I realize at the outset that I'm probably just asking for trouble by saying this, but what the heck - I'll go ahead and say it anyway: The more I hear about the so-called "Tea Party Movement," the more it bothers me.

There are those who will say that they are not surprised by this. They would have you believe that, as a "lefty socialist" I have taken upon myself the mission of trying to silence opinions that run contrary to my own. As if I had the power to actually do that. I mean, come on, it's pretty obvious even to me that my ability to sway public opinion will never be anywhere near that of the Fox Propaganda Channel or the Limbaughs and the Palins of the world.

Besides, anybody who really knows me (and that list includes several Republican friends who I'm reasonably certain would be willing to back me up on this) knows that nothing could be further from the truth. Debate is a healthy thing, and vital to the continued existence of this experiment in democracy the Founding Fathers launched nearly 234 years ago.

I don't mind that these folks who call themselves "Teabaggers" feel compelled to protest and speak out against things they feel are wrong with America. I've done it a time or two in my life, and I suspect I will feel so motivated again at some point. That's a right we all enjoy as Americans; I've never been much of one for the "Love it or leave it" brand of patriotism, for the very reason that if the Founding Fathers had followed such a tenet America as we know it would not exist.

I would not demand that the Teabaggers cease making their concerns heard, and I would hope that they would grant me the same respect and consideration if the situation were reversed. That, however, is one of the things about the Teabaggers that does in fact bother me. From the evidence I have seen, I seriously doubt that the majority of them (if any at all) would grant me the same respect or consideration.

Now I admit that my view of such things may be somewhat colored by my having taken a formal debate class back in high school, where we were taught that people can stand on opposite sides of an issue and present those differing views in a civil, respectful manner.

But you've seen the same news footage from town hall meetings and gatherings outside government buildings that I have. In most cases there has been little if anything civil or respectful about them; anyone who dares express disagreement with the speaker's seemingly narrow agenda is subjected to name calling and verbal abuse.

Call me naive, but it seems a little un-American to suggest that a noisy minority should get to decide who are "real Americans" and who are not.

It is not the Teabaggers' protests that bother me but, rather, the form those protests so very often take. Well, that and the fact that it is sometimes a little difficult to tell just what it is they're protesting.

They claim to be against the concept of socialized medicine, yet in their protests against President Obama's proposed health care reform many of them kept demanding that the government keep its hands off Medicare - which is, if I understood my high school social studies teacher correctly, a form of socialized medicine.

They claim to be against wasteful spending, but recently paid $120,000 to a former governor and candidate for national office whose speech (based on the transcript I read) contained precious little of genuine substance.

Many see themselves as the modern-day equivalent of the revolutionaries of 1776 - this despite the fact that much of what they are advocating is, in fact, the opposite of what those early patriots were actually fighting for. The rallying cry that sparked the American Revolution was not "no taxation" but "no taxation without representation." The colonists didn't object to taxes; they objected to having taxes placed upon them by a governmental body they were not allowed to participate in.

Yet tax breaks for large corporations and corporate influence in elections - the exact opposite of what the Boston Tea Party represented - seem to be what many Teabaggers appear to support.

Some representatives of the Tag Bag movement have stated that the movement is made up of working stiffs who are sick and tired of having to knuckle under to the "elites" - in itself a worthy goal. Yet much of what the group advocates would hurt not the elite of this country, but those who are anything but.

They want smaller government but also seem to support proposed programs and legislation that would tell people how they should live their private lives.

To be as fair as is humanly possible, I'll concede that some of the concerns expressed by the Teabaggers are valid and need to be addressed.

But those valid concerns tend to get lost amidst all the noise and hypocrisy.

(Copyright 2010 by John A. Small)