry the racists easier than the other two. For the Libertarians hating government is pretty much their only political position. The Republicans will never vote for anything but a Republican.
If nothing else it seems possible to turn the Randroids and the Religious Right against one another.

Edited to add: Your mileage my vary, of course. The area you're from is, how shall I put this, slightly less full of racists and crazy people to begin with. I don't actually doubt your word about the people you've met that are sympathetic to them. I know people online that are mildly sympathetic to their cause that don't fit the caricature. I just haven't ever met one IRL that wasn't one of the three groups I listed. And I've met a whole bunch of 'em IRL. Far more than I ever wanted to.

[Yurovsky]

16. The "movement" as it were ...

does provide a home for many of the former fans of folks like David Duke. Granted not all fit the mold, and there's probably a fair # of people who are libertarian who are either in the "movement" or are at least sympathetic towards it.

Having said that, stunts like the money-making scam convention they're having (w/ Sarah Hokey-Mom as keynote speaker @ $100k+) is bound to have negative ramifications. When pols like Michelle Bachman start cancelling on you, you're headed down a path that most right wingers (with an ounce of political savvy) realize is a dead-end.

I have no way of knowing this for sure, but I think the Coakley crash'n burn was the apex of the teabagger "movement". They will still be around, and Fux will hang on their every diatribe and "rally", but I don't think they'll be able to keep the social liberal-to-moderates around for long. JMHO.

[JoeyT]

13. I don't think there's an actual political phrase to describe teabaggers.

"In a perfect Libertarian paradise, the entire government would be privatized, and you'd pay for services you wanted. House on fire? Sign here, please. " Broadly speaking that's true, but most of them favor keeping military and police around. Can't have the non-producers taking our stuff by force, after all. They do at least understand that those people would want to be paid at some point.

The teabaggers, on the other hand, demand all the benefits of a well developed nation with a strong infrastructure. They just don't think they should have to PAY for that infrastructure. Roads, power lines, hospitals, schools, water filtration systems, and firefighters should spontaneously pop into existence and maintain themselves indefinitely. They don't know how, but they're going to be pissed if there's a pothole in their road. They also became convinced at some point that ignorance was the pinnacle of virtue because a stupid person told them it was. So I suppose they favor a magocracy, where unpaid (non-union) wizards summon roads and clean water on demand. Since they're also big on defense while demanding zero taxes, I suppose they also expect the wizards to use a fireball based missile defense system. Possibly while riding unicorns.
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magocracy for non-nerds.)

How do VFD (Volunteer fire fighters.) know who's a teabagger? They're the ones demanding someone retrieve their widescreen television from a burning house because they "pay your salary". That's not actually a joke, but I wish it were.

[grace0418]

15. I don't actually think they know what they are. They're racist and ignorant and stupid enough

to believe any lie told to them by Fox News or Sarah Palin. The lies don't even have to make sense and can completely contradict one another. It doesn't matter. We're talking about people who think they shouldn't have to pay a dime in taxes but they want their medicare and social security when the get older (if they're not already on it). They want schools, and highways, and police and fire departments, and a kick-ass military to kill all the terrorists, and certainly lots of prisons. But none of them can seem to get it through their thick skulls that all those things cost money, paid by taxes.

If you can't make them understand that incredibly simple math problem, well, what more can you say?