Tea Bagging

[Arlingzen Bill]

This is just too strange to ignore...
[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLsKt4O4Yw8"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLsKt4O4Yw8[/url]

Could they not find a better tagline? Don't they have enough people in the closet already, is this just the thing to bring them out? If they think it is ok to tea bag the president their way, is it then okay to tea bag them, the old fashion way?

[kiko]

not everybody can watch youtube. Could you write a short résumé?

[Lord of Oop North]

The best part was when she introduced 'Ana Marie Cox'.

:lol:

[AndyP]

[quote name='Arlington Bill' post='1752225' date='Apr 11 2009, 09.57']This is just too strange to ignore...
[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLsKt4O4Yw8"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLsKt4O4Yw8[/url]

Could they not find a better tagline? Don't they have enough people in the closet already, is this just the thing to bring them out? If they think it is ok to tea bag the president their way, is it then okay to tea bag them, the old fashion way?[/quote]
My understanding is that it is more of a libertarian movement than conservative, although some conservatives and Republicans are trying to glom themselves on.

[Arlingzen Bill]

[quote name='Lord of Oop North' post='1752234' date='Apr 11 2009, 11.18']The best part was when she introduced 'Ana Marie Cox'.

:lol:[/quote]

Yes the message will be a bit muffled....

[Arlingzen Bill]

[quote name='kiko' post='1752231' date='Apr 11 2009, 11.16']not everybody can watch youtube. Could you write a short résumé?[/quote]


It is a movement that is an attempt to use the spirit of the Boston Tea Party. A movement against taxes. The unfortunate part is that they have chosen to use the term tea bagging to describe their activities. They send tea bags to people as a form of protest. There is another meaning for tea bagging. The urban dictionary has a good disription of some of the other meanings: [url="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=teabagger"]http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=teabagger[/url]

Edit: once again I can't spell

[Inigima]

Yeah, they're trying to evoke the Boston Tea Party, but it's pretty irrational. That was a working class uprising against the wealthy, this is the opposite. And drinking tea has traditionally been associated with upper class oppressors, not lower class oppressees.

The "teabagging" moniker, as far as I can tell, is something our side of the aisle is using to make fun of the plan, not something they chose themselves.

[Anatole Kuragin]

[quote name='Inigima' post='1752242' date='Apr 11 2009, 10.32']Yeah, they're trying to evoke the Boston Tea Party, but it's pretty irrational. That was a working class uprising against the wealthy, this is the opposite. And drinking tea has traditionally been associated with upper class oppressors, not lower class oppressees.[/quote]

Yeah, my parents who are huge republicans were trying to tell me about this ingenious plan. All I could come up with at the time though was, "well, didn't we uh not vote for George III?"

[dornish prince]

chuck norris doesn't tea bag women. he potato sacks them.

[awesome possum]

In honor of these ijits trying to teabag the White House, I'm going to start a movement of my own. Who else wants to Dirty Sanchez the Constitution? Or we can Donkey Punch the IRS? Maybe Glory Hole the Department of Justice?

[naz]

If she wasn't already, Rachel Maddow is now my favorite talking head. And I love that Ana Marie Cox was able to keep a straight face through all of it, while Rachel wasn't as successful. Reminded me a bit of Harvey Korman and Tim Conway.

This line was my favorite:

[quote]Well, who [i]wouldn't [/i]want to teabag John McCain?[/quote]

[Zahir al Daoud]

One really wonders at stuff like this. I mean, really.

[Inigima]

[quote name='awesome possum' post='1752281' date='Apr 11 2009, 13.03']Who else wants to Dirty Sanchez the Constitution? Or we can Donkey Punch the IRS? Maybe Glory Hole the Department of Justice?[/quote]
Pretty sure the Bush White House spent the last eight years doing all those things.

[Watcher]

What a bunch of whiney a-holes that I have no sympathy for. When taxes were lowered in 2001 it was part of the law that it was only for 8 years. This was part of the plan that their taxes were going back up to the same level there would before that tax law happened.

[RhaegarTar]

On Wednesday millions are going to participate in tea-party protests around the country. I hope your all paying attention, as the media certainly will not be.

[The Marquis de Leech]

[quote name='RhaegarTar' post='1752518' date='Apr 12 2009, 13.03']On Wednesday millions are going to participate in tea-party protests around the country. I hope your all paying attention, as the media certainly will not be.[/quote]

Given that the original Boston Tea Party was about no taxation without representation, precisely what representation are this motley collection of Poor Little Rich Bastards(tm) being denied? They were at perfect liberty to put their case at the last election - and, to quote one of my own country's politicians, "We won, you lost, eat that."

[timmet]

We soooo need to front John Waters in this kerfuffle. The actions of the Boston Tea Party would be construed today as terrorism and the perpetrators turned over to the DHS. Most Tea Partiers (and Revolutionary leaders) BTW were not working class malcontents but upper-middle class burghers and land-owning patricians -- wealthy white men who wished to abolish all taxation not remitted unto themselves and thus become still wealthier. So yeah, that's a pretty good fit for the GOP.

[Shryke]

[quote name='timmet' post='1752545' date='Apr 11 2009, 21.49']We soooo need to front John Waters in this kerfuffle. The actions of the Boston Tea Party would be construed today as terrorism and the perpetrators turned over to the DHS. Most Tea Partiers (and Revolutionary leaders) BTW were not working class malcontents but upper-middle class burghers and land-owning patricians -- wealthy white men who wished to abolish all taxation not remitted unto themselves and thus become still wealthier. So yeah, that's a pretty good fit for the GOP.[/quote]

I was gonna ask about this actually. As far as I knew, the Founding Fathers, along with those at the Boston Tea Party, were nothing approaching "working class".

[Inigima]

[quote name='RhaegarTar' post='1752518' date='Apr 11 2009, 21.03']On Wednesday millions are going to participate in tea-party protests around the country. I hope your all paying attention, as the media certainly will not be.[/quote]
so after eight years of horseshit the media still hasn't learned what to pay attention to huh

[sologdin]

i refer all would-be presidential teabaggers to [url="http://frwebgate4.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/TEXTgate.cgi?WAISdocID=50345353817+0+1+0&WAISaction=retrieve"]18 USC sec. 871[/url].

in [url="http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/702/702.F2d.964.81-6091.html"]US v. Callahan, 702 F.2d 964 (8 Cir. 1983)[/url]:

[quote name='internal quotations omitted; emphasis added']The question is whether there was sufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant intentionally made the statement under such circumstances that a reasonable person would construe them as a serious expression of an intention to inflict bodily harm upon or to take the life of the persons named in the statute. [i]The government is not required to prove an actual intent to carry out the threat[/i].[/quote]

as the case otherwise points out, protected political speech in the letter does not bring the accompanying threatening language within the ambit of first amendment protections.

the question therefore becomes:

a) whether mails sent to the white house are "threatening on their face" with respect to the threat to teabag the president, and

b) whether teabagging is within the scope of "serious bodily harm," as designated in the statute.

for the former, what could be more threatening than a group of self-purported teabaggers who send teabags to the president by means of the federal post? what other meaning might be reasonably inferred than the threat of a gang-teabagging?

for the latter, other cases make plain the factors in determining the meaning of "serious bodily harm": whether the victim suffered extreme physical pain, protracted and obvious disfigurement, protracted loss or impairment of the function of a bodily member, organ or mental faculty, and significant or substantial internal damage. [u]US v. Woodson[/u] (1988). I do not speak for myself, but for all victims of teabaggery over the centuries, when i assert that teabagging is most obviously within the definition, and consequently fully deserves dread deterrence by the heavy hand of the state.

i for one hope that the federal district attorneys pursue these offenders with the full force of the federal enforcement apparatus.