This whole teabagging thing bothers me on many levels. First there's the entire futility of the thing - our country's circumstances are NOT going to change because someone mailed a Congress critter a bag of loose leaf.

Then there's my concern about the root of the quest - are they truly trying incite a revolution by protesting an unfair tax as they did during the days before the Revolution? There is no unfair tax on Tea at the moment. I'm pretty sure all the tea flowing into DC at the moment has had all taxes paid. Because one of the rules of Effective protest (to Me) involves not being arrested for theft.

Or are they going for the modern reference - which the main blogs dance around and the mainstream media dare not discuss. Teabagging as a gaming term is much more incendiary and offensive. Calling Obama a "pantywaist" is nothing on stuffing nutsacks. It's only a hair kinder than calling him a "damn n-----" and certainly many of the uptight conservatives I know understood what that meant they would be embarrassed to mail anyone a teabag.

I almost want to mail the instigators of this offensive stunt some coffee. So they can wake up and smell some. Offending people does NOT sway them to your side. It only puts them off further. It closes doors to discussion. And the only way for conservatives, let alone the Republican Party, to get anything done until the next election is by having conversations and learning to bend and work with others.

If you truly don't like where your tax dollars are going, there is the excellent example given in Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau. Sure, he went to jail for not paying his taxes. You probably will too. Eventually. Of course, this seems to be a Democratic phenomenon (just see all references to failed cabinet posts by Obama), so perhaps Republicans won't let themselves consider it as a result.  ¶ 4:14 PM