The "Tea Party" is not just one group. It basically at this point describes anyone who believes in the US Constitution as intended by James Madison and his friends. The only political wing in America that is not authoritarian, however there are a lot of older folks who call themselves Tea Party that still want to be authoritarian on social issues and foreign policy. It is really taking hold among the youth in this country as they increasingly see the BS position they have been put in. So if you believe in Liberty, minding your own business, that national debt and obligations of over $200K for every man women and child is unsustainable and a few other common sense positions then you are "Tea Party". Most Ron Paul Tea Party types have gone a step further and rejected the initiation of force entirely as prescribed by the NAP
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle If you believe in such a thing, you have basic philosophy that applies to all parts of life very easily. I was raised in the Friends church, although I am a bad Quaker because I believe in self-defense, so subscribing to the NAP and applying it to my beliefs was easy. If you have gone this far, you believe Ron Pauls words of "Love, compassion, tolerance and free market economics" This would essentially make you a Voluntaryist or Anarcho-Capatalist. Ron Paul literally has tens of thousands of students turning out at every campus across this country to support the message of Liberty.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yv4DNXdl6z0 The Liberty movement is the fastest growing political movement in US right now and is the only one with a sound top to bottom philosophy. This forum and the people on it are very authoritarian in nature so you wont see to many Tea Party/Liberty types posting here as opposing opinions are generally not welcome. There are a lot of us here though, as you know Ron Paul won the Big Island in the Republican Caucus, in Pahoa his numbers were triple that of Mitt Romney.(I counted the votes) Most these folks just want to be left alone to live their lives as they see fit, which is very difficult in this day and age with armed thugs guiding your every choice. As Ron Paul noted, we have the highest incarceration rate in the world, obviously we have too many laws.
So if you don't like stealing from others to pay for your life, you want to control what you can do or put in your body, if you believe you have a natural right to self-defense, if you don't want to mass murder brown people, don't believe the President should be able to assassinate US citizens by drone(Obama did 7, Bush 1), if you don't believe the Federal Reserve should tax the middle class, poor and those on fixed income to give printed money to criminal banks and businesses for free, if you don't believe big business and government should be in bed together, if you believe that you own yourself and by extension the fruits of your labor(the opposite being slavery) If you don't believe in group rights and think the individual is the smallest and most important minority, if you believe the Police should keep the peace instead of acting as judge, jury, and executioner, if you are ok with people being different and having different opinions, if you believe you should choose how to spend your money, If you believe standardized government education is a bad thing and will only make us less intelligent as a society, if you question authority and in particular the government as a matter of principle. You are probably a pro-Liberty/Tea Party type person. If you believe you have a right to tell us what to do, even as part of a majority, then we will fight you everywhere we can. Tyranny, Force, Violence and Authoritarianism are things that have been used for thousands of years to keep the individual down, Freedom and Liberty is a recent concept, a young ideal and will make us all very prosperous.
Hope this thread does not get deleted now.
“Setting a good example is a far better way to spread ideals than through force of arms.”
-Ron Paul