"Tea Parties" Reconsidered
You know, I lean left, but I consider myself a fairly rational person who does a decent job of not being blinded by his biases in the face of overwhelming evidence which contradicts my own political beliefs. So I saw this thing on Reason-a publication I enjoy even though there's a lot of it with which I disagree-about how the "tea parties" were a lot more successful than those on the left were prepared to give credit for. And I thought to myself, okay, maybe I was wrong, I should read it and see what they have to say.
Then it started off with "According to Pajamas Media, 700,873 people attended some 883 tea party protests on April 15." Really? According to Pajamas Media? These guys? Also, it turns out to have been written by the president of FreedomWorks Foundation, the Dick Armey-led AstroTurf factory which essentially co-sponsored the "tea parties" with Fox News. Finally, it suggests that the Obama administration is only steps away from suspending the First Amendment. So you know what? Fuck those guys. I was right the first time: FARCE. Thank you for confirming my opinions.
FARCE: First Amendment Rage Creating Entity?
Nah. It's just the inverse of thinking veal farming is maybe a little cruel and then having to read a story about vegansexuals. Now I'll put a plug in for my tee shirt product: "I'm a libertarian and a bisexual"
I was supposed to close that tag, but it still sort of works.
Maybe they were confused about comma usage and meant to say that either 700 or 873 persons attended. I think that's about right.
If not, that's an impressively precise attendance estimate.
Yeah, regardless of who the source is, if they claim to have been able to count the exact number of people like that, there's obviously some hinky bullshitting going on.
It's interesting that you can't comment on that article. I'm sure it's intention. Right-wing sites almost never have them and when they do, they're heavily censored. I used to troll around on Freerepublic.com for a laugh, and I'd always get banned within a few minutes.
If Dick Army [sic and sick] isn't the name of a band, it should be.
I think the 700,000 number is how many people are still Republicans.