Thread: Does America need a liberal Tea Party?

Whether you love them or hate them, the Tea Party has changed the face of government and the course of our nation. Does America need a liberal version of the Tea Party, who unlike Democrats, will not cave to the demands and threats of the extreme right?

The Tea Party is different not because they don't cave to the demands of their political opposites, but because they won't cave to the demands of their own party. The best example of this is all the hoopla over the debt ceiling. Boehner was having tons of issues trying to "play ball" because he was having to deal with the Tea Party Reps, who weren't going to budge from the positions they got elected on.

Imagine if you had a left-leaning tea party, unwilling to budge on their core issues, sitting opposite another group that refused to budge on theirs. Nothing would get done, ever! That is, unless you voted one or the other into a majority, then you'd get to see stuff done, but polarized beyond belief.

Frankly, I don't think the answer is to add 1 party, but like 10 more. It would fracture the vote and make it more difficult/expensive for special interest groups to buy their way. Right now they just have to bribe the top. If they had to bribe everyone to get something in... Ah who am I kidding we're all going to be owned by the corporations soon anyway.

Fortunately I already work in one. yay Selling out to the man early has its perks.

There are three countries in North America, seven countries in Central America, 13 countries in the West Indies, and 13 countries in South America.

We don't need any kind of tea party. Keep it to yourself.

Check this out: Countries of the Americas Summary

Can someone supply a link for my education, or a basic explanation, I'm somewhat lost, but curious.

Eluixa - The Tea Party is the extreme right wing of the U.S. Republican Party which is, itself, a rightest party.

The name 'Tea Party' comes from an incident in Boston harbour in 1773 around the start of a rebellion by some British colonies in North America against the Crown. Residents of Boston went on board merchant ships in the harbour and dumped cases of tea overboard in a protest against another new tax levied by Parliament. The colonists had no seats in Parliament and complained they were being taxed without being represented. The people who took part in the demonstration disguised themselves as Native Americans because what they did constituted sedition and they all could have been hanged if they had been identified. The modern day Tea Party members consider themselves the political/spiritual descendents of those 1773 demonstrators.

If you want to draw a parallel with British politics today, the Republicans are sort of like Tories, and the Democrats are sort of like Labour. The point in the OP is whether the stubbornness of the Tea Party, the extreme right, should be matched by a similar group on the extreme left. Members of the Tea Party consider any compromise as abject surrender. If a leftist group with a similar outlook formed in the Democratic Party, there could well be a roadblock in the U.S. Congress with neither side willing to meet the other halfway, and the moderates of both parties could be shoved aside.

Follow-up - (a journalists prerogative) How much this will affect the rest of the world depends on just how deep in recession the U.S. economy goes after the bitter debt ceiling debacle, and how much the downgrading of the U.S. credit rating affects the bond and stock markets around the world. The long-predicted collapse of the world economy in depression is possible, though not likely at this time.

Belize is in a dangerous position because our dollar is pegged two-for-one to the U.S. dollar. As the U.S. dollar loses value, the Belize dollar loses value. This drives up the cost of vital imports and drains money out of the Belizean economy.

People in the U.S. tend to see the U.S. as the one and only country that is important in the Americas. This blinds them to the effect their actions have on their nearest neighbours. This is why I like to remind people that 'America' and 'United States of America' are not the same.

Originally Posted by garza

People in the U.S. tend to see the U.S. as the one and only country that is important in the Americas. This blinds them to the effect their actions have on their nearest neighbours. This is why I like to remind people that 'America' and 'United States of America' are not the same.

I don't think they're blind to it, they just don't seem to care as much about Belize as they do their own country. I can assure you that as a Canadian I'm more concerned about the effect changes to the CAD has on me than on someone in Venezuala. I can also assure you that I know there are other countries in the Americas, but when someone says "America" I know they are talking about the USA.

The answer for Belize would be to tie their dollar to some other currency if they no longer trust the USD. There are several other options available. For self-esteem purposes I would recommend the ZWD. Everything looks good compared to the ZWD.

Capulet - It's not Belize they don't care about. Probably 95 percent of the people in the U.S. have never heard of Belize. It's all of the Americas outside their borders they don't care about.

When I was 12 years old a Canadian in Windsor, Ontario, cursed me for saying 'I'm not from here, I'm an American'. He gave me a lecture I've never forgotten about what is 'America'. Of course I realise that to say 'America' when 'United States of America' is meant is an unfortunate habit, one that is not likely to be broken.

Until the late '40s the Belize dollar was pegged to the pound. Then it was pegged to the U.S. dollar at par. On the last day of 1949, despite a promise made earlier in the year, the governor devalued the dollar by 25 cents, which re-ignited an independence movement and eventually to the development of modern political parties in Belize.

Surely you joke about pegging to the ZWD. Why would we peg to a dollar worth so little? Such a move would make the import of almost anything impossible. The only viable alternative to the U.S. dollar peg is to revert to the pound, but that is not likely to happen. While there are disadvantages pegging to the U.S. dollar, there are advantages as well.

The idea that a Tea Party-like leftist group might form in the U.S. is frightening. While political parties are best formed around idealogies, an extreme idealogy can lead rapidly to parties re-forming around personalities. We see that already with the Tea Party as people such as the Governor of Texas try to outdoo one another to win the support of the radical right.

Political extremes are dangerous, as we have seen proven time after time. The ability to compromise is essential in any representative form of government. The ability to compromise is lacking in people with a Tea Party mindset, and that would be true of such people on the left as well as on the right.

I was joking about Zimbabwe for sure. Outside of the USD and Pound your best alternative would be the JPY.

It's kind of cool that a change in the currency value sparked so much political change in the country. I always love when events take wildly different tacts than were initially anticipated, particularly when the miscalculation is done by a political figure.

I don't think a leftist tea party could ever be formed, the ideology is just not built for it. That's why you see grand left plans come in when they have control, and then slowly get chipped away by compromise with the right. I won't pretend to think the right cares more about their side of the table, they just seem built better for long haul negotiations.

In Canada the last election is a good example of that. Fractured leftist parties leave themselves open to a Conservative majority. Lots of people complain that 60 percent of the country never voted for the conservatives, but far fewer voted for the liberals or NDP. The Conservatives didn't win because they are fanatics with a common, unwavering goal. They're a motley group of right-wings that have discovered if they compromise internally with their similarly minded Conservatives, they can get most of what they want forming the government with allies than fighting individually for the official opposition. A lesson the left has yet to learn.

Originally Posted by garza

There are three countries in North America, seven countries in Central America, 13 countries in the West Indies, and 13 countries in South America.
We don't need any kind of tea party. Keep it to yourself.

Have to comment on this.

America & Americas are two different things
America (without the 's) stands for USA.
North America & South America are two continents that make up the Americas (plural).

As such, the America word gripe isn't entirely fair.


Anyway Brock, I thought that a Liberal Democrat Tea Party is what you call the Communists.

The point in the OP is whether the stubbornness of the Tea Party, the extreme right, should be matched by a similar group on the extreme left. Members of the Tea Party consider any compromise as abject surrender.

Garza, I'm not so sure we need a party that is the polar opposite as the Tea Party, but a party that is for the people -- people who are completely fed up with what has become of our political system. This party would not cater to lobbyists and corporate America; they would cater to the people -- opposite of the Tea Party who was put in power (funded by) corporate elitists because Obama was threatening their profit structure. Our political system has become a big game -- a game where one party spends time devising a plan while the other party puts all their effort into stopping it, because their own plan being implemented would be their best interest, for their campaign contributors, their party and their careers, NOT THE PEOPLE.

Originally Posted by Brock

Does America need a liberal version of the Tea Party, who unlike Democrats, will not cave to the demands and threats of the extreme right?

The Tea Party is, at least in my opinion, a reincarnation of the libertarian party. Moreover, I would suggest that most democrats and republicans are libertarian leaning, but the extremist run the show.

The Tea Party's goal is to minimize the size of government while maintaining their preferred social reforms (abortion laws, gay laws, etc.). A left-leaning form of this would be a government that wants to lessen government while maintaining economic reforms (entitlements and corporate regulation). This might be difficult because (per my recent blog post) entitlements make up a large percentage of the US expenditures. Once this asinine peace keeping operation is complete, they will be an even larger part of the budget.

To your question, does America need a liberal Tea Party: Yes and no. In lieu of changing the two party system (which might be a great idea for several reasons), I am all in favor of removing the democrat and republican parties and replacing them with a set of fresh congressman who want to represent positive social and economic reforms with a minimalist attitude. As I mentioned in that post, it will be impossible to continue without cutting expenditures significantly and raising taxes, at least to some extent. That said, do we need another faction in Washington causing confusion: No (although I wonder if it could really hurt, as bad as things are at the moment).

I would say that what America really needs is to be informed. In the area where I live, people have spent more time talking about Obama's birth certificate and Wiener's...well...his weiner... than public policy. Ignorance is dangerous, systemic and could be imminently lethal to our country.

Rustgold - You say that 'North America & South America are two continents that make up the Americas (plural)'. So Central America and the Caribbean aren't included?

The name of your country is 'United States of America', not 'United States of the Americas'.

Brock - I'm absolutely certain you do not need a leftist Tea Party. You have enough trouble now.

The other thing is, Americans refer to themselves as Americans and so does most of the world. It's pretty cumbersome to say United States of Americans or whatever.

It might be bothersome to folks in other parts of the America's, but otherwise, around the planet -- America means the United States of...

That's just the way it is and it's not going to change.

A leftist Tea Party would likely be a disaster for U.S. politics. If you were to have two groups, at opposite ends of the political spectrum, unwilling to compromise, and made up of a significant percentage of the voter population, you would have the stage set for a breakup of the Democratic and Republican parties and the formation of splinter groups, each with a narrow agenda and a fanatical following. A Balkanisation of the U.S. political system would destroy what little international stability we have today. Internal political chaos would lead to a diminished role for the U.S. in world affairs and a mad scramble by India, China, and Japan to take her place.