Pirate's Cove

Hey, uh, folks out at the TEA Party in Nashville? You. Are. Not. Helping.

They will proudly boast of how they have galvanised ordinary Americans against runaway government spending, but a dark underbelly of xenophobia has been exposed at the first national gathering of the Tea Party movement.

Here in the vast Gaylord resort in Nashville, where 600 members of the conservative grassroots phenomenon that exploded in revolt against President Obama’s economic policies have gathered, it would be advisable not to wear a T-shirt declaring “I am an illegal immigrant”.

Somehow, being pro-law is bad? Typical leftist claptrap. However….

Yet the speech that opened the Nashville event yesterday, an address greeted with whoops and cheers from the mainly white audience, reflects a movement that also appears to have a less attractive side to it.

Tom Tancredo, a former Republican congressman who ran for president in 2008 on an anti-illegal immigration platform, said of the voters who elected Mr Obama: “They could not even spell the word ‘vote’ or say it in English and they put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House — Barack Hussein Obama!”

Decrying America’s multiculturalism, Mr Tancredo said that Republicans and Democrats had voted for a black man because they felt they had to. To a standing ovation, he shouted: “We really do have a culture to pass on to our children: it’s based on Judaeo-Christian values.”

Definitely not helping, and this type of over the top craziness is not what the TEA Party movement is about.

Mr Tancredo’s speech was followed by music from Lisa Mei Norton, who sang among other songs one entitled Where Were You Born?, a reference to the right-wing “birther” movement which believes that Mr Obama is not a natural-born US citizen.

Of course, The UK Times is highlighting the worst of what went on, and ignoring the good. But, if the first speaker goes down roads like what Tancredo did, yeah, not helping the cause.

The anti-Government, anti-Establishment movement, which has splintered in the past week with many boycotting this gathering, has billed itself as a revolution born of the widespread disgust at Washington and the way that the nation’s politicians are bankrupting America’s future.

Not so much anti-government, because government has a place. Just against big government hell bent on getting bigger and controlling our lives, raising taxes, instituting even more controls on our businesses and persons, etc. Pro-federalism, states rights, the power of the individual. I thought all the old 60’s folks were for the power of the individual, oh, and anti-establishment?