Tea Party attacks the bird problem

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Tea Party officials today urged Americans to stop feeding birds at their homes. Two hundred Tea Party members held a protest at a local hardware store, urging that sales of bird feeders and bird seed be banned.

"Americans are running the risk of creating a generation of soft, dependent, lazy welfare birds," spokesman I.M. Looney warned. "The strong, self-sustaining, independent, entrepreneurial birds on which this great nation was founded are being enticed into dependency by the handouts of a few well-intentioned bleeding hearts who don't realize what they're doing to the bird nation. Our research shows that birds have given up foraging and are becoming increasingly reliant on handouts from homeowners. They're changing their diet from worms and grubs and grass seeds to organic sunflower seeds piled in overly generous amounts in bird feeders at fully a third of American homes. We're even seeing evidence of inter-generational dependence as parent birds pass on to their chicks the habit of relying on handouts from humans."

Looney noted that there was even evidence of environmental degradation as worms and grubs become overpopulated and dropped sunflower seeds litter the landscape. "Not that we give a damn about the environment, though," he said.

The bird-feeding problem even touches the economy, he said, because people are spending exorbitant amounts on gourmet bird seed that has no benefit to the economy. When taxpayers buy seed to feed birds, it's like throwing money down the drain because birds do not participate in economy. "All that money just goes in the beak and out the tail, and all you get is bird poop on your car," Looney said. "Anyone can see that's an economic detriment." If it weren't against the Tea Party's core principle, he said, the party might call for a bird seed tariff to discourage wasteful bird feeding.

The Tea Party called for a program aimed at weaning birds off of seeds left in bird feeders and reteaching them the foraging techniques that used to come natural to birds. "Do we want an America where all the birds are strong and independent, able to take care of themselves, or do we want an America where birds are sitting around on their fat tails chirping for another handout from the welfare state?" Looney concluded.