I’m not going to rant.

No.

I did that already in “Time to Grow Up”. I compared the Tea Party to a child going through the terrible twos. They want what they want and they want it now. Here are some comments by tea party members:

From KRJohnson on Daily Caller:

I think you and I have different definitions of “compromise.” I think the compromise is that we pass any debt ceiling increase at all. Not “Are there tax increases?” Not “Are there 1 trillion or 2 trillion in cuts?” We should literally pass as many cuts as we can get away with in the House. Cut everything. Attach it to the Paul Ryan budget. Eliminate departments. Privatize Social Security accounts. Block grant medicare to the states. Anything and everything that 218 Republicans can agree on. And if the Senate doesn’t agree, we balance the budget on August 2nd. A win-win. It would be a rather abrupt change, but I would be perfectly fine with that. And it would be their fault that it happened so abruptly. AND if nobody can ever compromise with each other we have gridlock. And gridlock is fantastic. I pray for gridlock.

From kyconservative on redstate.com:

One way to get our revenge against the Wall Street controlled, fat-cat/D.C. Establishment Republican Party is to encourage Sarah Palin to run for President on a third party Tea Party ticket. That would show Boehner/McConnell & Co. who is boss. I don’t even like Sarah Palin that much but given how the Republican establishment is selling out our country today, I would support her if she did this. Same for a Tea Party Congressional candidate or legislative candidate running in my area. I have supported the Republican Party my entire adult life, including service as a County Chairman and elected official. I have canvassed, solicited money and done about everything imaginable for the party, but with what I am seeing today, no more. Moreover, at this point I don’t care if Obama is re-elected or not, because there’s no a dime’s worth of difference between him and the Wall Street/corporatist/DC establishment wing of the Republican Party

From imperfectamerica at redstate.com:

There is no reason for conservatives to pass Boehner’s bill. They already passed two good bills, CCB and Paul Ryan’s. Let the chips fall where they may. Let the Smithsonian close up shop and let the Department of Education lock their doors. Let the liberals make the case for their spending. There is more than enough evidence of government spending that can be cut, someone needs to make that the focus of this debate rather than worrying about the sky falling. It won’t fall. The country may however if someone doesn’t put a line in the sand somewhere. Now is not as good as two years ago, but it’s better than next year.

And finally from runner12 at redstate.com:

It was the Tea Party who brought the big wins in 2010. Win or lose, we are here to stay. While we may not garner establishment support, out here on Main Street the Independents are flocking to us in droves. Read the polls, most Americans support the CCB position. Face it, the establishment elites are losing and we are winning. People are tired of the dishonesty, massive spending, and massive growth in government and they are speaking out. As for Laura Ingraham, I think she is good on social issues but not so much on fiscal. By the same token, Red State, FreedomWorks, Heritage, Hannity, Limbaugh, Sen. Rand Paul….shall I go on…have all come out against the Boehner plan. That is NOT a minority faction.

There you have it. These comments reflect the direction of the Tea Party. They are standing on principle, regardless of outcome.They consider themselves to be in the majority of the GOP, regardless of their actual numbers.

From an e-mail sent by teaparty.net:

This is only the beginning. Our facebook page now has 50,000+ “likes,” we have nearly 5,000 followers on twitter, and more than 400,000 people on our email list. It is only by combining all these tools that we have sent more than 275,000 letters to Congress on the debt ceiling! Imagine what we will be able to accomplish when we reach our end-of-the-year goals of 500,000 people on our facebook page, 50,000 followers on twitter and a million people on our email list! With that infrastructure in place, we will reclaim our government and return it to its Constitutional limits.

Impressive, I guess, but hardly majority numbers.

Oh yea, I’m on their e-mail list. I’m on a lot of e-mail lists.