Dear Tea Party: Please die.

It appears I have angered and upset the Tea Party. Heaven forfend.

It turns out you don’t have to do very much to piss off the teabaggers. All you need to do is make a stupid joke at their expense to have your inbox, blog comments fields, and Tweetstream filled with mindless hate and misspelled vitriol.

A few days ago I posted a blog entry on ITworld (later picked up by PCworld) about Facebook and its phonebook. Here’s what I wrote:

You know how it goes on Facebook – somebody you don’t know asks to be your friend, you look over their friends list, decide they probably aren’t an axe murderer or a Tea Party member, and you say Yes, because Facebook is a fairly low risk, low maintenance connection. And if they prove to be truly annoying you can always block or defriend them later.

Not exactly Jon Stewart, I admit. But hey, if anybody deserves to be treated like buffoons …. And it’s my Facebook profile; I do reject people who look like crazy-ass conservatives, just as I am sure the crazies run screaming from me.

That apparently was enough to incite a very tsk-tsk story from Newsbusters’ Ken Shepherd, as well as a copycat piece from The Examiner’s Joe Newby (yes, seriously). And of course, the usual howling from the teabag chorus. It must have been a slow news day in Wingnutville.

So I apologized via Twitter thusly:

“ok, I apologize. to the axe murderers. you tea party guys need to develop a sense of humor. but I doubt it will happen."

Some of the Tea Party faithful were inspired enough to try and leave a comment on my business blog and contacted me via my Twitter page. Here’s a representative sampling:

First up: John S. Murphy:

Nice, insulting those of us that read your publications but don't agree with your politics. There are other options so I guess I won't have to read your screed in the future.

By the way, aren't you just a bit old to have an avatar?

A fairly typical response: I don’t agree with your politics, so now I will never read you again. Nice open mind you got there, Johnny. Also: If you’re looking at my avatar, how the frak do you know how old I am?

It gets uglier. Now we have one Jeffrey D. Davis. He writes:

Go fuck yourself you buttfucked faggot. A useful idiot who infests the democRAT trailer park such as yourself wouldn't make a wart on a Tea Partier's ass.

Dear Jeff: Given your raging homophobia, I’ll bet you’ve seen way more warty Tea Party ass than I have. Just a guess.

Now Philip James:

Hey, I feel the same way about people like you.... you are slightly obnoxious and self-important... which is apparently what you think about Tea Party people... amazes me how narcissistic liberals like you can be, to the point of appearing really stupid and ignorant.

So, just to be clear: You feel the same way I do about people like me, which means you must also be really obnoxious, self-important, narcissistic, stupid and ignorant. Did I miss anything?

One brave Teabagger used no name and a fake gmail address to offer this:

Wonder if Tynan the Obamabot would have lumped Obama in with the axe murderers? Your hypocrisy reeks, just like your articles...

Yes, but my breath is still minty fresh, thanks to these ObamaMints I’ve planted under my ObamaTongue.

Jerry Goodwin had this to say

For years,k I received emails from PC World, daily and weekly. As a member of the TEA PARTY I hereby unsubscribe from these articles.
You have no respect for the TEA PARTY members, I have no respect for you nor PC World. GOODBYE!

We’ll miss you Jerry. Don’t forget to take your teeth with you when you go.

On Twitter, JerseyRight tweets:

@tynan_on_tech excellent on tech privacy, idiotic on politics bad choice of forum. Not renewing 2 gift renewals now as a result.

So I guess I shouldn’t be expecting anything from you at Christmas, eh? I was kinda hoping for an autographed picture of Snooki.

SaucyChica, who quite accurately describes herself as a “foul-mouthed conservative bitch,” tweets:

Stick to writing about gadgets you leftist limp dick. Why are all you homosexuals so catty?

Because all people who hate the Tea Party must be gay (us and that Jeffrey D. Davis guy). Damn, you discovered our secret. So much for those plans of world domination, followed by world redecorating.

Some creature calling itself BarneyFrankenbama (Twitter description: “America, F#@K Yeah!”) had this lovely contribution:

Dan Tynan loves watching k***** p*** on his computer. See how this works? Not fun anymore is it? #developasenseofhumor 

Here’s a FAQ on US libel statutes. See how these work?

RevDrEBuzz (whose Twitter page exclaims: “I wear great slacks and dacron shirts, chicks are always interested in me, and what I have to offer them, even beyond conversation”) required three separate tweets to fully vent his spleen …

"you tea partiers" You liberals need to learn that it's not nice to be such a whiny douchebag, of Olbermannian proportions.

sense of humor...yes, like liberals such as yourself have about Obama...RACIST! you scream...spare me, douche.

it is putzes like you, effete douches, who have demolished California. Hows it feel to be such a braindead liberal?

Yes, it’s true, I single handedly demolished California (not the recently retired Republican governator), even though I live and work 3000 miles away. I am that powerful. But thanks for the tip about those Dacron shirts – I bet they really drive the chicks wild.

What are all these people so pissed off about, exactly? Oh right – losing in 2008. And maybe, just maybe, having a black/liberal* man as president.

Small government, fiscal responsibility, and respect for the Constitution? I have no problem with any of that. And if these folks were out there four, six, eight years ago howling about the growth of government, massive deficits, and the complete subversion of the Constitution in favor of the executive branch, I might have some respect for them.

But they weren’t. Because that’s not what this is about. This is about using irrationality and rage as a political weapon. Because I had the temerity to make a small joke, they directed the firehose at me. That’s ok, I can take it.

And please, TPers, don’t read anything I write ever again. That’ll show me.

* Liberalness not guaranteed.

PS: To the anonymous Teabaggers who've been contacting my editors and trying to get me fired, stop acting like cowards and address me directly.