Would you like a little more tea?

A "Tea Party" convention was held in Nashville a few weeks ago, and I was impressed by the fiscal conservatism and calls for legislative transparency which seemed to characterize the majority focus of the six hundred attendees. Of course, there was also the Tom Tancredo rant on civic literacy (which seemed to run off the track shortly after he started with the references to illiterate foreign socialists putting Barack Obama in the White House), the “Birthers” (who believe Obama shouldn’t be in the White House because he isn’t really a native born US citizen and Hawaii officials are conspiring to hide the birth certificate), and the “Truthers” (who believe 9/11 was also some type of government conspiracy, or at least government “white wash” of the actual events). I’d like to think these folks were a really minority position in this nascent movement, but the truth is they were obviously there in some number. Glen Beck, interviewing Rick Perry’s Republican “Tea Party” primary opponent Debra Medina, concluded the interview real quickly once Debra aired her belief some of the “Truther” accusations needed to be investigated thoroughly (where’s Oliver Stone when you need him). Hopefully Ms. Medina’s polling will go into decline going forward.

I like fiscal conservatism and legislative transparency, but really could do without the conspiracy nuts (no objective evidence of anything other than their own delusions), or outright bigots. Still, as a First Amendment absolutist, I really do want these people to speak so the movements they attempt to represent can disown them (the early conservative movement in the Republican party in the 50’s and 60’s was forced to do the same thing with the KKK and John Birch folks who needed to be identified as repulsive to real conservatives). What proportion of “Tea Party” folks are represented by present day “repulsive” extremists? My gut guess is 10 to 20%. Still, I hope the majority disowns these folks in a timely fashion. The country’s voters deserve more than a choice between “liberal” and “liberal-light”.