PATRIOT GAMES
Real Republicans ignore Tea Baggers: The interesting thing about Tea Baggers is that they're digging their own [political] graves by lying all the time, botching facts, being pathetically uninformed, and puffing up to the point that their heads almost explode over some lunatic [conspiracy] they allege ("Tea Party Patriots," Stephen Lemons, July 28).
What this has done is drive away even people who basically agree with them on a lot of issues. Rational Republicans don't want to be associated with a bunch of ignorant, dentally challenged rednecks. These Tea Party idiots are so unsophisticated — I doubt many of them read past third-grade level — that they are their own worst enemies.
Our [state] party needs to [endorse] rational thinkers, not these ignorant hooligans.
D.J. Weber, Tempe
No, John, not just anyone not on the left: "[Tea Party members] aim to take over or disrupt public meetings." This comment is so hypocritical that it's not even funny, considering the fact that liberals have been doing that since the beginning of time.
Did Stephen Lemons have a problem with rowdy, La Raza-backed students who kept shutting down school board meetings in Tucson by screaming, chanting, and chaining themselves to desks? Why, of course not.
This [column] is a typical strategy from the liberal smear machine: call anyone who isn't on the left a "Tea Bagger." Which will intimidate people to the point where they're afraid to exercise their First Amendment right to disagree with their government.
Here we go with the left-wing, fear-mongering G-word — guns! You're full of garbage.
John Terry, Phoenix
Answer: No one can: The example you cite in your column about the clueless Tea Party woman, Kelly Townsend, being so stupid that she called for the object of her scorn, Colleen Mathis, to step down immediately — when [Mathis] wasn't even present — is priceless. How can anybody take these dumb-asses seriously?
John Elder, Phoenix
Oh, Lemons researched your group: Steve Lemons, you are a fool. Has it occurred to you that a Tea Party member might pick up a copy of New Times and read your vitriolic tripe? Probably not, because you must assume that Tea Partiers are illiterate.
You probably should research a group before making a judgment about it. You have obviously never attended a Tea Party meeting or visited a Tea Party blog or website. You probably get all your information about the Tea Party from the left-stream media. It is one thing to disagree with a group's philosophy, but it is quite another to lie, distort, and smear a group that you disagree with.
Comparing the Tea Party with 9/11 Truthers is absurd. Frankly, I think you have confused the Tea Party with Birthers, and they are not the same thing. The Tea Party isn't a collection of nut-jobs, like Birthers, Truthers, and global-warming nuts.
You [labeled] us as "noxious hillbillies, bikers, nativists, old white biddies, and crazed, self-styled patriots." You sound like a seventh-grader.
Have you ever heard of the First Amendment? Last time I checked, the Constitution doesn't have an expiration date. The Tea Party has a right to express [its] opinion.
If [Tea Party members] think Chris Mathis is too partisan, they have every right to complain. You expect us all to behave like good little sheep when the Constitution is ignored and our rights are being trampled? We are better-informed than you think.
And if you think [our members] are being too disruptive, take a look in the mirror. You lefties have been behaving that way since the Vietnam War.
Jim Dun, city unavailable
Mary, why associate with them?: What's so sad about Tea Baggers is that they squeal like little pigs when anybody calls them names, but they never mind letting loose plenty of racial slurs about everybody they despise.
Every time I'm at a public meeting [with them], I hear them using the N-word, or worse. What they say about Latinos, I don't even want to repeat.
Their whole movement in Arizona is based on the fact that they are white bigots who hate brown people. Black people, to the [Tea Baggers] I've come to know, aren't even human.
Mary Mathias, city unavailable
Talk about dull-witted: I just love writers who simply declare that anyone who doesn't agree with the government crap regarding 9/11 is a conspiracy theorist and that all those ideas have been debunked and discredited.
[Lemons writes] like a hack, calling people names like a junior-high-schooler. I apologize to junior-high-schoolers for associating them with [his] writing. Don't they have remedial propaganda courses [he] can take?
Walter Concrete, city unavailable