Tea Party Nation Founder: 'A Wise Idea' To Only Let Property Owners Vote

[Joanne98]

Judson Phillips, the founder of the group Tea Party Nation, has defended his comments that the Founding Fathers' original plan to only allow property owners to vote "makes a lot of sense" because "property owners have a little bit more of a vested interest in the community than non-property owners."

In an email to ThinkProgress yesterday, Phillips doubled down, referring to the radio broadcast last week in which he made the comments: "During the course of our discussion, I mentioned that the Founding Fathers limited voting rights to property owners. I commented this was a wise idea."

He continued:

Apparently, two weeks after the show, some liberal stumbled across it and today, that comment has turned into liberal headlines such as, "Tea Party Nation President says It Makes A Lot of Sense to Restrict Voting to Property Owners" and "Tea Party Leaders Attack Constitution." Suddenly, this has morphed from a discussion between two tea partiers into articles claiming that I want to change the Constitution to restrict voting to property owners.Phillips is also known for defending an email he wrote calling for supporters to help "retire" Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) because "he is the only Muslim member of congress," among other things.

Here's the original audio clip:

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/12/tea_party_nation_founder_its_a_wise_idea_to_only_l.php?ref=fpa

[SpiralHawk]

1. "Only property owners in the top 1% of income, of course. Sneer." - TeaBagliCons (R)

"Give us more more more more tax cuts, and the exclusive voting franchise, and we promise to give you Little People regular choco-rations & Genetically Mutant facsimile food products. Sneer."

- TeaBagliCon SuckerPuppet Masters (R)

[tabatha]

2. Backwards, backwards they want us to go.

Yet they yell freedom at every opportunity.

[derby378]

6. The ancient Athenians had true democracy, too...

But only if you were male, a property owner, and not foreign-born. Oh, and every year an Athenian citizen ran the risk of being exiled from the city-state for 10 years by popular vote. Wheeeeeee.

[warrior1]

3. idiot

what make them think that only teabaggers own homes.

[Clio the Leo]

4. Or better yet, what about just all the white men?

:sarcasm:

[craigmatic]

5. Finally fascism rears its ugly head. That didn't take long now did it?

[mix]

11. Fascism? Give me a break, this is classically American, as

reactionary as it is today.

It took until 1860 for property qualifications to be fully abandoned in the US.

[craigmatic]

12. Historically that's true but the reactionary element that would push for this is clearly trying to

make this country as geared toward corpratism and empowering a moneyed elite as possible. The only thing missing is the black shirts though the tea party comes close. Il Duce would be proud.

[mix]

13. American economic corporations have nothing to do with Italian fascist corporatism.

The class antagonism you describe is classically capitalist.

[craigmatic]

17. It all serves the same ends- getting the rich richer while ignoring the poor.

[rasputin1952]

7. Judson Phillips should just hang out in his outhouse and worship

the, "Immaculate Teabag".

I suppose women, blacks, latino's, asians and jews are out of the equation too.

Fire up the tar pots! Get the feathers! I've got a candidate for treatment...Judson Phillips run out of the country on a rail after being tarred and feathered!...:woohoo:

[struggle4progress]

8. Only coffee drinkers should be allowed to vote: take that, Teabaggers!

[BrklynLiberal]

9. If we are going back to the 1700s..let's make it WHITE, MALE property owners!!!

Let's see how the female and non-Caucasian tbaggers feel about that.
Maybe the voting age should be raised to 35 and end at 65...

:puke: :silly:

[dickthegrouch]

10. The Chinese, Japanese and Brits own more of the US

than anyone in the US.
They'd better define owner VERY carefully :)

[Enrique]

14. do slaves count as property?

as long as we're going back to the 18th century...

[LiberalFighter]

15. If it was just property owners they would have more of a vested interest

to take more away from those without property. And risk the consequences of a French Revolution with all the works.

[polichick]

16. Well, this just exposes the great desire of the teabaggers to go back...

...to a time when they (white males) felt that their "exceptionalism" was honored properly.

[Yavin4]

18. If Only Property Owners Could Vote, Then That Means That Only Banks Can Vote

Since it is banks that actually own the property that others pay a mortgage to.

[Exilednight]

19. I wonder if he knows that women now have the right to vote? I bet his explodes if you tell ........

him. Hmmmm, maybe we should e-mail him and tell him that minorities now have the right to vote, too. But let's do it while he's on television, I want to see a meltdown of epic proportions.