On this, the morning of a rather important slew of elections here in Wisconsin, I’d like to take a moment to show you the face of the enemy. I’ve been frustrated for months with how little the anti-Walker people in Madison seem to understand their opposition. To be fair, outside of certain rather sheltered pockets, the opposition does not natively exist here, so having an actual conversation with a Tea Partier, or a radical social conservative, or even a classic fiscal conservative who hasn’t yet panicked and jumped ship, is not something likely to happen organically. That’s no excuse. If you don’t understand your enemy, you cannot plan for him, and you don’t understand the correct ways to go about being afraid of him.
I have a long, long rant about what the Tea Party actually is (and if you think astro-turf is relevant, this rant is about you) that starts with “They have a fundamentally different understanding of the social contract,” and will, if my audience seems willing, start with the revolutionary war in explaining what’s going on now. It’s best delivered in person, though, so I can judge how much I’m being humored or ignored and adjust pacing accordingly. Besides, on the internet, a youtube video is worth a liter of foam. So I present this video to you with the following notes:
1) It is sincere, not satirical
2) Its intended audience doesn’t laugh.
3) If you can’t wrap your head around somebody who can watch this video with a straight face, you have some studying to do.
That said, I’ve been giggling over this video for a week.
Anaea Lay 
When I saw what this video was about, my first thought was “Crap, I like the idea of planning a food stockpile for a crisis, am I a Tea Partier?”
Then I watched it and felt better. Then I heard the line about “not genetically modified in any way” and felt a lot better. The ultimate barter item, indeed!
That’s my reaction a lot of Tea Party thinking. Take out the xenophobia, the anti-intellectualism, and the pro-rural bias, and they’d be my best friends.