Keep It Civic!

A contrarian (We'll assume, as there's really no other explanation for this sort of thing.) jumps on the tea wagon. We've haven't the time, energy, desire, or inclination to pick over it at length (There's telebision to be watched.) but we were given pause by this:

[T]he civic engagement and participation, as demonstrated by the Tea Party movement, seem to be very much like that which the communitarians (Michael Sandel and Michael Walzer) and the social-capital scholars (like Robert Putnam)—not to mention other high-minded and good-hearted men and women of the left—have for decades been calling for.

Where "civic engagement and participation" equal: shouting down elected representatives, laughing at sick people, milling around waving illiterate signs & spouting insanely delusional conspiracy theories, making Hitler & Stalin analogies about health care, etc. Not the participation that too many of the left have been calling for, even w/ ideologies & demographics changed.