The day that I dismissed the Tea Party movement-eers, I hardly knew what the Tea Party movement was.
It was the day that I realized that members of my own extended family had actually kept kids home from school so that they wouldn’t be subjected to a 30-minute motivational speech from the President of the United States directed at the students.
Oh, horrors indeed.
I knew that my family members are much more on the far right of things had I’d even been. I knew that they enjoyed conservative news shows for hours on end while I could barely sit through between commercials. I knew that they secretly had “Glen Beck” and “Rush” tatoos on their asses….. OK, that part’s not true. 
But I was sincerely shocked when I found out that they could be sucked in so completely to the movement as to keep their kids home from school.
That was the day that I realized what a hold the movement had on its followers. That was the day that I realized that rhetoric ruled over reason over there. That was the day that I dismissed the Tea Party movement. That was the day that I stopped being polite when someone started beating me over the head with the memorized radio script. That was the day I met passion for passion, though one learns quickly not to try to reason with the followers. It’s about rhetoric and passion, not about reason or facts or discussion. It’s about judgment first, then seeking the relevant understanding, instead of seeking understanding in order to make relevant judgment.
And sometimes among the trite variations of “I heart the constitution” that’s reminiscent of the AIDS ribbon fervor in the 80′s and 90′s, they actually get it right, but they’re so unpleasant about it that you’d almost disagree with them just so that no one confuses you with being one of them!
It’s tactless. It’s disrespectful.
And according to this op-ed article in the Deseret News today, some 40% of our citizens support them. The writer suggests two things: that the Tea Party types are characterized by a strong moral streak — as if to say the rest of us are morally void? — and that his key description of them is “American through and through.”
Bah. It is decisively American to speak out and be free to do so, yes. But there’s nothing so nobly American about doing it in such selfish and interpersonally disrespectful ways. My only hope is that when they do happen to be right, their ways don’t chase away needed support from among the ranks of the reasonable.
I denounce you, Tea Party.
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