A national war on terrorism?

[Nuclear Unicorn]

I keep reading about the Tea Party being terrorists and I'm not sure what to make of that.

On the one hand I think their ideas and policies are foolish in the extreme. I think A) they want bad policy B) their policies would hurt a lot of good people and C) they want everything so fast that even if their policy were sound the sudden change would hurt the nation.

But I keep hearing this word "terrorism" thrown around. Either this is just hyperbole or it isn't.

If the former it is very foolish and self-defeating. If the Tea Party is built off of hysterics, and it is ("OMG! The democrats want to bankrupt us and tax us to death!") then we do not effectively counter hysterics by trying to out-hysteric them. That just feeds the emotional whirlwind. Worse, the low-information independent will look to see which side is most rational come election and if the competing memes are "We're going broke" vs. "They're maliciously trying to kill us!" the TP looks less crazy by default.

If those crying "terrorism!" are sincere then what do they propose? Do you really expect Obama to unleash the FBI, DOJ etc to wiretap the TP? Do you want arrests and if they refuse to submit to arrest do you want them shot down like Usama bin Laden? Are you really asking for Obama to turn the full force of the US government on to people with whom we have policy disagreements?

If you think calling people "terrorists" is an effective political strategy, think again. Trying to brand Obama a socialist, Muslim, foreign, Manchurian candidate backfired on D. Trump et al. If we're really smarter than they are let's prove it by not repeating such mindless fear-mongering.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

1. incompetent terrorists maybe?

[coalition_unwilling]

2. OK, how about 'whack jobs'? - n/t

[Proud Liberal Dem]

3. I don't know if I'd label them as "terrorists"

and I'm not sure what we can really do but organize to throw them out of office at the next election. However, more people IMHO should know about and care about getting rid of a group of people publicly dedicated to (literally) holding government operations hostage to whatever their whim of the day is. :shrug:

[Nuclear Unicorn]

5. Throwing them out at election time is exactly what is supposed to happen

I don't know about the "hostage-taking," though.

My guess is, of there were ever a simple TP majority in the senate the "hostage-taking" mechanism of the filibuster would look pretty darn sweet to this young, naive progressive.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

6. I'm wary of getting rid of the filibuster regardless of who's in power

Harry Reid, despite all of the nasty legitimate criticisms lodged against him, was 100% right on deciding NOT to get rid of the filibuster b/c we may live to regret it when the winds shift again (but hopefully not next year).

[Nuclear Unicorn]

7. Exactly

The filibuster existed long before the current crop of policy absurdities. It has been used by both sides and with good cause with even better results. As much as we complain about the over-representation of conservatives within the courts compared to their numbers within the population it would be much worse were it not for blocking of some truly horrible Bush appointees.

But for anyone on the conservative side to call that "hostage-taking" or "terrorism" would be deplorable. The mechanism by which those appointees were blocked were well-established and time honored and as equal partiicpants in th government, prgressives were entitled to use them to represent their constituents' interests.

[Bragi]

4. I agree completely

Calling the Tea Partiers "terrorists" pretty well strips the term of any meaning whatsoever.

Political brinksmanship by elected officials may well be stupid, reckless and irresponsible, but the difference between that and strapping on a bomb vest is pretty clear.