Tea Bagging - another view

[Pangloss]

That was an excellent debate between bascule and ecoli on the complexities of taxation vs spending. It's such a nuanced point and it so quickly runs into emotional zones of contention that sometimes it's hard to get to the meat of the problem, but I thought you both did a great job of that. Two thumbs up.

 

I believe ecoli has a great point in saying that the tea party people need to understand that compromise is the path forward. But bascule has a great point as well when he points out that often what these people tell us is contradictory or nonsensical -- even if it IS coming from ostensibly intelligent people (see below). I don't think that's a contradiction! I think it's a revelation.

 

This is a poll saying that the average tea party supporter has above-average education. It was conducted by CBS News and the New York Times:

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/us/politics/15poll.html

 

Tea party supporters are not atypical Americans.

 

Their responses are like the general public’s in many ways. Most describe the amount they paid in taxes this year as “fair.” Most send their children to public schools. A plurality do not think Sarah Palin is qualified to be president, and, despite their push for smaller government, they think that Social Security and Medicare are worth the cost to taxpayers. They actually are just as likely as Americans as a whole to have returned their census forms, though some conservative leaders have urged a boycott.

 

I believe we're going through a process. It's a process that's predicated on an historical problem that reached a head with Watergate and has continued for an entire generation. This poll finding exhibits the problem:

 

Tea Party supporters’ fierce animosity toward Washington, and the president in particular, is rooted in deep pessimism about the direction of the country and the conviction that the policies of the Obama administration are disproportionately directed at helping the poor rather than the middle class or the rich.

 

They are far more pessimistic than Americans in general about the economy. More than 90 percent of Tea Party supporters think the country is headed in the wrong direction, compared with about 60 percent of the general public. About 6 in 10 say “America’s best years are behind us” when it comes to the availability of good jobs for American workers.

 

We're not rooting out the last vestiges of hidden racism or subconscious ideological prejudices. We're grappling with concerns that we wear right on our sleeves: Overworking. Fear of unemployment. Bad diet. Failure to succeed. Getting older. Dealing with rebellious offspring and/or aging parents. These are what fuels this movement.

 

So getting back to what I said earlier, I think both ecoli and bascule are right. What these people are saying is often counter-intuitive and strange when analyzed by people who are more familiar with politics and (especially) scientific thinking. We have to de-code these statements, remove the fear, and find solutions that work for people even if they don't initially appear to be what they asked for.

 

President Obama actually talked about this in his book "The Audacity of Hope". He said:

 

But that does not mean that those who are struggling -- or those of us who claim to speak for those who are struggling -- are thereby freed from trying to understand the perspectives of those who are better off. Black leaders need to appreciate the legitimate fears that may cause some whites to resist affirmative action. Union representatives can't afford not to understand the competitive pressures their employers may be under. I am obligated to try to see the world through George Bush's eyes' date=' no matter how much I may disagree with him. That's what empathy does -- it calls us all to task, the conservative and the liberal, the powerful and the powerless, the oppressed and the oppressor. We are all shaken out of our complacency. We are all forced beyond our limited vision.

 

[b']No one is exempt from the call to find common ground.[/b]

 

And he goes on to explain exactly how we can do that.

 

Of course, in the end a sense of mutual understanding isn't enough. After all, talk is cheap; like any value, empathy must be acted upon.

 

We hang on to our values, even if they seem at times tarnished and worn; even if, as a nation and in our own lives, we have betrayed them more often than we care to remember.

 

We can make claims on their behalf, so long as we understand that our values must be tested against fact and experience, so long as we recall that they demand deeds and not just words.

 

To do otherwise would be to relinquish our best selves.