Issue date: 3/9/10 Section: Opinions

Inner party fragmentation is no stranger to pluralistic democracies; yet one new split in the Republican Party is causing uproar within the GOP and across the country as the Tea Bag Party protests take place.

The Tea Bag Party is a vocal group of right-wing extremists dissatisfied with the Obama administration. However, they complain mainly on their Web site about federal spending, stating the problem with America is "taxation without genuine representation."

Where was this movement the eight years the Bush administration was hiking up the deficit?

Sarah Palin has centered herself as a spokesperson for the Tea Bag Party, justifying the movement's whining with her fundamentalist view of Christianity. At a recent rally, she compared herself to God while explaining why she wrote speech notes on her hand.

But if these right-wingers-for-Jesus were really "walking the walk," they would not be using a derogatory slang as their movement's main slogan and using God as a way to get back in the White House.

"Tea Bag the Democrats" is a popular slogan on signs at these protests and Republicans are even exploiting their young children by putting these signs in their hands.

Any teen or young adult could tell you today's meaning of the term, "tea-bagging." The Urban Dictionary defines it as "to have a man insert his scrotum into another person's mouth in the fashion of a tea bag into a mug with an up/down (in/out) motion."

I am a Christian Democrat who does not want to be "tea-bagged" and find the movement's terminology offensive and sickening.

I find their mission statements revolting and ignorant as they sum up on their Web site that federal social programs feed the lazy. Social programs feed the poor.

You know who else fed the poor? Jesus.

Apparently no one in this movement has needed social welfare programs, because if they had, they would realize the importance of taking care of your fellow Americans.

And how dare they call people in need lazy.

Many Americans in poverty are not lazy, but have lost their jobs in the recession, have become widowed, fell sick with their insurance company giving them the run around, among many other acceptable and understandable reasons why they are not wealthy.

It's no wonder the U.S. drags its feet on the international agenda on human rights, when there are Americans who treat their own, the lower social classes, like lepers and unequals.

David Forsythe (in 1990 and 2002) found in his research that the U.S. has been consistently inconsistent on human rights in foreign policy grabbing onto American Exceptionalism.

Traditionally, America paints human rights as an individual having political and civil rights, whereas in other major democratic states, human rights also include adequate food, shelter, health care, and education. The U.S. cannot be a leader on the international stage if the government turns its cheek on its own citizens' right to these "basic" needs.

The only delightful thing about the Tea Bag Party movement is the way they are unraveling their own party. By all means, keep being politically unproductive and disrupting the unity of the Republican Party, for us Democrats will kick our feet up on the desk and wait for your inner-party destruction.

Holly Thomas is a political science graduate student and can be reached at 581-7942 or DENopinions@gmail.com.

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