Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Not Everyone's Cup Of Tea



Those tea-parties. But Sarah Palin likes them a lot:





If you listen to her carefully you will notice the reference to "self-proclaimed elitists" and later on to the teabaggers as a movement where the leaders don't have to have titles. All this was of use to me in trying to figure out why people like David Brooks call liberals and progressives elitist and why the elites never ever include any of the actual people who would qualify based on the dictionary definition of the word.

It has something to do with the creation of a white populist movement which can encompass the very wealthy and the ones they exploit, while creating an enemy of those who point out this odd marriage.

How large is the tea-party movement? I have not found any good estimates at all. The attention it gets appears out of proportion to its probable size and to its demographic characteristics (which are not those of a majority movement).

But based on Palin's arguments they all seem to want to live in Somalia, with hardly any government and no taxes, either.
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This story sort of links to the idea of a smaller government and what it means.