by Henry Case

Created on: April 29, 2010

Anybody who argues that the Tea Party movement is good for America doesn't understand it.

The problem is that the Tea Party does not stand for anything except for what it really is: a bunch of angry well-off white people. There haven't been this many angry white people in America since the passing of the Civil Rights Bill.

The inherent hypocrisy of the Tea Party is staggering. What do they stand for? Smaller government? If that was the case Tea Party members would have been outraged at the recent Arizona immigration bill, which grants police officers the right to detain people lacking proper identification of citizenship. For libertarians this is a nightmare scenario, akin to requiring a national identification card.

The Tea Party is for smaller government? Yet how many of the them are really just social conservatives in disguise, championing such things as a constitutional amendment against gay marriage. Ron Paul, one of the supposed leaders of the Tea Party movement, actually spoke out against these kinds of measures.  Why? Because it gives the federal government more power. Ron Paul is actually consistent in his ideology, as irrational as it may be.

The Tea Party movement does not have a platform nor do they have realistic proposals to fix the nation's problems. They enjoy protesting, coming up with stupid signs (often with ironic spelling mistakes), and making a lot of noise. But after all the dust has settled, when it comes time to write the history of this period, what will be said about the Tea Party? What is their claim to fame?

In this fractured political environment, that is about as polarized as it has ever been, the Tea Party has done nothing but cause more division and conflict. Instead of forcing a serious debate of important issues, these people are engaging in a mutual circle-jerk where the whole purpose is to come up with imaginary threats to be afraid of and fight against.

And at a time when the republican party is at historic lows, the Tea Party movement has done nothing to push candidates in primaries further to the right, where they are unlikely to be successful with the general electorate. Speaking out loudly against health-care reform may have been popular at the height of the debate, but when people start seeing the benefits of the new legislation, those who warned about "death panels" will be seen as the bumbling idiots that they are.

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