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What do you all think of the Tea Party?

Posted by OH45458 11 years, 5 months ago to Politics
210 comments | Share | Best of... | Flag

As far as I can see, the liberals in the Democrat Party, and the spineless progressives in the Republican Party are leading this country down the economic road to oblivion. That being said, I am open to a new party that more closely matches my philosophy and desires, and will promote policies that will serve society rather than enslave it.

While I am not a member of the Tea Party movement, I sympathize with their intent, at least with what I perceive as their intent: that being smaller, less intrusive government, and a return to the founder's original intentions in this regard. However, my understanding is that this movement is just grass roots, with no real central national platform, and certainly with no vetting process for the candidates that it backs.

Can this movement be successful without organizing at the national level?

Is this movement viable? Will it become, like the GOP did just prior to the Civil War, the dominant party of the country?

Just interested in opinions...


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  • Posted by BambiB 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Your tepid argument consists purely of personal opinion related to the few women you (think you) know personally - and yet, you have no evidence to show even in support of assertions regarding them!

    My "agenda" is truth. I ask "who is responsible for the impending economic death of America" and the best answer I can find is "female voters". Your response seems to be, "not the 13 females I know."

    You've presented no facts, no research, and have no truth on your side. You've retreated to name-calling and essentially responding to scholarly research with the equivalent of a 5-year-old's argument, "Is not! Is not!"

    Feel free to produce facts and research worthy of review. Until then, I welcome your silence.

    I wish you'd been more worthy of my time.
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  • Posted by LeeCrites 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    BambiB said: "LeeCrites: It's quite clear that you don't want us to be "snookered" by published research, but would prefer we be "snookered" by your personal opinions. "

    Your illiteracy and your self-absorbed attitudes are simply too great to work with. Even after analysis of your primary study shows you are supporting a socialist agenda and tabloid research study, you persist in attempting to push your argument.

    Say what you want, you are no longer worth my time and effort. I bow out of your personal attack threads thinly veiled as meaningful dialog.
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  • Posted by BambiB 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Actually, that's also incorrect. You clearly made decisions that brought you into contact with most of them. Perhaps you decided to marry someone - an expression of your biases and preferences. That person (reflecting your preferences) introduced you to others (who match her preferences). You have no doubt met people you didn't care for - and no longer associate with them (pruning the associative tree).

    While I agree that the associations may be "natural", there is absolutely NOTHING random about them.

    I will grant that initial contact with any given individual may be "nearly" random (at least within the context of your personal "universe") - but you cannot rationally form an opinion about someone's economic acumen by saying, "Hello, my name is..." To form a rational opinion requires greater contact, and to have that greater contact, they must meet whatever criteria are important to you to justify greater social contact. In short, you filter your associates through your preferences, thus the sample group (your friends) is more properly termed a "naturally SELECTED" group.

    I don't believe "naturally random" even has a rigorous definition in statistics (though I may be wrong and would be happy to see one). A quick google search indicates that the most common use of the phase is in relationship to making one's hair appear "naturally random", that is, it seems, to control the appearance of randomness.
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  • Posted by BambiB 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    In context of this discussion, I have only ever been talking about the female voters of America.

    Sorry you were unable to figure that out and recognize that your comments were irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
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  • Posted by BambiB 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    No, LeeCrites. I absolutely believe that YOU believe (incorrectly or not) that your social circle is an exception to the general rule. And in fact it may be. But if that is ALL you are arguing, then your comments were never germane to the topic at hand. Your social clique is NOT controlling the economic policies of the United States (regardless of what you may think on the matter). At best, your personal experience constitutes an insignificant local distortion of the general case, and since you've not presented any evidence substantiating your claim, you may be wrong about even that tiny, irrelevant, unexamined, biased sample. (Unless you've actually TESTED your hypothesis? Have you administered test to all the men and women you know?)

    But it doesn't matter one way or the other because it's completely irrelevant to the discussion.

    Your personal "experience" may be contradictory, but - and if you have ANY statistical acumen at all you should state plainly that you understand and agree to this - your personal experience is IRRELEVANT to the question of whether women's knowledge of economics is on par with men's NATIONALLY and in the process of forming NATIONAL ECONOMIC POLICY.
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  • Posted by BambiB 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Now that's funny! Not that I want to waste a perfectly good brick!

    Maybe if I attached it to something I don't have a use for... like that broken down refrigerator...
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  • Posted by BambiB 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I'm sorry. I credited you with better judgment. I had assumed you would only bother with RELEVANT articles. My mistake.

    However, your failure to find information is NOT evidence that the information does not exist. It may be evidence of your inability to do research.

    By the way, how much did you find that said women are equally knowledgeable regarding economics? I don't see that you've presented anything in that regard (besides your opinion). If I missed it, please let me know. If I didn't, then please admit that you've not presented anything besides your naked opinion.

    I do note the common theme in your "refutation" of my case: USA Today isn't credible. Harris isn't credible. The National Council on Economic Education isn't credible. Presumably anyone who disagrees with LeeCrites... isn't credible.
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  • Posted by BambiB 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    For the edification of others, I'll simply point out that ad hominem attacks are the last refuge of someone who has lost the debate. I won't comment on your pointy nose, hairy ears or that lazy eye, but I will refute your logical failures.
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  • Posted by BambiB 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    LeeCrites: It's quite clear that you don't want us to be "snookered" by published research, but would prefer we be "snookered" by your personal opinions.

    In law they refer to the burden of "going forward", that is, presenting a case for your position. I have done that. It consists of several full-blown studies, complete with data. Your "case" so far consists of "I know some women" and "in my opinion". I leave it to others to decide which is more credible. But to use your OWN argument in opposition: YOU have used vague assertions and unsupportable conclusions and your, "direction [is] to (en)force [your] ideologies". YOU are not "peer reviewed" YOU are not, "published in a top-of-the-line journal". It's clear YOU are not, "particularly literate in social research". In YOUR OPINON "several of the "best answers" are wrong". YOU "don't really do statistical analysis." Where is YOUR "Chi Squared... standard deviations... Confidence Level"?

    I refuse to be "snookered by [YOUR] cheap imitation of a real social research study."

    Finally, applying your own standards to your arguments, where are YOUR peer-reviewed studies in top-of-the-line journals with statistical analysis and complete data sets? Where is any evidence that you are even qualified to have a credible opinion?

    Your argument is all smoke-and-mirrors... minus the smoke and without the mirrors.
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  • Posted by LetsShrug 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    The judges have already decided, "The lame attempts to debunk the obvious true blanket statements has failed miserably. You cannot pass go, you cannot buy a vowel, half the chutes and most of the ladders are broken and Candy Land is closed!"
    Bingo! Yahtzee! and Uno!
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  • Posted by LetsShrug 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    A bird house is not a house.
    Rain is rain, hail is hail.
    The original shuttlecocks WERE made with REAL feathers, but that has NOTHING to do with birds having feathers.
    BBZZZZNTT! wrong!
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  • Posted by Rocky_Road 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    What about a birdhouse?

    Hail is frozen rain, and dry to the touch until you hold it long enough.

    Ever played badminton? The 'bird' is featherless...
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  • Posted by LetsShrug 10 years, 10 months ago
    Well how big of feathers can a baby bird have? Of course they're hair like...but they're still feathers, just tinier.
    Send me a humidless cloud of rain please. lol
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  • Posted by $ winterwind 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I was gonna say put your cards back, I misspelled apteryx [always known in the B.C. comic strip, I think, as a flightless hairy bird without feathers] but a kiwi is a member of the genus Apteryx. I gain merit by not pointing out that wikipedia calls their feathers "hair-like".
    I would generously send you the cloud that is dumping water on my house at the moment...nope, gone again. sorry, no rain for you! and really, I would trade Sioux City, Iowa, for anywhere, AZ in a heartbeat. 89degrees & 98% humidity. yeeeccch.
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    • LetsShrug replied 10 years, 10 months ago
  • Posted by LetsShrug 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I'm in AZ...the heat is dry...and so is the rain (that DOESN'T EXIST AND I'M GETTING TIRED OF IT!) Heck I'd settle for a cloud at this point.
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  • Posted by $ winterwind 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Any time! Wait, what about the rain? It's raining here, maybe I should go outside and see if I get wet.
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  • Posted by $ winterwind 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    OK, I'll bite you back -
    kiwis [the bird, not the fruit - wait, it's true for both] do no have feathers
    a rain of arrows is not wet. Neither is a rain of kiwis [the fruit]. No, not fair. I take the most sensible path below. OK, all rain - that is, water falling from the sky, IS wet.
    hmmm...the word was "door", not "doorway", so I'm taking it as the actual physical object that impedes entry. Do igloos have doors? Do tents have doors? Yurts and tipis have doors. More thinking needed.
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  • Posted by LetsShrug 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Baby bird have some fuzzy fine hair feathers (look closer).
    And a doorway opening counts as a door (perhaps I should have said "doorway". Plus I think an igloo opening has some sort of hide/flap "door" anyway. :)
    Thanks for biting.
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  • Posted by LeeCrites 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I'll bite...

    Baby birds do not yet have feathers.

    rain... I got nothing on that one.

    Do Igloos have doors? Is a doorway the same as a door?

    (I'm just trying to be funny here. I actually agree with both statements, because I sense the meaning behind them both.)
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  • Posted by LeeCrites 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    My turn.

    1) If you want to find out who did what, you have to find out who did what. I will talk about the first item. NCEE is known for its bias in educational instruction. They are part of the movement of "inclusion" and "diversity" -- neither of which mean what a normal, sentient person would think they mean based on the definitions of the words. They are a far left liberal/socialist group, whose directions are to (en)force their ideologies.

    2) If you want a research project done with "answer bias," then Harris Polls is the place to go. I've done work with them for a number of years, and realize their studies and conclusions are generally okay, but don't take them to the bank. Find a Harris Poll that has been peer reviewed and published in a top-of-the-line journal. Go ahead. Quick.

    There is a reason you won't find them. You probably don't want to hear that. But you are not a professional in the industry, nor are you particularly literate in social research, so you have to hear the truth from someone.

    3) Without knowing the answers the participants had to select from, it is impossible to take the quiz from the information provided. However, several of the "best answers" are wrong.

    For instance: "When a person rents an apartment, who benefits from the transaction?" How do you answer that question? It probably depends on your experiences in renting apartments and landlords. It is possible that the mother/wife would have a different opinion than the father/husband would -- and both be giving a legitimate answer without being an economic moron.

    "When deciding which of two items to purchase, one should always:" Again, how do you answer that question? How many of us have watched at the checkout counter as a mother counts change to make the purchase? For her, cost is the only consideration -- which can I get for cheap enough that I can get more things on my grocery list. She is not an economic moron for not taking the quality and benefits of the item into consideration -- she would be a moron if she DID.

    "In the United States, who determines what goods and services should be produced?" Why is the government part of that answer? Really?

    Or a real classic marxist question: "Since the resources used in the production of goods and services are limited, society must:"

    If you really want me to consider your argument to be valid, you had dang well better use a resource that is legitimate.

    4) It is obvious (to someone who actually works in social research) that their data points might have issues. They talk about the male/female differences in the "Major Findings" at the start, and "Summary" at the end, yet never show those differences in the details. That is a major trigger to anyone who had done legitimate social research. It does not mean they were wrong, but it does mean they probably did not do the level of analysis needed to make the conclusions they came to. A peer review would have shown that -- but Harris Polls does not submit to peer reviews.

    5) The Harris Poll people don't really do statistical analysis. You seem to love the Chi Squared, so where is it? Where are the standard deviations? Where is the Confidence Level?

    6) This was done by Harris Interactive. This site pays folks to take the survey, and the first howevermany people who log in get to take it. I know people who do this for a living. They have multiple accounts with multiple "personality profiles" so they can be a middle-aged woman and a old dude and a college student.

    The conclusion BambiB is that you have been snookered by a cheap imitation of a real social research study. For people who are professionals in social research, what you are holding up as the pinnacle of knowledge is similar to the tabloids on we all see on the grocery line.

    Find a legitimate study to work with or shut up.

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  • Posted by BambiB 10 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Dang! Just when I thought we'd never agree on anything, you wind up quoting one of my earliest posts. ;-)

    Out of curiosity, do you think it's a person's responsibility to understand what they are voting for or against? Because it occurs to me that if women understand what they're doing (destroying America) and they vote to do it anyway, then they are certainly culpable in irresponsible voting.

    Conversely, if they don't even understand what they're voting on, are they not irresponsible for voting their ignorance?

    I saw an entertainment program once where guys had set up a booth to collect signatures to "End Women's Suffrage". The majority of women (apparently) agreed that women had "suffered enough" and signed the petition.

    Note: this was "entertainment" TV, and so probably cherry-picked for the entertainment value of the results. But I think it's illustrative of the level of understanding that most women have regarding economics, and that the majority of voters have regarding many other issues, regardless of gender.

    In short, the average American voter is a moron. Okay, I admit it. I'm probably setting the bar too high. But Obama was elected TWICE and Bush was elected TWICE before him. Is there an alternative hypothesis that better explains the reality?
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