Recently, a popular Tea Party website, Teapartypatriots.org, listed their top 7 reasons for loving America. But it turns out most of their reasoning is either based on myths and idealized selective histories, or they pick out things that aren’t nearly as wholesome as they think. Let us take a moment to properly respond to their faulty logic.
Tea Party reason #1 - The Founding Fathers
No surprise here, the patriots lead with the Big Kahunas. And who doesn’t love the founders? Only, as we have seen over the years, Tea People are often confused on exactly who the founders were, when they lived, how they lived their actual lives and what they actually stood for individually. It’s easy to just group them all together and whitewash the sins of the individuals, who weren’t always as pious as the Tea People would like to believe.
* Almost half of the men considered “founders” held slaves. Even Thomas Jefferson who penned the words “all men are created equal” held slaves. Not only that,but Jefferson had affairs and children by his slaves. Some apologists will suggest that Jefferson felt “really bad” about having and profiting from slave labor, but he just couldn’t find a way to fix it. They fail to mention that many people “saw the light” and freed their slaves during Jefferson’s time. All it took was signing a piece of paper. But for Jefferson and half the founders, guys who apparently wrote a whole bunch, that was just a bridge too far. Not to mention the northern half of the country didn’t even have slaves at the time.
Those folks managed to get by. The more you listen to people apologize for founders having slaves, the more it’s like listening to people pretend someone’s heroin addiction isn’t a big deal. To hear them tell it, it was what it was. And having sex with them as Jefferson and others did? Does that sound like the professed values of today’s religious tea people? Affairs and interracial dating? Really?
* Many of the founders were atheists, more were “deists,” people who are not of any particular faith. Again, not exactly hand in hand with today’s extremist Christians who insist all the founders were Christian and we are God’s 2nd chosen country … or something.
* Many of the founders, including Washington and Jefferson were pot growers. It was known as hemp at the time and it was used for a variety of purposes, and that didn’t exclude enjoying an occasional smoke.
To bring this all home, let us be reminded how tea people can only think of the founders in one generic and glorious sense in order to tune out any unpleasant thoughts.
Tea Party Reason #2 - The Constitution
Ah, yes, The Constitution. Follow up a generic representation of the people who founded America with a generic declaration of praise for our founding document. Tea People love The Constitution as long as it’s their version of the Constitution. And their version tends to be incomplete and heavily slanted.
* Recently some outraged Tea People tried to get “their version of Constitutional teachings into schools in U.S. schools. They were soundly rejected on grounds of their inaccuracy.
* Senator Tom Cotton is now known as “Tehran Tom” due to an ill conceived letter to the Iranian government signed off on by 46 other GOP Senators. The letter was also possibly a violation of The Constitution. The letter has been almost universally panned as at least a block head move and even prompted The Iranian Foreign Minister to write a letter back schooling the junior lawmaker and his pals on OUR laws and protocols.
* Tea people profess to be “Originalists” regarding the Constitution, Originalism (according to wikipedia) is a principle of interpretation that views the Constitution’s meaning as fixed as of the time of enactment. Tea People want everyone to party like it’s 1799, forgetting or even defending all the bad stuff like slavery being protected and black people not even being considered a “person” according to the original document.
Tea Party Reason #3 - Freedom!
Could number 3 be anything else? The patriots claim “we take it seriously, most other countries don’t.” Do they? Or do they just take their freedom seriously, even at the expense of others? As we already know, Tea People already ignore or defend anything and everything about slavery, apparently not taking the black people’s slavery very seriously.
* We have spent over a decade at war in places they were convinced only needed a taste of freedom and America and they would trip over themselves transforming into a mirror image of us. Didn’t quite work that way. Was that someone who seriously even understands anything?
* The fact of the matter is that out of the 190+ countries recognized in the world, it would be easier listing the handful that don’t have freedom vs the vast majority of those who do. In fact, we’re only 5th when it comes to our most precious freedom (gun jokes aside) namely the freedom of speech.
Tea Party Reason #4 - Opportunity
How can you have freedom without opportunity? Of course you can’t! So, naturally this is the next reason the Tea People love America. And this might be the most delusional “love” of all as even the Heritage Foundation doesn’t even put us in the top 10. Nuff said …
Tea Party Reason #5 - Free Elections!
Who doesn’t love a free election? I have yet to ever hear anyone declare “you know what I love about _________ ? How they fix their elections!” I bet you have never heard anyone utter anything of the sort either.
* Bring up the 2000 Presidential election and some people might take issue with how free our elections really are.
* Ask any poor person living in various inner cities how free our elections have been after the I.D. requirements are upped and the places to get the ID are shut down.
Tea Party Reason #6 - Its Natural Beauty!
Really? This is the best y’all have? Because nowhere on earth has any natural beauty besides the USA! If they love it so much, it makes you wonder why they support and condone people like the Koch Brothers who rape and destroy our “natural beauty” for their own profit. No need to waste anymore time on this nonsensical “reason.” Next!
Tea Party Reason #7 - Hot Dogs and Baseball!
I should have known they were out of ideas with the elections and beauty answers. But just to show us how clueless they are, they throw this in as proof.
* Hot dogs, while a tasty snack that many enjoy, are on the whole, pretty nasty creations when you pull back the curtain. Most hot dogs are created by taking all the stuff that was too low grade to make it into any decent cut of meat. Most hot dogs contain nitrates and other icky stuff that simply isn’t very good for you. Many organizations recommend pregnant women should avoid hot dogs because of the nitrates. This was the best “traditional food” the Tea People can think of? I bet you can think of some better examples.
* Baseball - America’s dying sport. But don’t tell the Tea People that, apparently. It’s often said that the Tea Party wants to return America to the 1950s. I will concede that Baseball was the most popular sport then.
I suppose this inept list of “greatness” appeals to the simpleton base of the Tea Party. It’s all flowers and sunshine and a bunch of “hooray for us!” But the rest of us love America not for some fictitious, non existent or long since gone image of what our nation is or has been. Not for delusions of who we are, including our faults and flaws.
For where it’s true that when love is true it is despite someone’s flaws, those flaws aren’t whitewashed or brushed under the rug. Those flaws are acknowledged, dealt with and solutions found that work for everyone involved. True love grows and develops. It evolves and changes. Sometimes the original intents are discovered to be in error as new paths are chosen in any relationship. It doesn’t focus on obvious things and goes deeper. That is how adults love.
The Tea People have once again proven to all of us that their outlook is that of a child. The more they speak, the more they show that they really don’t love America, at least an America that exists. And they take no shame in showing how much they don’t like most Americans. At the end of the day it’s just a shame how many Tea People don’t seem very aware of where they live, when they are living and what really came before them.
Featured Image via constantinereport.com
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