FreakyBoy wrote:If the tea party wants to disassociate themselves with those people, it needs to bar them from their protests. Period.
How?
The protests, as I understand them, are for people who 'disagree with policy X'. Such people do disagree with policy X (on the grounds that it comes from a Super Secret Kenyan Muslim Agent). So how exactly do you lock them out? Do you hold it indoors and have someone at the door interrogate their motives? But an indoor protest isn't visible to outsiders, and a protest must be visible in order to attract attention, which in turn means that people can join it from any direction. Do you have bouncers wander through the crowd and pick them out, then throw them out? That's just asking for trouble - next thing they'll claim that these bouncers are working for the Conspiracy and infiltrating their group, and then they'll organise their own protest rally (and probably call it the Real Tea Party or something).
I think that there'll be some severe logistical problems in banning people from a protest who really don't want to be banned.