I’m an Army vet and I am a practicing attorney. I am a libertarian (lower-case ‘L’) and am also an Oath Keeper. I come from a family with a long history of military service, and was raised to believe that the Constitution, and its Amendments, are vital to our way of life.

Years ago I would properly have been labeled a conservative. Today, definitely not. I do not agree with the inclusion of religious views in governance; I do not agree that the government should have the ability to exceed the restrictions placed upon it by the Constitution. I am very much in favor of equal rights, including LGBT rights, for example, and do not believe the government should have any basis for preventing marriage between same-sex couples.

Bush frightened me, the Patriot Act scared the daylights out of me. In 2004 I voted third-party. In 2008 I voted for Obama, not only because I hoped he would follow through on his promises to change things, but also because Palin is entirely too much of a religious nut for me to be comfortable with her being in office.

So, we went from Bush to Obama. Instead of rolling things back, Obama has only built on the policies left to him by his predecessor. Not only do we have the Patriot Act, not only is Gitmo still open, but now we have the NDAA, we have drone strikes killing American citizens who haven’t even been charged with a crime, let alone convicted. We have the creeping regulation of ‘free speech zones’ which render First Amendment rights ever more impotent. We have a degradation of our Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure (think stop and frisk, as a prime example). The list goes on and on.

As a vet, I feel very uncomfortable with the FBI and DHS memos that label vets as potential domestic terrorists or extremists. It sort of makes me feel like I am being singled out for special attention, and not in a good way. When I see guys like Brandon Raub being taken into custody for exercising free speech, when I see police crackdowns against Occupy protesters…it makes my blood run cold.

In short, my beef isn’t with Democrats or Republicans. It is with both, since neither party seems to have any inclination to reign in their gross abuses of unconstitutional authority.

Obama, to me, is not different than Romney, and is not different than Bush. I could care less about whether he is half black, I served with several African Americans in the Army, and they were outstanding human beings. I cannot stress enough that my concerns do not stem from race or position on the political spectrum. It is a matter of policies that have been continued and/or expanded.

As an Oath Keeper, I do not see it as my mission to initiate a revolt or join a militia. In fact, if you take the time to review our principles, it is abundantly clear that the organization does not stand behind such things. As with any group there are some who may hold views that are not in lockstep with our organization’s mission, I cannot dispute that. However, it is worth pointing out that vast majority of us are not a bunch of tin-foil hat wearing, conspiracy theorizing, racist, religiously motivated right wing nutjobs. Being a non-partisan organization, we do not, as a group, support any party or candidate; rather, we support a return to Constitutional governance. Our members, individually, may hold certain beliefs, or support certain parties or candidates, but that is not indicative of Oath Keepers as a whole.

If that sounds like extremist screed then I can’t say anything more that might disabuse you of the notion that we are violent fearmongers.

Try harder in the future!

All I’m hearing from you is Hammerhead, hammerhead, hammerhead. How about trying some intellectual input and using your words to tell me where I’m wrong. And try some actual facts ‘a piece of information presented as having objective reality’.

And THAT’S why you don’t dope your skin with thermite!

This game is fun!

The second funniest political thing I have ever seen is the Ron Paul blimp – which originated in Virginia. Such a perfectly symbolic symbol of the man – a crazy windbag :)

You cannot have propaganda like that – go out on your letterheard and then say “I didn’t know what it said” to cover your tracks.

Does he honestly think people are that stupid? I hope he keeps wasting his money trying to run for President – sad thing is it just might make him a martyr and give his son more steam.

They’re all a bunch of damn…don’t get me started. Hammerhead doesn’t even begin to describe that camp.

Joseph, when I first heard about Ron Paul he merely seemed like an amusing loon – I mean, how seriously can you take a “libertarian” who supports having the government dictating medical decisions to women? The more I learned, I found out just how toxic he is (and his son may well be even worse).

Its also racism to point out that a right winger is racist.

The same Ron Paul who endorsed sending Black people back to Africa?

But in True Right Wing form, you’re a one poster right? No witty comebacks?

Ron Paul??? I think I’d rather vote for “Slick” Rick Perry. I got news for you and all Tea Partiers out there. You don’t endorse racisim for YEARS and then forget about it when it’s not convenient because of the internet.

Have you ever read Ron Paul’s “faxed” propaganda???

Well DUH. ;)

I thought these idiot Teahadis were strict ‘Constitutionists?’ And isn’t there something in the Constitution regarding the right to free assembly, redress of grievances, anti-establishment, and freedom of petition?

I might be missing something, but I’m sure Real Tea Party can help me out.

Y’know, this website fills me with a mixture of both pride for humanity and utter despair, since it shows both the best and worst we have to offer at the same time. ^_^;;;;;

TPN is not even recognized as a legitimate tea party!

It was formed and is run by a GOP consultant as a PAC in 2009.

The real tea party was formed in 2007 and their candidate is Ron Paul.

But of course since SPLC is probably the largest most well funded and notorious HATE GROUP in the country, it will attack anyone with an ounce of common sense or patriotism.

I think when internet censorship comes along this group ought to be deprived of its right to be on the internet for spreading so much hate, fear and uncertainty about average people.

No, the Tea Party didn’t start until the black man was in the White House. The Tea Party is completely corporately backed by the Koch Brothers who never would have gone against George W. Bush because he was the oil company’s puppets and the Koch Brothers own Koch Energy, an oil company.

The Koch Brothers primary interest in cutting taxes for the rich, oil industry giveaways, eliminating the estate tax to assure a permanent aristocracy, etc. They likely don’t care about bigotry or racism but use it as a tool. They knew that in association with hte right wing media they could use the bigotry and outright lies about tax increases when President Obama actually has cut taxes.

The spending – again, Obama has actually been much more responsible than Reagan or George W. Bush when it comes to spending. The increases under Obama were due to including the costs of the wars in the budget.

The fact that hte Tea Party is just the latest incarnation of the “Know Nothings” is best demonstrated by the fact that the majority of Tea PArty members are elderly people who depend upon Social Security and Medicaid yet they have been led by corporate conmen to support people who want to completely abolish Social Security and Medicaid and essentially leave the elderly and people with disabilities for the wolves to devour. The fact that the Tea Party is so ignorant that one of the most commonly seen signs was “Government Hands off of Medicare” (never mind that Medicare is a government program) speaks volumes.

Basically you are a very ignorant person who has been mislead by conmen – and I’d respect you more if like the Tea Party predecessor the 1920s KKK you’d admit that you are mainly fueled by bigotry (if you ever study the 1920s Klan you know that they really were all over the place in their hatred and who to blame for the problems – kind of like the modern Tea Party). Just look at all of the laws being passed or proposed by Tea Party candidates and you can see that the Tea Party is bigoted against women, immingrants, blacks, people with education, homosexuals, Hispanics, the poor, and “liberal elitists.” The most telling laws are how Republicans across the country are trying to prevent as many people as possible – but especially if they are Black, Hispanic, female, or poor (a poor Black Hispanic Female is pretty much doomed if the Tea Party takes over everything). Much of that hatred including the anti-immingration hatred has been present among the right wing since the “Know Nothings” of the 1850s.

At least the “Know Nothings” had an appropriate name – your so called “Tea Party” which is so ignorant that they are actually protesting against tax increases for the rich (which few if any Tea Party members qualify as) but in favor of plans that would substantially increase their own taxes (the Ryan plan would dramatically increase taxes while slashing services for the middle class and poor – but it would virtually eliminate taxes on the wealthy). You Tea Party idiots are so ignorant that you are actually protesting to increase your own taxes and destroy your own Social Security and Medicaid benefits.