These tea party people....

The Tea Party aren't against people getting rich and achieving the American Dream. They are against the Progressive Dream, where fatcats and state bureaucrats get rich due to handouts and bailouts from the hardworking ordinary people.

The Tea Party is a real rising of teh populace. It can't be controlled by the spin doctors in the media, despite their smear tactics. The Tea party voters were against the bailouts of the fatcats, because it was they who paid for it.

"Opponents of President Obama?s domestic policy proposals, including the Tea Party and the Party of Tea (the GOP) have used the bank and billionaire bailout as an an example of the bad things that happen when the federal government intervenes in the free market. Sure the banks survived, but no one did anything to help the millions of Americans who lost their jobs and their homes during the same period. Sure the banks prospered and they are now awash in profits, but the banks did not use the money to free up the credit that the economy so desperately needs."

@claig - The Tea Party's 'Contract From America' says nothing about making bankers accountable for the bailout. In fact, their low tax utopia would be quite attractive to fat-cats, I would have thought.

Chil1234, you read Want2bSuperMum. What is extreme about wanting to make fatcats and bankers accountable for bailouts on the backs of ordinary working people? Look at our council bosses on £200,000 salaries and gold-plated pensions, paid for out of the earnings of ordinary people. The people have been milked for too long and the Americans have got the gumption to say "enough already". Where are our unions, who are supposed to stand up for us? Where were the progressives who pretend that they are on the side of the people? They were doling out our cash to the bankers and presiding over business closures.

The progressives don't like the Tea Party, because unlike the progressives, The Tea Party are a real opposition and threat to the fatcats.

I reject that they are 'just like the Tories'. Our government may be reducing the size of the state for economic/political reasons at the moment but is still committed to certain underlying principles which do not exist in the US but which should exist in a civilised society. The real danger of the Tea Party lies not in their stated aims of reducing taxation or reducing America's dependency on foreign energy, but in the unspoken aims of their supporters. They clearly believe that the Democrats are a lost cause and the Republicans have 'gone soft' for agreeing with things like the bank bail-out and not stopping the health bill. Populism - when it is coming from any extremist position either religious, political or philosophical - is always dangerous.

First of all it's the TEA party and it means Taxed Enough Already. They are upset that their money is being spent on bailing out companies who are inefficient and people happy to stay on unemployment for as a long as possible (there are jobs here but no one wants to work with their hands). They have a point in that AIG and the banks who took federal money should have also given ownership to the government. The other thing that has caused this uprising is that after the government bailed out the banks the small business owners had credit lines withdrawn or the interest increased sharply.

Quite a few politicians have tried to appoint themselves as the leader, Sarah Palin being one of them. Right now it looks like Chris Christie will gain political currency through them and become a leader of sorts. Chris Christie is the Govenor of New Jersey. In my opinion, as a New Jersey resident, he is doing a pretty good job of sorting the state out.

From what I have seen the majority of TEA party members are middle class business owners. They are are probably the group who is taxed the most on a percentage basis in the US.

Chil1234, they are not as dangerous as you think. The dangerous nutter image is perpetuated by the progressives as a scare tactic to stop the movement of ordinary people snowballing the progressives out of power. What they are for is small government, exactly like the Tories. They are for getting the state off the backs of the taxpaying public, just like the Tories. They are for scrapping of quangos, just like the Tories. They are for less taxation and less bureaucrats, just like the Tories.

The Tories won here with that message, and the progressives fear that the same message by the ordinary people (not swayed by progressive propaganda) will deliver the progressives a defeat in the United States. That's why they are being portrayed as nutters.

The Tea Party are populists, they are for the people, just as the Boston Tea Party was against the King. 'Animal Farm' was about progressives and their egalitarian philosophy, and what really lies behind that philosophy.

The Tea Party quote I can't forget was a TP spokesperson (I feel gleeful posting that* ) who said about schools, words to the effect:

"If the state doesn't want to pay for your kid's education then pay for yourself. Get a job!!"

I think that quote neatly summarises their general levels of altruism (or rather, lack thereof).

• If you speak American English TP is tantamount to saying "Only suitable for Shit-Wiping" :).

They are a democratic movement that only garners support by appealing to knee-jerk prejudice. Right now they are anti all the things people don't like on instinct. (You could walk outside yourself this afternoon with a banner proclaiming you're anti scroungers and anti bank bonuses & you'd draw quite a supportive crowd.) What they are 'pro' (and let's take the constitution as a given) is far more vague. And what they would actually 'do' if they were in charge is rarely mentioned.

Fascist groups here have similar tactics. Appeal to baser instincts... dislike of strangers/foreigners, the suspicion that others are getting something you're not, that government doesn't care about people like you.... lob in some references to national pride.

If enough people fall for the woolly crap, then they'll be in power and then I'd suggest everyone goes and buys a copy of Orwell's 'Animal Farm' to understand what happens next :)

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expatinscotland, as far as I understand it, they are anti-Republican, i.e. anti those Republicans who are selling them down the river with their globalisation policies and any big government policies they may support.

I agree that there are some nutcases among them, and the media makes sure it gives them prominence. I also think some groups are trying tio hijack teh original Tea Party movement for their own ends. There are problems with it, but they are a democratic movement that reflects the people's will, and as ever only in America can the people be heard. Their grassroots organisation can take on the big vested interests of corporate America and the media that follows them.

I am most certainly with Nigel Lawson. Poor old Monbiot, he had to go against probably the greatest green guru ever, James Lovelock of 'Gaia' fame, and said that Lovelock had had an attack of the bellamoids, as did that other figure David Bellamy

"the venerable father of Gaia theory, possessor of one of the world?s greatest minds, announces in Sunday?s Observer that ?intemperate injunctions about green imperatives could make [environmentalism] as dangerous? as the ideology of the Axis Powers(1). He told the Guardian that a new planning regime for wind farms is ?an erosion of our freedom [that] draws near to what I see as fascism.?(2) His grounds? The energy secretary Ed Miliband had mused that it should be ?socially unacceptable to be against wind turbines in your area - like not wearing your seatbelt or driving past a zebra crossing.?(3)

I have great respect for Professor Lovelock. He has done more to advance our understanding of the planet?s response to climate change than any other living person. But he appears to be suffering from an acute case of bellamoids*."

You're very mistaken if you think they're only anti-Democrat. They're anti-Republican, too.

They seek to chisel a chink in the system so they can then bend it and change it to their own ends. That's treason.

They're also nut cases and hateful and racist.

i love how you've got george monbiot (george monbiot FFS!) down as public enemy number one along with his 'green policies' that undermine industry.

what a bastard to pay attention to the science of global warming (no doubt you're with nigel lawson on this one) and campaign to prevent our self destruction as a species along with the world we live in.

lets shoot him now.

expatinscotland, they are not revolutionaries, such as Marxists, as far as I know. Don't they want to work through the electoral system, and vote in politicians who represent their interests? By overthrow the government, don't you just mean, vote the Democrats out? Isn't that what the Republicans also want?

My dad is a die-hard Republican. But he thinks these idiots are not just nutters, which they are, but also traitors. They wish to overthrow the US government and as such, they are traitors.

"Chil1234, I thought you were a conservative"

I'm a Tory voter from working-class roots & I'm also British. I have nothing in common with a group like the Tea Party.

Also we know the problem that the US has with obesity and junk food etc., and that may be a contributing factor

No I don't believe they should have that. But I suspect it may have something to do with their large immigrant population possibly not getting access to services.

This is a reason given as to why more women die during pregnancy in the UK than in Albania
"It is thought a large immigrant population, who tend to present to antenatal services late, and the rise in obesity, which causes complications, are to blame."

Why not answer my questions directly claig?

I am very interested in what you believe.

Do you believe that it is right that the US should have a maternal mortality rate twice that of the UK, and 4 times that of Italy?

Does this mean that they have been doing it right?

I said that there are problems with the US system. It needs to be improved.

It's not about what I believe, it's about democracy and what the people of the United States believe. I don't believe that I should dictate to them or that any progressive should dictate to them either. I am all for democracy and representation of the people by the people and for the people. I think that that is what the Tea Party are about and that is why they have a 40% approval rating among the American Public, a higher approval rating than the other parties.

Do you believe in executing people?

Do you believe in executing people with mental health problems / very low mental ages?

Do you support the fact that 1 in every 10 black men in the entire US, are in prison? Does that show that their social policies are working? Is that cost effective? 1 in every 100 people in the US are detained at vast expense to the taxpayer. Is that a good thing?

Chil1234, I thought you were a conservative. You are sounding like a socialist. If you get injured at work in the United States, you can sue your employer for far more than the paltry amounts you can get here. That is why US employers have to take health and safety and equality seriously. US citizens have many rights, often more than the rights that we get. They have had a real Freedom of Information Act for years.

Do you believe that access to abortion should be restricted?

Do you think that the right to bear arms is a fundamental and inviolable right?