You failed to answer my question about Christians and the Klan. Should blacks be Christian? The Klan is an avowed Christian organization. I noticed that you dodged that question.
How is this relevant? When did I say that the Klan is representative of Christians or that the Taliban is representative of Muslims?
It is relevant because you are using the same logic to put a grievance on the Tea Party. It is an organization, it has some nutbirds in it. Just as the aforementioned two other organizations. By your own admittance you state that the Klan does not represent Christianity, nor does the Taliban represent Islam. Yet, with the Tea Party a few irrational individuals among half a million or so is used to cast dispersion on the entire organization. This is an inconsistency in your logic.
Again, I never said that the nutbirds represent the tea party. I just presented evidence of Tea party leaders and members engaging in bigotry, what it says about the tea party is for you to decide.
But to display those images indicates that you have an agenda as it relates to the tea party. Showing bigotry in the Tea Party is an attempt to cast dispersion, no? If not please explain your choice of images, or were they merely a random assortment from random thoughts?
Yes, my agenda is that I dislike any form of bigotry and boorish behavior and I have no qualms about exposing them. Those images aren't one off, its quite a regular feature at tea parties, neither random or uncommon.
Then you are suggesting that the Tea Party is a fundamentally racist organization, or that they tolerate open racism which makes the organization an accessory to the fact?
RCG Trader, Out of curiosity I've attended two Tea Party meetings. I was expecting to see a bunch of raving radicals as the media has presented them. Instead, what I found was a wide variety of people of all backgrounds who were primarily concerned with the economic crisis and the massive debt we're passing on to our children. The majority were people who felt betrayed by both Republicans and Democrats and were looking to back fiscally responsible political candidates. I would be willing to bet that 99% of the people who are criticizing the Tea Party have never been to a Tea Party meeting and have not taken the time to speak with the members. At the events I attended I met doctors, police officers, electricians, housewives, a Paramedic, a lawyer, several men and women in the military, numerous small business owners... but not a single raving lunatic or racist. I'm sure there are some, as there are in every group, but clearly they're a small minority.
They aren't a racist organization, but they do tolerate various forms of bigotry quite openly, infact as I posted earlier, their leaders tend to do as well. This is one of the reasons why their popularity have continued to drop, the lack of serious will to distance themselves from the radical elements of the movement which will obviously be highlighted in the media and elsewhere.