Former Member: STL Tea Party Leadership "On Dangerous Ground" and "Walking Into David Koresh's Lap"

As part of my series detailing how former tea partier Jay Stewart and the conservative Hillbilly Logic crew are arguing that the St. Louis Tea Party Leadership is promoting extreme rhetoric, preventing thoughtful discussion, and ultimately engaging in behavior that's both bad for society in general and even bad for the conservative movement, I offer the following discussion from Jay Stewart and the Hillbilly Logic group on last week's Hillbilly Logic Radio Show.

First, Jay Stewart speaking on the show about the St. Louis Tea Party's "Liberty Evangelism" campaign:

It's zealotry, and I'll tell you this, I denounce all political zealotry. And this whole notion that the Left is evil or the Left is the enemy, is asinine, and you should be ashamed of yourself promoting that. That the Democrats are evil and they cause the Republicans to sin. Dude, you're walking yourself right into David Koresh's lap.

Another member of the Hillbilly logic crew responds:

These same tactics...I honestly believe that if things don't change, they're going to be their own October surprise. And I wholly believe that because, if you look at how close it almost blew up in everyone's face with that whole casket stunt over at Carnahan's

Jay Stewart:

Ridiculous! (speaking about the casket stunt)

Look, here's the thing. As far as Jim Hoft and the casket thing, I've seen some things he posted, when I first read what he was talking about, I actually didn't have a problem with the idea of them using a casket...The things that I saw him talking about with the casket, I have no problem if you're going to make a commercial, or do something and say "look, this is what's going to happen to people," if you wanna be creative, I'm not against people going out on a limb. But when you start dealing with people's homes...Once you get to where your families are involved, that's when you're getting into dangerous ground. So I'm not singling any one person out, but what I'm saying is that Jim Hoft might have had a very creative idea on that situation, and I'm taking nothing away from him, in terms of what I saw, but you gotta be careful about looking like you're engaging in "guerilla tactics." That term's been coming up lately. You gotta be careful about that, because you're talking about doing things that are sort of under the barrel.

And the other member of the Hillbilly Logic crew agreed (not sure whether it was Shane or Kevin):

If you're going to do that, do it in a public place. Stay away from people's homes.