Confrontation with a "Tea-Bagger"

On Presidents' Day, I found myself in the middle of a ridiculous conversation with a "tea-bagger" that came very close to blows.

I had made the comment in front of someone else that I thought it was silly for the banks to be closed for Presidents Day. The uninvited reply I was given was "Well...they close 'em for a black man". My demeanor changed a bit with that statement and I asked what he had meant by that. I should not have asked because I appreciated his next answer less than the first one.

"If they can close the banks for Martin Luther King, they can close the banks for the presidents." The general tone was a bit testy for me and I tried to avoid a spike in my blood pressure. I stated that I had almost taken him wrong and I apologized because I had thought he was slighting President Obama. Then he did.

"He ain't the president. He wasn't born in America and he's a damn Muslim terrorist."

This is the year 2010...in America. What do you say to asinine statements like that? I asked "Where did you get your information?', and got no reply. I inquired as to why he held that opinion of Obama and the tirade started again.

"That black...that guy has bankrupted this country and he ain't gonna stop until there ain't any respectable white men in politics! I heard that guy who put together the convention and he said that the debt (National deficit) was about $200 million before Obama took over and now this idiot has run up the debt to $11 trillion dollars. We should take him out and hang him."

I tried to contain my growing upset. I again pressed the man on where he was getting his information, and all he would say was that he heard it somewhere I asked if he was a member of the tea bag crowd and his tone changed.

"Yea I am...and we're gonna take this country back!!"

I inquired as to whom they were going to take it back from and his reply only served to show the racist outlook even more.

"Hussein is a terrorist and we don't need a black Muslim runnin the government.. He already put that Mexican in the Supreme Court and if we don't stop him there won't be a white man left!." He looked at me like a child who had hit a home run, "when we take back the country we can cut taxes and stop all the spending. Once we do that there's gonna be lots of jobs everywhere.".

I asked, if he was paying more taxes now than he was two years ago at this time, to which he replied to the negative. I asked him if he had gotten a tax break on the new home he bought last year and he excitedly said "Yes". I asked if his wife got extra unemployment after she lost her job several months ago and he also answered "Yes".

I have known of this man for almost a year but on Presidents' Day I found out how little he actually knew. He has a job that pays well under $250,000 per year, yet he has bought into the GOP/Tea Bag rhetoric. He has gotten a tax break on a home, more money in his wages, extra unemployment insurance for his wife and he even took advantage of the "Cash for Clunkers" deal last year., yet according to his circle of tea-bagger associates, most of which have taken part in the same tax breaks as he has, are stomping around swearing that Obama is a Muslim terrorist who should be strung up for all sorts of made up accusations.

If this kind of stupidity is what it means to be patriotic, count me out. These people do not have a clue and if America allows people like this to get a foothold on our government, we will all suffer for it.

It is time we took our country back. We need to take it away from the fringe and obstructionists that would willingly watch it burn down for political gain or to be a celebrity.