More Dale than you. But, yeah, you were in the mix. But, your "ideas" never entered the picture.

Why do you, and many others, find it necessary to categorize folks as "liberal elites", conservatives, or otherwise?

To my way of thinking, the need to tuck folks and their ideas into neat little categories, such as liberal/conservative, is a sign of laziness, or of a small mind incapable of entertaining the almost infinite shades of gray which compose the spectrum of people and their ideas.

How, for example, would you categorize a person who is in favor of legalizing drugs and prostitution; who supports capital punishment for the sociopaths who litter and who leave their shopping carts in a parking space rather than exerting the minimal effort of pushing it back to the station; who supports the notion of a "union" into which our forebears entered us into for the purpose of pooling our risks relative to personal and national defense and promoting the general welfare; who supports the ideal of a union in which we compassionately support the ideal of helping the less fortunate, whether here or abroad, by taxing ourselves; who supports the ideal of a balanced federal budget; and who supports federal government deficit spending in times of extraordinary economic events, such as we are now experiencing?

I try to deal with the idea presented, rather than tucking the idea into a tidy little category which enables me to immediately dismiss or approve of the idea presented based upon which category in which I might perceive the idea or its presenter might reside.

Why limit the bounds of our discussions by using labels which confine the discussion to our individual understandings of the labels as we perceive them to represent?

If you track the discussion you will see Stash used the term first in referring to himself. I grabbed it and made fun of it but an element of truth crept in there. My point, such as it was:

I could respond and list several ongoing threads right now where there is no attempt to understanding the other person's thought processes. We just label, laugh at them and go on. In this case the teabaggers are just a bunch of nuts (publish a photo of the most foolish of the bunch to illustrate your point)and yuck it up all the while feeling superior. It is done all the time.

Yet, a movement is developing. Is developing, not developed. Cut government's meddling, size, etc. might be the core values but it is still developing and when they find a middle ground will probably influence elections.

They are just wingnuts though so don't try to understand them.

Nah, I see what you are trying to say but don't try to pigeonhole me in this. I am 99% play and 1% serious but I do observe and point out things like this.

A movement is not developing, the ten percent fringe has always been, and always will be, amongst us. Remember the "militias" during Clinton's terms? Remember the John Birch Society? Remember the gold standard movement folks? The black UN helicopter folks? Remember the anti-federalists of the constitutional ratification era who held that ratification of the USA Constitution would result in the sky falling?

The tea baggers are nothing new, they've just adopted a different label. Anyone, I think, who considers the Tea Baggers as a movement has not been studying USA history.



Again,

I don't care who does the categorizing. Let's deal with the idea, rather than dismissing or approving the person espousing the idea with a jerk of the knee.

I wonder if any of the little old ladies in the photo know where their healthcare comes from?

It's pointless to try to understand their thought processes because one must either take them at face value; they're protesting against the social programs on which their life depends, or they're actually pissed about something else that they don't want to put on a protest sign.

Either way, they're not worth listening to.

"We're mad because the new president is a ni...ni...uhhh...NO TAXES!"

How refreshing.

You hit the nail on the head, categories make it easier to rush to judgment without being getting bogged down by an idea's possible merit.

The word teabagger, does that fit into catergorizing?

Well, er, yes it does. You got me there. Seriously, thanks for calling me on it.

I did say "I try" to avoid categorizations. Sometimes I back slide.

How incongruous, a bull in a china shop; let's ignore it.