Is that based on the actual views of Tea Partiers, or stereotyped opposing propaganda about their views? Because it looks very odd to me. I hadn’t heard that they favoured intrusive expensive wealth-redistributing big government focussing on religion or sexuality. What is that? Is there some sort of special welfare check for straight Christians?

So far as I know, they’re not interested in religion or sexuality, and they’re somewhat against the war on drugs, although being a very disparate group there’s some division on that. Although some campaigners and opponents have tried to get them to take a position on those issues, I haven’t heard any go beyond the bland and non-committal. I certainly haven’t heard any propose wealth-redistribution in their favour. They have spoken out against the Bush-era big government spending.

You might have a point on the militarism, given that a fair number of libertarians and middle-ground conservatives favour militarism in the interests of preserving/enabling liberty, not just for ourselves but for other peoples. And while not wealth-redistributing, that is at least ‘big-government’. That’s a point that the classic conservative and the left potentially agree on, given that the former believes in defending only US liberty, and the latter seem to support the right of foreign dictators to rule their countries as they choose. (The view of stereotyped opposing propaganda, of course. )

The Tea Party seems to me a mix of several different groups with different beliefs, who have come together because of the subset of beliefs they hold in common. They are not entirely libertarian, nor entirely Republican. I don’t think you can categorise them so simply.

The former because they were completely absent during Bush’s tenure (Medicare D, tax cuts during wartime, etc.), because they are terrified of cuts to social programs they actually benefit from such as Medicare, and because they ideologically reject tax increases even when those taxes would be used to assure fiscal solvency.

The latter, because all of their leaders–Palin, Bachmann, Beck, Rand Paul–are doctrinaire ultra-right-wingers who love intrusive expensive wealth-redistributing big government as long as it focuses on militarism, religion, sexuality, and the War on Drugs. Really intellectually interesting libertarians, like Bob Barr, seem to have no voice in the movement at all, probably because it is exactly what Newt Gingrich described it as: the direct-action wing of the GOP. I don’t rely on the MSM for my information–I look directly at this alleged new force in American politics and it is really just new packaging on the same old product.

You seem to have the radical Christian right mixed up with “Conservative” and “Republican”. While such sentiments are assuredly part of the farther right wing, at the moment it is the fiscal conservatives and libertarian leaning sides of the party that are working together and are very much in control.

No one has been more pissed about some of the social nonsense going on than those two groups within the party, and I seriously doubt they are going to surrender the party again to the hard religious right types.

If you missed it, that is actually why the “Tea Party” people say they aren’t Republicans -> they feel the social (specifically the hard *religious* right types -> and yes, there are other types of socially conservative that are very much secular) hijacked the party and its beliefs and they really aren’t much interested in that game anymore. They have generally let it be known if the party forgets the fiscal part again they are gone, and at this point are only marginally connected (and as they are actually the dominant part of the party there is no party without them…). The religious types held them hostage by trying to impress that the Republicans could not win without them (and even tried to imply they could win without the rest of the party -> the “Tea Party” side put an end to that in the last election by showing force in their ability to greatly influence primary outcomes -> game, set match. Fiscal’s win round 1 huge, with the help of the libertarians -> and both are the religious rights worst nightmare in regards to beliefs…). The fiscal and libertarian sides are calling their (religious right’s) bluff. If you really want to know what you are seeing happen in the Republican party, there you go. As always it will balance out between them all somewhere in the next couple of elections -> or, if not, we will be watching the rise of a new party and the fall of an old party, just as we have seen a few times before. And as we have seen a few times before the new party will have quite a lot in common with the old party, though they assuredly will not be the same.

Of course you have to get out of the caricature the MSM paints to recognize any of that (same goes for power shifts inside the Democratic party, and the talking heads, especially those on the right when it is the Democrats turn, get such events just as wrong as those on the left have gotten this one -> maybe that tells one something of the real motivations of the talking heads…). Of course you have to know something about both parties’ histories to know any of this, and most seem to only know the last decade, maybe two at the most (after which it just becomes misty slogans with no memory).

Generally speaking the currently active aspects of the “right” aren’t nearly as interested in social anything, perhaps the lowest level in 70 years in fact, other than libertarian leave us alone stuff…

Yeah, they need to free up all their time for renaming the menu items on the cafeteria and passing laws to keep a single brain-dead woman on a ventilator.

It doesn’t matter what you answer, the aim is to produce a quote that can be used against you.

If those considerations were in play, they would have realized that blocking the amendments altogether could just as easily make “a quote to be used against you.” But they’re not using that kind of strategery–they are playing the roles that their ideology demands of them. I greet it with a perverse sort of nostalgia, as I was too young to see the Soviet Politburo in action in the full glory of its ritual denunciations of impure facts.

I’d think it was fairly obvious. It’s not a question about science, it’s a rhetorical device in the political manoeuvring. It’s like asking a “Have you stopped beating your wife?” question. It doesn’t matter what you answer, the aim is to produce a quote that can be used against you.

Rejecting it doesn’t necessarily mean the Republicans think the statement is technically untrue (in the right context and with careful parsing), it just means that they’re not going to waste time playing games.