If you don't like the current system, then you have a chance to voice your displeasure by voting your current representatives out - without tea parties or any other kind of "revolution" But how many people actually do that rather than hold these ridiculous protests. The problem is politicians like Chris Dodd who make a living out of holding public office and have no fear of ever being kicked out. Lack of term limits and gerrymandering guarantee the status quo will not easily change.

If protests were pointless than neither side of the aisle would ever engage in them, but they often work to galvanize public opinion-- in this case overspending, excessive taxation and a government that is not responsive to the people. Makes sense to me.

Thanks for posting Betty's Theses-- although they are questions and not theses, it should be noted. I needed a Monday laugh. Then again, the fact that many of these questions/theses/wingnut memes are out there frightens me.

It should be noted that the tea parties are astroturf populism at its finest.

Bill is all for ACORN breaking into homes they do not own though. All in the name of protest.

This is merely people using their rights specified in the first amendment. I thought that was considered a centerpiece of liberalism, you know, freedom of expression?

I have to say that after reading the idea behind the tea parties and then knowing that people were actually going to participate in them has really shocked me. Where have you people been for the last 8 years? Do you really think Obama and the new Congress have got us into this mess? Have you all forgotten the Bush I and II and to some extent, the Clinton Administrations? Our NEW President has not even been in office for 100 days and now you want to throw a conservative protest? You people had 20 years to make your voices known about how your tax dollars are spent, but no, you have to wait until we have a very liberal President and left of center Congress come out and try to get our country back on track with radical and yes, sometimes expensive ideas and now you say you have had enough. You really want to know who is responsible for the problems we are in now, just look in the mirror my friends. I wonder if you would have felt the same going through the Great Depression? But then again, you probably had mommy and daddy's money to help. Go out and see what the world is really like before you dump you hypocritical tea into the social harbor.

"It should be noted that the tea parties are astroturf populism at its finest. "

This is leftist projection at its finest.

"It should be noted that the tea parties are astroturf populism at its finest."

You either don't know what astroturfing means or you don't know anything about the Tea Parties.

They are the epitome of a grassroots, non-partisan protest, to the extent that GOP leader Steele had his offer as speaker rejected.

You might also note that Obama's support among Independents has plummeted, again reflecting the disenchantment with massive deficits, which I believe I heard Obama campaign against.

Note the seeded words from the left on tea parties. The ideas in the tea parties 'frighten' them, and it's 'astroturfing', a planned organized activity made to appear grassroots.
Rich coming from lefties whose protests consistently showed hatred toward conservatives, the President, and everything America stands for, and are funded by George Soros through many non-profits..

Bill you seem to be frightened by thoughtful questions.

Bill, the tea parties are not "astroturf populism," any more than the large anti-war demonstrations before the Iraq war were.

One of the best descriptions of astroturfing I've seen is on the Wikipedia site: "Astroturfing is a form of propaganda whose techniques usually consist of a few people attempting to give the impression that mass numbers of enthusiasts advocate some specific cause." A perfect example of this is the ACORN organized anti-AIG "demonstrations," which often had more reporters than demonstrators in attendance (and nevertheless received extensive news coverage).

It's rare for conservative or libertarian organizations to attempt astroturfing via fully paid for demonstrations, for good reason - they are likely to be ignored by the media, or worse, "outed" when the low attendance and organizing entities are pointed out in broadcasts and articles.

Bill may work for acorn.

Yeah, Bill - I thought dissent was patriotic... it certainly was up until January, 2009.

Voting is pointless when both major parties run candidates who favor the appeasement of enemies and ruinous spending on traitors and wastrels as a solution to problems caused by their centralized planning.

Bill, it's nice that after years of ANSWER funded and organized protests, ACORN protests for hire and Soros funded Moveon.org you have finally discovered the world 'astroturfing'. Silly man.

btw Bill, do yourself a favor and google "David Axelrod astroturfing".

Our president's chief of staff is the king of astroturfing.

Bill

The Tea Parties are grass-roots movements, developed from ground up. Astro-turfing is exactly the opposite, false grass-roots support directed from above.

If you want an example then look at the counterprotests, so-called "New Way Forward". These are astroturfing, an attempt by arogant people in Obama's entourage to show that there is support for his absurd spending plans.

Of course like most astroturfing it is dishonest in other ways. It is of course not a "new way" or "forward" but an old way and backwards, traditional socialism easily recognised from here in Europe (I am in Dublin). It has never worked to help the common people. There is no reason to believe it ever will. What it will do is increase the client state, beholden to Obama's government, so it is also traditional socialist gerrymandering. Nothing new about that!

Notice that like socialism it is centrally-planned. That is why its people believe that tea parties must have central planning, as this is the only way they know and cannot actually imagine true grass roots support. Notice that for this reason, like socialism it has failed.

"If you don't like the current system, then you have a chance to voice your displeasure by voting your current representatives out - without tea parties or any other kind of "revolution"

We did that already and we got the Bush administration.

The revolution is starting because the system isn't working anymore.

What an insult to our intelligence. Do you really think you aren't so transparent? You write an entry that starts out looking like a straight news report about the tea parties, then cherry-pick some grammatically poor, ill reasoned emails to prop up as strawmen for the self-satisfied smug "wonk" crowd to chuckle at. We're on to you, we aren't as stupid as you think, and we won't be pushed around by anybody - government OR media. Get over yourselves.

Our government is running Ponzi Scheme. Barnard L. Madoff ran a Ponzi Scheme to bilk/steal and financially rape his friends, his was theft of $50 billions and he did this by borrowing more and more money to pay those he’d first borrowed from first; a Ponzi Scheme. Isn’t this exactly what our present government is doing to the whole country, aren’t they borrowing more and more money like Barney did in order to pay those they’ve promised so much and can’t possibly pay unless they bilk/steal and financially rape those that must eventually pay. Listen to what our crooks in Washington are saying, we need more and more money to keep the scheme going, give us $700 Billion and we will have enough, give us $3.6 TRILLION and we’ll make it all right, this is the same spiel that the crook Madoff used. Our ‘professional politicians’ are stealing Billions and now Trillions right in front of our eyes and it so simple we can’t see it. Our government is one huge Ponzi Scheme.

It should be noted that the tea parties are astroturf populism at its finest.

You apparently don't know what 'astroturf' means. These events are not being coordinated behind the scenes by a central organization. Is it really so hard to believe that lots of Americans disagree with structural trillion dollar deficits?

Re: Comment from Bill.

Bill, your attitude is the kind of snobbery typical of liberal moonbats. Most of them have a sense of superiority deep down in their hearts which drives their dogmatic philosophy. The truth about people like you is that you hate the religious, you hate the middle class, you hate people without higher education, and you hate people who want smaller government and less interference in their lives. The Tea Parties are the first step for ordinary people to take control of their lives and away from Obama and big government. And when we finally do, we'll be laughing last and laughing longest.

So Bill this is "astroturf"...you are a delusional tool. This is grassroots at its finest something the left will NEVER understand because your protestors are paid by the SEIU or ACORN or Soros...TEA Parties will be by the people for the people!

It's clear Bill works for the government and is dependent upon its corrupt application for his continued employment. Lacking this diseased system, he'd be unemployed.

Bill, we're coming after your job. We're going to starve the beast and throw you and your ilk out on the street. Only tough love has the chance of reaching your diseased soul. We're well past reform now, since you all have prevented it. It's radical surgery time.

I love the fact that your paper printed this. I love the fact that Betty Nottrodt prepared this list: If she lived near Plainfield, IN, I would happily buy her lunch.
Linden Swift

The answer to an out of control fedgov is simply for a state to assert the rights it already owns, mainly the 10th Amendment. Texas is doing just that. Federalism is the compromise that will make real liberals and conservatives happy. The only people that don't like federalism are statist central planners.

I'm 66 years old and this will be my first PROTEST. I'll be going to the Tea Party at Santa Monica. I've always envied the Left for the fun they seem to have at America's expense.

Tom

"The revolution is starting because the system isn't working anymore"

BINGO! that should be on every sign at every TEA Party!

At least 4 generations of my family have served as citizen soldiers to preserve, protect and defend our constitution and I ask nothing more of our political leaders than just that. Yet instead of citizen legislators as our founders envisioned, we see professional politicians who place their ego first, their party second and their oath to our country’s constitution last. They apparently fear no consequences for ignoring their misplaced priorities.

Somehow our professional politicians need to face some consequences and the only way under the constitution is to throw them all out of office at the next election and replace them with citizen legislators. Then we can possibly control this spending and the resulting tax increases and hopefully amend the constitution to limit the number of terms of office, pass a balanced budget amendment and give future presidents a line item veto to remove pork when congress will not act properly.

When our country was young, before we adopted our present constitution, political corruption and high taxes in 1786 lead to Shays’ Rebellion in Massachusetts. This was after petitioning of government for redress and then when civil disobedience failed to impress the politicians of that time. By the Tea Parties, we in our own way, are petitioning our government to stop this corruption of spending, the taxation which will surely follow and the infringement of our liberty and rights this certainly will cause.

It is very popular to be an idiot now ,
Tea Party Wing Nuts Limberger and all you bitter people get over it and get a Life

Where were these "tea parties" for the last 8 years?

Anyone?

This is insulting to the intelligence of most readers.

Crazy posts like this one are why you people have no credibility. Total idiot. You know nothing but what you are fed.

"It's clear Bill works for the government and is dependent upon its corrupt application for his continued employment. Lacking this diseased system, he'd be unemployed.

Bill, we're coming after your job. We're going to starve the beast and throw you and your ilk out on the street. Only tough love has the chance of reaching your diseased soul. We're well past reform now, since you all have prevented it. It's radical surgery time.

Taxation with Representation.

Vote them out if you don't like it.

This is too funny....all you whiners are like lemmings.

Maybe, one day, conservatives will actually learn to use the internet properly, and stop all this propaganda nonsense.

Everyone know you gewt marching ordere from talk radio and uninformed blogs. You have no clothes.

Please realize this and come again, it is so very insulting to our nations intelligence to suggest stupid "tea parties" or, even sadder, to blame Obama for any of the mess we are in.

You Republican purposely broke the system because you do not beleive in government. Now you want the rest of the nation to follow your uneducated theories straight into hell.

Fact is, and history will prove this if you take the time to look it up, small pockets of socialist activity within a larger scale capitalist society result in the most prosperous nations and the happiest citizens.

Also, top qo states taking in more tax dollar than they pay...all Republican states.

Get your facts right before denouncing others'.

Fools

To the poster bashing Bill....you portest too much.

this is astroturf, sponsored by your local blowhard talk radio hosts, and most-partisan of career GOP congresspersons.

Wake up GOP!!!! We have the internet and can easily find the source of your poorly developed lies.

The Tea Party is a great idea. We need to continue peaceful protests and also voice our dissatisfaction at the polls. In addition the current two party system has got to go. remember to vote out incumbents in the next election.

If the Tea Parties are so meaningless, then why are the Lefties getting their panties in such a twist over them? Thou protest too much. Hint for those of you too clueless to see the nose on your face: The other half of the country is seeing the price paid for complacency and apathy; our country and way of life is being raped. We have awoken, and are taking our country back!

This post had it right about one thing at least: the parties are just symbolism. They won't do anything, especially since there are only a small number of extreme fiscal conservatives. There's not much of a need for politicians to pay much attention to them because they don't have the numbers.

My coverage of the parties - including who's behind them, why they won't work, and what people should do instead - is at my name's link. And, a very basic search through my site will show I'm anything but an Obama supporter. I'm just smarter than the leaders of the tea parties.

There are big government supporters and there are those who do not support big government.

The left-wing liberals at the grassroots and national levels wanted a Revolution.

The grassroots right only wanted to be left in peace. Their own chosen party will not let them live in peace. (Why do you think 6 million conservative voters stayed home in 2008?) The Republican Party is no less for big government than the Democrat Party. Their supposed ideological opponents.

It is a binary choice. Yes/No. On/Off. One or Zero. For big government and no freedom - or - Against big government and for more individual freedom.

That is the dividing line.

Pick which side of that line you want to be on.

The revolution has already begun.

I feel it is about time the people stopped sitting back and just complaining among themselves about what this government is doing. The governent take the "Don't do what I do, do as I say" attitude. How is the government going to help the Legal Tax paying citizens. We are the people constantly paying into the system, but can't get anything out of it. It seems the people that don't pay a dime into the system keep taking out of it. When the tax payers dont have anything left to put in, Where will
the goverment get all of money for bailouts, Social Services etc.

Someone up there said: "I have to say that after reading the idea behind the tea parties and then knowing that people were actually going to participate in them has really shocked me. Where have you people been for the last 8 years?"

Um, there's a reason the Republicans collapsed, and that's because all these people now protesting weren't happy with what was going on. But as bad as the Bush administration was on fiscal sanity, the Obama administration has already dwarfed them. That's why people are protesting so soon into his presidency -- because in only a few months he's managed to sink us into a debt hole deeper than we could have imagined. The tea parties are in response to policy. They're not just a bunch of people who were happy before now not giving the new guy a chance. If President Obama was delivering the spending cuts he promised during the campaign (remember those?), the tea parties would not be happening.

I recommend this fascinating clip for a sense of the scale of what our leadership is doing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yREOUxo6Qdc

The tea parties weren't around for the last 8 years because the economic collapse and subsequent massive bailouts just happened within the past few months. The fact that protests are starting up now in no way means that the Tea Party folks are a bunch of Republican Bush supporters and in no way means that they don't lay some of the blame w/ the Bush administration. In fact, I would guess that many if not most of them are libertarian/fiscal conservative leaning independants who have no party loyalty.

"Also, top qo states taking in more tax dollar than they pay...all Republican states."

This is only true if military spending is included. Otherwise, no.

The Left can't even make the simplest of arguments without using half-truths.

We're on to you and we're not going to stop. Before this is over, the Democrats are going to be sorry the Internet was ever invented.

The incredible fear and loathing from the left is on full display here. They are worried, and rightly so. They are not used to the silent majority making itself heard. Well, they better get used to it.

You statist cockroaches are in for a big surprise in the years to come.

I like Mrs. Nottrodt's (I suspect she'd diss me for using Ms.) spunk, even if I don't agree with all her points; one or two I might quibble with.

Which state was it that set up (or had a governor propose) a "Pay Extra Taxes Voluntarily" policy for those who felt they weren't being taxed enough. I'm betting it's collected, oh, $0, especially from "liberals," who seem quite tight-fisted with their own money.

But I'm an expat and don't pay Uncle Sap. What do I know (except that it's good not to pay Uncle Sap)?

This is for Alex, I do consider myself and my family fortunate that we don't live in Sudan or Afganistan, but we live in America and unlike other countries we do have the right to protest against big government. I go to work, pay my taxes am teaching my children the important lessons of being responsible. Is that what our government is doing for us? Spending more and more and then expecting all of us to anti up. ENOUGH ALREADY!!!!!