I'm a moderate Libertarian in my early 30s and I have to say this is the most frightening political movement I've seen in my lifetime. Their views, while often masked in the shroud of individual rights, have a pretty insidious subtext. A few of them are for the removal of separation between church and state (Ken Buck - CO), not knowing the basic tenets of the First Amendment (O'Donnell - DE), and the ever-batshit-crazy Sarah Palin heading the charge. On top of this, there have been accusations of racism within the party and some of the gay-bashing has gone off the charts (before reeling back the rhetoric in lights of a sympathetic public after all the recent suicides)

In short, I can't believe people are getting behind this movement, even though on a base level, I agree with some of what they're saying. It's like they took everything bad about the GOP and magnified it instead of coming to the middle on social issues to meet the majority.

I'm curious to know what some of the other Libertarians and Conservatives on this board think of the Tea Party.

I'm more afraid of Mormon Republicans.  In Utah the've gerrymandered the state so that conservative Mormons can have control of every faction of government.  For instance, In downtown Salt Lake City, myself and two of my neighbors have different representatives from each other, but I vote with child molesting Mormons in St. George, which is in the opposite part of the state.

At least the Tea Party supports democracy.  Though I may not agree with them, a majority of Americans do favor overturning the first amendment religion clause.

WTF are you talking about!  There have never been substantiated proof of racism. But there was a pair of libs at a rally pretending to be tea party members acting racist.  And connecting the gay bashing to the tea party is foolish as these were collage students and gang members doing the bashing. 

And the people who have strayed from the middle as you call it are Libs like president Obama.  Man paranoia  

And of course Palin is stupid...no wait.... she is smart as she is taking over the world.

Not very, IMO.

I'm not entirely sure whether O'Donnell meant the words "separation of church and state" aren't in the First Amendment (they aren't) or if she truly doesn't know that the idea of this separation is derived from the First Amendment. Either way, it's no more frightening than the fact that this separation is the only part of the First Amendment Chris Coons seemed to be familiar with.

I am a Republican and i agree that some of them are a little out there   and maybe uneducated.... and unexperienced (A certain current President comes to mind with the unexperienced) But i will say that what they stand for   the main issues, not removing separation of church of state because that needs to stay, but most of their issues are the result of how this country is dissatisfied with our politicians and the corruption in the government. Our government is so screwed up right now and need fresh people in office not the old same incumbents who are lining their wallets and ruining our country

You live in Utah?

Heh, lived there for four years. Nice place, scary people. Personally, I don't mind Utah as much because, while I disagree with much of its politics, I can't condemn people for wanting to have their own little "sanctuary" as long as it's within the boundaries of Federal Law (but, as you said, Utah pushes the boundaries of that as far as possible).

Utah Mormons will never gain significant power within the Federal government so I have a hard time getting too riled up about it.

Like I said, I agree with some of their economic issues but the complete lack of intelligence within the party from its major candidates and the extreme religious fervor found in some of them is really, really fucking scary.

Its the latter.  I've heard countless conservative arguments from friends as well as television commentators (its like there is a conservative mother brain telling people what to say, lol).  Anyway, these type of conservative think that seperation of Church and State comes from a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote, ignoring the fact that he wrote the Constitution and he was using seperation of church and state to describe what he wrote, or the fact that many other presidents and founding fathers used the words seperation of church and state as well.

It would be like arguing with JK Rowling over the meaning of a Harry Potter book.

By feeding on peoples' most base fears and riling them into a fervor over it.

Yeah, that's just fantastic. Or demagogery, depending on your party affiliation.