Those of you that deny the fact that 99% of these people are regular, hard working, middle Americans have your heads in your asses. You can try and dismiss them all you want, but they are not backed by any group or person. They are just good taxpaying citizens who are finally fed up with Govt in general, and many of them are independents and democrats. You can play them off all you want, but 2010 is going to speak for itself.
[quote]denv23 wrote:
Those of you that deny the fact that 99% of these people are regular, hard working, middle Americans have your heads in your asses. You can try and dismiss them all you want, but they are not backed by any group or person. They are just good taxpaying citizens who are finally fed up with Govt in general, and many of them are independents and democrats. You can play them off all you want, but 2010 is going to speak for itself.[/quote]
Then what?
1994 again?
The socialist are all thrown out; the GOP wins back Congress; ‘Ole’ Joe “YOU LIE!” Wilson becomes Speaker; Palin/Schiff/Whomever wins in 2012, sending Obama back to Chicago/Kenya…
All the “pissed off” who hate Government (as long as you don’t mess with their Medicaire and Social Security) are HAPPY again! All is right in the World again, and I ask again…
Then WHAT? I’ve been through enough political cycles to safely say “Not much will change…”
Mufasa
[quote]denv23 wrote:
Those of you that deny the fact that 99% of these people are regular, hard working, middle Americans have your heads in your asses. [/quote]
The reason this offends me so greatly is because it is so glaringly obvious these are not average, random American people.
Estimates for this group were around 100K.
Out of that 100K, there was not one minority person.
While these are regular, middle, Americans is not arguable. Whether they are representative of the population in general and whether they are not Fox, Beck, Limbaugh educated babbling morons is debatable.
They were protesting taxes…THEIR TAXES WERE JUST REDUCED.
They were protesting Govt. spending…THEY ARE 8 YEARS TOO LATE.
They are fed up with big govt…THEY ARE 6 YEARS TOO LATE.
The crowd represents right wing whack jobs and it is not a representation of the American people. They protest because they simply cannot stand Obama.
“…Out of that 100K, there was not one minority person…”
Well…probably not the GREATEST idea to be around a lot of pissed-off white people, with “Bury Obama next to Kennedy” signs…
Mufasa
[quote]SteelyD wrote:
I see hypocrasy(sp?) everywhere here. Liberals/Left/Dem, whatever, always cry about corporate money, special interest groups, lobbyists, etc, yet rely HEAVILY on them as much (equally) as Republicans (of which I am not one regardless of the assumptions by some).
[/quote]
I agree totally. The Democrats cry about the Republicans stopping them from doing this and doing that, and “Oh they will filibuster, so we can’t help the American people.”
Now they have no excuses. They can pass health care without Republican support. The fact is, they don’t want to. It is not in the interest of their lobbyists.
I am a left wing whack job. I admit the Democrats suck. I don’t think they are spineless, I think that is their modus operandi. Until people on both sides of the fence unite and vote both of these f*ckers out, we will continue to have empty promises and excuses.
I had hope that Obama would change things. That hope is diminishing quickly.
[quote]Petedacook wrote:
Out of that 100K, there was not one minority person.
[/quote]
As a conservative, I wouldn’t be surprised if that was case. Conservatism is pretty much a white political ideology. And, as whites become a minority-majority, you’ll see fewer conservatives getting into office. The left wins on demographics alone.
I don’t know what you guys were watching, I saw plenty of minorities interviewed, yes on FOX. Including one woman who was an Obama delegate during the primaries.
And to Mufasa, I’m disappointed in you. The horrible sign in question read “Bury Obamacare with Kennedy”, not Obama himself. You do make a good point about what happens even if the GOP were to regain control tomorrow. They started some good work in the 90’s and really lost their way when they picked up the whitehouse. I’m not too hopeful either, but it’s very tough to imagine anything they can muster being worse than this.
One thing people have to come to grips with is that the military is not in the same classification as social spending. Military spending is actually mandated in our founding documents and regardless of what our local anarchists might delude themselves into believing, the common defense can ONLY be effectively accomplished by a government unless you’re in Sierra Leone.
Even during the revolution, as rag tag as the continental army was it was still continental with a central command structure and salaries paid through congress.
This idiotic attempt at equating these life and money sucking “entitlement” programs with the military on the basis that they both require funding is both dangerous and betrays a fundamental misapprehension of what this nation was all about.
One is mandated and more necessary than ever and the other was plucked from the imaginations of power hungry pseudo do gooders in what’s been a very successful campaign to create an eternal voting block.
[quote]Petedacook wrote:
Mufasa wrote:
I’m sure there are plenty of people who stop at Mickey D’s for a sausage buiscuit before their PETA rally…just like I’m SURE that there are a significant number of people at these “Tea Parties” and rallies whom have been at the tit of Government their whole lives.
Dick Armey is as much of a hypocrite as Pelosi…and these “Family Values” hire as many hookers and support Brazillan Mistresses as Barney Frank has had “boy toys” over the years.
Mufasa
The problem that I find is that the people on the right are fine with their hypocrisy. They actually enjoy using it to their advantage.
They are against single payer health care reform, but if their house catches on fire they are calling the fire department. If their is broken into, they call the police. They need a book…to the library they go.
The hypocrisy so rampant it is beyond the capacity of the English language to properly define it within this post. How about a picture of typical hypocrisy that is being expressed by the bible thumping right currently in the debate over gay marriage.
[/quote]
What the hell are you on about?? You are smoking crack. You confuse anarchists and super libertarian fringe crazies with conservatives. It is not hypocrisy to call the fire department if you feel that the existence of the fire department is justified.
I have no idea what you are talking about with gay marriage either. The bible thumpers may or may not be crazy, but they clearly believe that gay marriage is not justified according to their scripture. That view point does have some support if you are using the bible as your guide. Hence, it is an internally consistent view. It might be crazy to you and me, but it isn’t hypocrisy.
Tiribulus:
You know as well as I do the double-entendres, “hidden” messages and hateful sentiments expressed when you have crowds of people this large with passion that runs this high.
(And some didn’t even hide their true feelings…)
Although it was clearly meant to be a double-entendre ("…Bury Obama(care) with Kennedy…)you’re right…it didn’t literally say “…Bury Obama…”
Mufasa
[quote]Mufasa wrote:
Tiribulus:
You know as well as I do the double-entendres, “hidden” messages and hateful sentiments expressed when you have crowds of people this large with passion that runs this high.
(And some didn’t even hide their true feelings…)
Although it was clearly meant to be a double-entendre ("…Bury Obama(care) with Kennedy…)you’re right…it didn’t literally say “…Bury Obama…”
Mufasa[/quote]
I took the double entendre to mean “bury this abominable plan along with the abominable poltician for whom it was a marquee mission”. I’ll just betchya that if asked the person holding that sign would confirm that was the meaning. It’s like if some liberal peacenik were waving a sign that said “Bury Missile Defense Systems with Reagan” I would take him to be meaning the same thing. Only that the linguistics involved lend themselves easily to merging Obama’s name with the issue.
There is no way in a crowd that size to prevent there being at least some whack jobs. All I know is what I’m seeing in these tea parties is indeed reflected in a surprising number of the locals I talk to around here. Even Obama voters, one of which I helped use my electronics cleaner spray to get the Obama 08 sticker off of her car this week.
[quote]Mufasa wrote:
Then what?
1994 again?
The socialist are all thrown out; the GOP wins back Congress; ‘Ole’ Joe “YOU LIE!” Wilson becomes Speaker; Palin/Schiff/Whomever wins in 2012, sending Obama back to Chicago/Kenya…
All the “pissed off” who hate Government (as long as you don’t mess with their Medicaire and Social Security) are HAPPY again! All is right in the World again, and I ask again…
Then WHAT? I’ve been through enough political cycles to safely say “Not much will change…”
Mufasa[/quote]
Sadly, this is exactly what is going to happen. As I keep saying, Obama is awful. But the next guy is going to be worse.
mike
Curious…
Why worse, Mike?
Mufasa
[quote]Petedacook wrote:
They were protesting taxes…THEIR TAXES WERE JUST REDUCED. [/quote]
Unless you smoke, something done primarily by the poor. This also ignores that your taxes will soon be going up if you use any sort of energy or lack health insurance. It also ignores that inflation is a tax.[quote]
They were protesting Govt. spending…THEY ARE 8 YEARS TOO LATE. [/quote]
Not really. They were actually almost 100 years too late. Conservatives WERE protesting FDR. Conservatives did start protesting gov’t spending when the stimulus checks and bailouts started under Bush. But like with FDR perhaps the noise started up with Obama because both men are turning up the heat in the frog’s pot too fast. [quote]
They are fed up with big govt…THEY ARE 6 YEARS TOO LATE.
[/quote]
Hardly. People have been bitching about the government being too big since Jefferson made the LA purchase without congressional consent. What this comes down to really is that no one really seems to mind government spending, so long as the gov is funding their pet projects. The solution of course is to make it so that they government is incapable of funding any of this shit. Guys like myself have been complaining about big government for 200+ years. Problem is that you guys ignore us so as to point fingers at your mirror image who just wants to buy different stuff.
I’m no right wing whack job and neither are a goodly number of men on this forum who protested Bush and Obama. You[generic] continue to lump us in with them and marginalize us at your peril.
mike
[quote]Petedacook wrote:
I am a left wing whack job. I admit the Democrats suck. I don’t think they are spineless, I think that is their modus operandi. Until people on both sides of the fence unite and vote both of these f*ckers out, we will continue to have empty promises and excuses. [/quote]
You sound a great deal like Glenn Beck here. And like Beck you are a fool. You greatest tyrants aren’t the ones we’ve elected. They greatest tyrants are the legions of unelected beaurocrats. Do you think the USAPATRIOT Act was written by Bush? Do you think this health care abomination was written by Obama or Kennedy or whoever? No, they were written by staffers and aides and others on our dime who will continue to make policy long after the representative is gone. [quote]
I had hope that Obama would change things. That hope is diminishing quickly. [/quote]
I trust you had. You’re getting change, just with a side order of the standard cronyism and corruption.
mike
[quote]Mufasa wrote:
Curious…
Why worse, Mike?
Mufasa[/quote]
Because we don’t learn. The underlying problem with our citizenry is the death of self-reliance. We have been raised (though indoctrination by the public school system) as well as our parents (because they were indoctrinated by our …) that the government is a machine we wield to solve all the world’s problems.
The human experience is a beautiful battle to thrive against adversity. We learn, we grow, we become better as a species. Government has begun to stunt that growth. By giving in our liberties and responsibilities to government we have created small men. This takes us into a more direct answer to your question. If the human experience is a constant battle against adversity we will never reach perfection. There will always be a new challenge and new desires. When we turn to government to solve our ills we find that it fails us for a myriad of reasons.
We take this anger at the failure of government out on the figureheads: congress, the president, the judiciary, ect. We voted in Bush on account of our weariness with Clinton. Bush was awful and we voted Obama in because we hated Bush. When Obama is gone, the person elected in will be not selected because of a critical weighing of issues. It will be a knee jerk reaction to get someone as far away from Obama as possible. They may not use the words, but they’ll be thinking one thing, “Change.” Anyone but Obama will be the rally cry.
But we are just changing the driver of the evil machine. The tea party crew will get suckered into a face who claims to understand them. But when he gets in power he will cut no spending of consequence or close anything but the most nominal of programs. All the while he will expand the size and intrusiveness of government.
Jesus, if Jefferson expanded government, Reagan expanded government how could we expect the today’s elected demagogues to shrink government?
mike
[quote]Mikeyali wrote:
Petedacook wrote:
They were protesting taxes…THEIR TAXES WERE JUST REDUCED.
Unless you smoke, something done primarily by the poor. This also ignores that your taxes will soon be going up if you use any sort of energy or lack health insurance. It also ignores that inflation is a tax.
[/quote]
I wonder why you are repeating talking points? Smoking does not equate to an income tax increase. This is an argument employed by misleading talking heads on the right…I have heard the following repeat this: Coulter, O’Reilly, Newt, Limbaugh. Congratulations for your unique, misleading presentation.
Additionally, the last time I checked…I am not taxed anything additional for energy or health insurance. Are you saying this is a protest for what “might” happen? Perhaps I should begin protesting right wing fascism for the new president of 2012.
Cigarette equals an increase in income tax is simply absurd.
Funny…I did not see any right wing people COVER the right wing protests of Bush. Can you point them out if you are not making this up?
Mike, You sound like Glenn Beck. Yes, the government has been getting bigger for a long time, but I really don’t interpret words. Words mean absolutely nothing. I interpret actions and there were no actions on the right until Obama took office. Now the protests tout Obama as Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Racist, and many other personal attacks that have nothing to do with specific policy and everything to do with the person.
I am going to have to agree with you on this one. To me, you are all like the Borg…one collective right wing unit.
I apologize and profess that I will try to keep an open mind.
[quote]Petedacook wrote:
Mikeyali wrote:
Petedacook wrote:
They were protesting taxes…THEIR TAXES WERE JUST REDUCED.
Unless you smoke, something done primarily by the poor. This also ignores that your taxes will soon be going up if you use any sort of energy or lack health insurance. It also ignores that inflation is a tax.
I wonder why you are repeating talking points? Smoking does not equate to an income tax increase. This is an argument employed by misleading talking heads on the right…I have heard the following repeat this: Coulter, O’Reilly, Newt, Limbaugh. Congratulations for your unique, misleading presentation.
Additionally, the last time I checked…I am not taxed anything additional for energy or health insurance. Are you saying this is a protest for what “might” happen? Perhaps I should begin protesting right wing fascism for the new president of 2012.
Cigarette equals an increase in income tax is simply absurd. [/quote]
Who said anything about income? Taxes for the price of tobacco has gone up. Poor people are more likely to smoke, ergo taxes are going up for the poor.
And I don’t know what Beck or Rush are saying. I do not listen to them. I listen to two radio shows: The Thomas Jefferson Hour once a week and occasionally Free Talk Live, hosted by a couple of Quakers from New Hampshire. I also do not have television so I don’t watch Fox News.[quote]
They were protesting Govt. spending…THEY ARE 8 YEARS TOO LATE.
Not really. They were actually almost 100 years too late. Conservatives WERE protesting FDR. Conservatives did start protesting gov’t spending when the stimulus checks and bailouts started under Bush.
Funny…I did not see any right wing people COVER the right wing protests of Bush. Can you point them out if you are not making this up? [/quote]
So besides Fox, who would you EXPECT to cover right wing protests of Bush? You also confuse protests with frustration. Bush’s base was quite mad at him. I for one did not go out and march in protest. But I haven’t marched in protest of Obama. When both sides go out and protest they behave like children. Have YOU been out to protest Obama since you’re admitting that you’re upset with him? Of course not. I trust you don’t want to hang out with a bunch of tea party knuckleheads. Well, do you think those same tea party people want to go hold signs up alongside code pinkers?[quote]
They are fed up with big govt…THEY ARE 6 YEARS TOO LATE.
Hardly. People have been bitching about the government being too big since Jefferson made the LA purchase without congressional consent. What this comes down to really is that no one really seems to mind government spending, so long as the gov is funding their pet projects. The solution of course is to make it so that they government is incapable of funding any of this shit. Guys like myself have been complaining about big government for 200+ years. Problem is that you guys ignore us so as to point fingers at your mirror image who just wants to buy different stuff.
Mike, You sound like Glenn Beck. Yes, the government has been getting bigger for a long time, but I really don’t interpret words. Words mean absolutely nothing. I interpret actions and there were no actions on the right until Obama took office. Now the protests tout Obama as Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Racist, and many other personal attacks that have nothing to do with specific policy and everything to do with the person.[/quote]
The left did the same and they’re both silly. But while many (not all) are attacking the messenger instead of the message, can’t you at least entertain the possibility that they’re mad at the person because he has attempted to advance multiple pieces of policy that they’re angry at instead of just health care? [quote]
I’m no right wing whack job and neither are a goodly number of men on this forum who protested Bush and Obama. You[generic] continue to lump us in with them and marginalize us at your peril.
I am going to have to agree with you on this one. To me, you are all like the Borg…one collective right wing unit.
I apologize and profess that I will try to keep an open mind. [/quote]
Pete, do me a favor here. Put yourself in the shoes of a tea party guy. You sat on your hands while Bush was in office. You were unhappy with Bush but it never got beyond grumbling at your friends. Let’s say you think Iraq is a great idea but now you’re mad over the stimulus checks and the first wave of bailouts. You’ve spent your evenings home from work watching the news where Bush is bashed and protests are covered.
Now Obama is elected. He’s doing all the stuff that Bush did that made you mad. But he’s also pushing health care. He’s also pushing the 700B stimulus bill. He’s doing Cash for Clunkers and so on. You don’t see the left out protesting because they’re happy with this or they’re just doing what you did while Bush was in office. So you put down the family Bible, turn off the NASCAR and make you a sign. You go down and protest. You’re possibly being politically active for the first time ever because you’re a middle aged Wal-Mart slob. You get all excited and wave your sign and come home thinking you did something important.
Next thing you know the same people that were covering protests of Bush are openly mocking you because your simple God-fearing mind didn’t know what tea bagging was. Can you at least begin to understand their anger a little bit?
I’m not one of these people Pete, but I can sure as hell see why they’re angry. And that is not an anger I’m going to make light of.
mike
[quote]Mikeyali wrote:
<<< A very very good post indeed >>>[/quote]
One of the most tragic and soul crushing elements of this are the people who would be much more if forced to be.
At least from a government standpoint we once had a pretty much “sink or swim” attitude in this nation.
There is a disturbingly large percentage of the human race who will let you take care of them if allowed. Encourage that attitude and the percentage grows. Trap people into it and it grows even more.
The heartbreaking group referred to above are the ones who if given no other choice WILL advance themselves, but are quick to fall into dependence if the path is available. The very provision for their physical needs alleged to be for their good is what strips them of the opportunity and drive, along with the satisfaction of achieving for themselves. It is an acute mortal wound for them and a chronic creeping and CONTAGIOUS disease for the society that practices it.
What started as small blistering sore is now a running ulcerated disaster. Especially, ESPECIALLY for minorities who have been the largest target of this toxic bleeding heart bullshit.
One of the realities thoroughly lost over the last especially 50 years is the truth that some small relatively percentage of people are just naturally lazy, stupid, sluggish failures and should be allowed to fail. Instead we have thrown out a wide net of utterly destructive and falsely compassionate social programs that have caught not only the true failures among us, but a legion of citizens who may have made something of themselves if forced to do so.
For every story about somebody lifted from despair by our tearfully beautiful “safety net” there are 1,000 now in their 2nd or third or more welfare generation. I see it every day.
If I were forced to choose today between the liberal socialist path we are on or pulling the plug on ALL social spending, including the SS administration, the department of education, the department of health and human services, medicare, medicaid etc, I’d choose the latter. The trouble is we’ve made dependents of millions and millions of people with these programs to the point where there would be rioting and death for years before we recovered after a reboot like that. It’ll never happen and as long as some people can vote other people’s money into their pockets we will continue this slide into genuine tyranny, but I will be fighting it every step of the way.
[quote]Mikeyali wrote:
Mufasa wrote:
Curious…
Why worse, Mike?
Mufasa
Because we don’t learn. The underlying problem with our citizenry is the death of self-reliance. We have been raised (though indoctrination by the public school system) as well as our parents (because they were indoctrinated by our …) that the government is a machine we wield to solve all the world’s problems.
The human experience is a beautiful battle to thrive against adversity. We learn, we grow, we become better as a species. Government has begun to stunt that growth. By giving in our liberties and responsibilities to government we have created small men. This takes us into a more direct answer to your question. If the human experience is a constant battle against adversity we will never reach perfection. There will always be a new challenge and new desires. When we turn to government to solve our ills we find that it fails us for a myriad of reasons.
We take this anger at the failure of government out on the figureheads: congress, the president, the judiciary, ect. We voted in Bush on account of our weariness with Clinton. Bush was awful and we voted Obama in because we hated Bush. When Obama is gone, the person elected in will be not selected because of a critical weighing of issues. It will be a knee jerk reaction to get someone as far away from Obama as possible. They may not use the words, but they’ll be thinking one thing, “Change.” Anyone but Obama will be the rally cry.
But we are just changing the driver of the evil machine. The tea party crew will get suckered into a face who claims to understand them. But when he gets in power he will cut no spending of consequence or close anything but the most nominal of programs. All the while he will expand the size and intrusiveness of government.
Jesus, if Jefferson expanded government, Reagan expanded government how could we expect the today’s elected demagogues to shrink government?
mike[/quote]
GREAT post, Mike!
What you have outlined is actually already starting to happen.
There already are “pundits” and “movements” and slick-talkers who have simple, “home-sy”, “common-sense” answers to VERY complex problems that people are already sending money to. (Hey…it’s America, and its their right…).
The “knee-jerking” isn’t waiting until 2010.
I simply shake my head, and regrettably come to the same conclusion:
“So what?” Will it/them/she/him REALLY make a fundamental difference"?
Not really…
Mufasa
[quote]Petedacook wrote:
I am going to have to agree with you on this one. To me, you are all like the Borg…one collective right wing unit.
I apologize and profess that I will try to keep an open mind. [/quote]
Please do. I hope you realize that by painting all conservatives with the same brush you are following the playbook of those you profess to despise (Beck, Rush, Hannity, etc). I listen to them fairly often, and while I agree with a fair amount of what they say, I take their attacks on the left with a grain of salt in that not every single liberal is a complete an utter extremist.