Teabagger Nigel Coleman on why he’s cancelled his plans to burn Rep. Tom Perriello in effigy:
I feel like I obviously handled this poorly, as far as the press goes. We really should have thought this through more … and seen how this was going to affect not only us, but other TEA parties and the TEA party movement in general.
Translation: I damned near set the eventual Republican nominee back ten points, and got my ass handed to me for being such a jackass. It’s a shame these yahoos didn’t go through with it. A photo of that spectacle would be good for $100k in Perriello contributions, easy. In the memory of a lot of people, though, it’s already happened. The burning has taken place. As surely as Republicans believe that President Obama is responsible for the bail-out, Democrats believe that Perriello has been burned in effigy by crazy Republicans. There’s no putting that genie back in the bottle.
No shit Nigel. Republicans have been second guessing themselves since Strom Thurmond’s people stepped aboard in 1964.
I was thinking Perriello was hanged in effigy by teabaggers a while back, but now I remember that was Frank Kratovil.
I’m trying to pinpoint when exactly it was that these people turned into the right wing version of the Lyndon LaRouche crowd.
Could you explain exactly what you mean when you use the term “teabagger”? The people involved refer to themselves as “TEA Party” members but not “teabaggers”.
Janus, When someone presents a United States Senator with a bag full of teabags I refer to that person as a Teabagger. Check it out.
Did they have a public flyer or email inviting people to the burning party. But here’s the difference between guys like Mr. Coleman and regular people. Regular people don’t EVEN THINK about burning anyone in effigy.
This is getting picked up by national news organizations. do these folks not understand that burning someone in effigy looks a lot like lynching someone, and do they not understand how BAD that looks?
Well, the open-to-the-public burning may have been canceled, but my hunch is that deep in the woods, where tradition would put this sort of ceremony, anyway, the show will go on. Meanwhile — http://slantblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/head-on-pole-solution.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_protests#Origins_of_Teabagging
Top five reasons that come to mind why it was a bad idea.
1. If I were a politician and someone burned or lynched my effigy, I’d interpret it as a death threat.
2. Death threats validate restraining orders (among other legal action).
3. Restraining orders make it very difficult to talk to someone at events.
4. Restraining orders also make it somewhat difficult to protest outside someone’s office.
5. Comparing Perriello to Guy Fawkes is utterly idiotic. I mean this is dumber than when all those crazy liberal hippies said Bush was the next HITLER. You don’t want to look like those idealistic, overly passionate, raving…
Oh… never mind.
5. (Revised) If you don’t like being called a ‘tea bagger’, do you really want to invite people to calling you a “Guy Fawker?” (Yes, The Daily Show has already started doing this.) I mean, you could. There’s nothing wrong with Fawking Guys if that’s what you’re into. You certainly should have the right to Fawk Guys I feel. I just didn’t realize you swung that way. Go you!
Janus,
Because he won’t extend the same respect that he demands of evey poster here when he demands a correct input of his party and I suspect an underlying juvenile and perverse character issue
dan,
As a movement, Fox News’ Tea Parties deserve nothing more than ridicule. You compare it to making people write out the word “Democratic,” but I can’t see how it’s not more analogous to Code Pink or ANSWER.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZBKIxnThYk
Michael Steele said, “Change is being delievered by a teabag.”
Wow, who knew that teabaggers had such delicate constitutions hiding beneath those rough, chunky, hairy exteriors?
The Democratic and the Republican parties are deserving of respect. The TEA Party is deserving of merry-making. How is anybody supposed to take seriously a Fox-sponsored bunch of angry, white, fat, misspelled-sign-waving old men who insist on dangling tea bags in front of U.S. Senators?
Making fun is swell. I’m all in favor of it. The more the merrier (literally). But “Democrat Party” isn’t a joke. As with “Republic Party,” there’s no humor there. It’s just rude. Angry old white men with tea bags? That’s funny. And my CAPTCHA isn’t to force people to be polite—it’s to weed out the people who are constitutionally incapable of calling the party by its name, which are people with whom I have no interest in conversing (and, more important, to stop spam, which it’s done a perfect job at).
If you want to get offended by rudeness, really, you should read some of my archives. Here, read my description of the HB700 debate. Once your delicate constitution recovers and you peel yourself up off the floor, see if you can recover sufficiently to tell us all how horrified that you are.
I was set to educate the forum that deliberately associating a certain political point of view with unrelated derogatory connotations was a way of dehumanizing others and trivializing their points of view rather than addressing the issues head-on.
But it turns out that the New Oxford American Dictionary appears to recognize only the “literal” definition of “teabagger”, not those snarky Urban Dictionary meanings. Who am I to differ?
So I suppose all of this merriment is nonsensical, having no double entendre to play against.
You go ahead and tell yourself that, Janus.
Good for Oxford American. The purpose of the dictionary is to reflect language as it is used, not as we wish it to be used. Oxford’s Senior Lexicographer is entirely correct in saying:
“A reasonably conceived informal name for an affiliate of the Tea Party.” That’s about right. Thanks for the link, Janus.
Tom Perriello in the National Journal: