Whence the Tea Party...

[Starving Artist]

"All this talk about rules: we make 'em up, as we go along."

~Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Florida

"...it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people."

~Rep. John Dingel, D-Michigan

"I do think at a certain point, you've, uh, made enough money!"

~Barack Obama, President of the United States

"I think there are a lot of very rich people out there that we can tax down the road to recover some of this money..."

~Rep. Barney Frank, D-Massachusetts

"I don't worry about the Constitution on this..."

~Rep. Phil Hare, D-Illinois

"What good is reading the bill if it's a thousand pages..."

~Rep. John Conyers, D-Michigan

"We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what's in it."

~Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives


Cite (http://crosshairball.com/2010/09/video-reagan-vs-obama-those-voices-dont-speak-for-the-rest-of-us/)


"Those voices don't speak for the rest of us."
~Ronald Reagan


Not that I expect any of this will gain any kind of traction around here, but in my opinion it goes a long way toward answering questions like why Sarah Palin is so popular despite her inexperience, what gave rise to the Tea Party, and why the electorate is so angry.

[Robot Arm]

Is there an actual topic for debate here, or is it just a rant.

While we're at it, I'm sure you wouldn't mind providing some context for these quotes.

[Gyrate]

No context and in half the cases not even the complete sentence. Yep, that's a sound basis for an argument.

[Baboonanza]

If you were trying to make an actual point you would have been better of at least trying to be bi-partisan. Or are you going to claim that Republican's never say stupid things?

Not that I expect any of this will gain any kind of traction around here, but in my opinion it goes a long way toward answering questions like why Sarah Palin is so popular despite her inexperience, what gave rise to the Tea Party, and why the electorate is so angry.
And the people who support Sarah Palin have clearly based their thinking on a rational assessment the role of government and the current congress people's opinions on the matter and then decided that what the country needs is a right-wing publicity whore who has folksy charm. Bullshit. Thinking like that was how you ended up with Bush II.

People are angry because the economy is bad and the Tea Party exists because most people hold ignorant stupid beliefs and like to be part of a gang, even though this readily leads to their exploitation by those with vested interests (ie the money behiond the Tea-Party).

[Crackrat]

I wish that I had been there when Thomas Edison made the remark that I think applies here: ‘There ain’t no rules around here — we’re trying to accomplish something.’ And therefore, when the deal goes down, all this talk about rules, we make ‘em up as we go along, and I’m here now 18 years, and a significant amount of that time here on this committee under the leadership of the Republicans…


Let me remind you this [Americans allegedly dying because of lack of universal health care] has been going on for years. We are bringing it to a halt. The harsh fact of the matter is when you're going to pass legislation that will cover 300 [million] American people in different ways it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people.


We’re not, we’re not trying to push financial reform because we begrudge success that’s fairly earned. I mean, I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money. But, you know, part of the American way is, you know, you can just keep on making it if you’re providing a good product or providing good service. We don’t want people to stop, ah, fulfilling the core responsibilities of the financial system to help grow our economy.

I didn't find any video clip that didn't cut off right after Barney Frank's line.


http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=29772
As Hare was questioned over the constitutionality of forcing 30 million Americans to buy insurance from private companies, one member of the public asked “where in the Constitution” it says the government can do that.

“I don’t worry about the Constitution on this to be honest,” Hare replied.

“I care more about the people that are dying every day that don’t have health insurance,” Hare said.

“It’s people’s lives. It’s people’s children. It’s when you take your child to the hospital and you think it’s really bad and your heart is thumping, thumping, thumping while you’re waiting for the doctor to tell you what it is and then the doctor comes out and says it’s going to be ok, except you don’t have insurance and you’re stuck with a $10 or $15,000 bill...”

“You care more about that than the U.S. Constitution, which you swore to uphold?” one of the constituents asked.

“I believe it says we have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” Hare fired back, before someone else in the room corrected the Congressman, noting that that line is found in the Declaration of Independence.

“Doesn’t matter to me,” Hare said. “Either one.”


“I love these members, they get up and say, ‘Read the bill,’” said Conyers.
“What good is reading the bill if it’s a thousand pages and you don’t have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?”


“But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy."
Full text of the speech containing the line is at http://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/pressreleases?id=1576

[Ludovic]

I reject your reality and substitute my own.

I am the gander.

[Gyrate]

Not that I expect any of this will gain any kind of traction around here, but in my opinion it goes a long way toward answering questions like why Sarah Palin is so popular despite her inexperience, what gave rise to the Tea Party, and why the electorate is so angry.

After seeing the longer quotes, I think we can thus conclude that what gave rise to the Tea Party, Sarah Palin and the unfocused anger of the masses is a carefully crafted pseudo-reality by unscrupulous individuals pushing a right-wing agenda without any regard for truth.

Congratulations, SA - you've won the argument.

[BrainGlutton]

I reject your reality and substitute my own.

Oh, yeah?! Well, your mind is part of my reality, so I still win! [hunts in vain for tongue-stuck-out smiley]

[DigitalC]

If out of context half quotes is all you got then it's no wonder the tea parties and Palin make so little sense.

[Boyo Jim]

"Everybody understand America was built on the rights of free expression, the rights to practice your religion, but come on!" -- Eric Cantor (http://belowthebeltway.com/2010/08/12/eric-cantor-joins-the-anti-mosque-hysteria/), House Republican Whip, supporting the denial of permission to build the so called "Ground Zero Mosque".

We can swap quotes all day. Isn't it more important to talk about who votes for or against actual legislation?

[Ravenman]

Also whence the Tea Party:

"Dr. Laura: don't retreat...reload!"
-Sarah Palin urges Dr. Laura to continue her good work after saying "nigger" 11 times on her radio program

"We needed to have the press be our friend ... We wanted them to ask the questions we want to answer so that they report the news the way we want it to be reported."
-Sharron Angle on the freedom of the press

"The Bible says that lust in your heart is committing adultery, so you can't masturbate without lust."
-Christine O'Donnell on... well, you know

"Get a brain, morans!"
-The dude with the American flag do-rag who was into the Tea Party before it was cool, man


Yes, I understand where the Tea Party comes from.

[Chronos]

While we're at it with the quotes:
And I’ll give you a prime example. Reading that 800 page bill. “Oh, what a task!” (laughs) It was nothing! You sit down and you read the bill and you understand the bill. This isn’t like reading War and Peace for God’s sakes, there’s about a paragraph on each page and you just read the bill! But you have to read the bill. And to make the assumption that nobody reads the bill, and for people to stand up and say, “I couldn’t read the bill because it was too long,” it’s a cop-out. It’s a cop-out. You can always find time to do that kind of stuff. Because it’s part of your job.--Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) (http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/03/fivethirtyeight-interviews-sen-jon.html)

What's really interesting, though, is how many Republican congresscritters there are who claim that nobody read the bill. It seems to me that anyone making a statement like that is admitting that they, themselves, didn't read the bill, either. Thus implying that there are a Hell of a lot of Republicans out there who aren't doing their job.

[River Hippie]

The Tea Party is (IMHO) the 2010 marketing campaign for the GOP. It arose to give Republicans who were too ashamed to call themselves Republicans after 8 years of Bush something else to call themselves. Despite protestations to the contrary (from Teapublicans) once they retake power, as it looks like they might, they will find the same old establishment Republicans, Neo-cons and Religious Right types calling the shots from backstage.

And the Teapublicans will be just fine with that.
IMHO.

[Blank Slate]

One simple question for Starving Artist: Would the Tea Party movement exist had John McCain won the presidency in 2008?

[Merijeek]

One simple question for Starving Artist: Would the Tea Party movement exist had John McCain won the presidency in 2008?

That's just silly. John McCain is a republican, and therefore would have worked toward smaller government, tax cuts, increased defense spending, he would have gotten the government out of everyone's Medicare, and he would have cut taxes.

-Joe

[Squink]

and he would have cut taxes. While bombing Iran! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-zoPgv_nYg)

[Euphonious Polemic]

Thanks Crackrat, for posting the context of the quotes that Starving Artist so thoughtfully cut and pasted for us.

Once again, Starving Artist proves to be an embarrassment for reasonable conservatives out there.

Will you never learn to actually do some research before cutting and pasting from an idiot blog?

[BrainGlutton]

If you really want to know whence comes the Tea Party, see here, (http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/08/history-of-the-tea-party?page=1) here, (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/210904?RS_show_page=0) and especially here: (http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/feature/2010/09/21/lind_tea_party_whiskey_rebellion/index.html)

Today’s Tea Party movement resembles the Whiskey Rebellion -- but emphatically not because it is supported only by ignorant yahoos, as many critics of the Tea Partiers contend. On the contrary, just as the Tea Party is supported and subsidized by many elite conservatives, so the Whiskey Rebellion’s sympathizers included members of the early republic's elite, including Albert Gallatin, a Swiss immigrant who later became President Thomas Jefferson’s secretary of the Treasury. (The mature Gallatin adopted much of the Hamiltonian philosophy he had denounced in his youth and proposed a massive, federally funded canal and road system.)

Whether they are educated or not, the supporters of the Tea Party movement, like the supporters of the Whiskey Rebellion, are deeply confused. The Whiskey Rebels failed to understand that the federal funding of state debts almost certainly spared them much higher state taxes in the long run. Although the federal excise tax on whiskey was regressive, as a whole Hamilton’s scheme for funding the state debts was more progressive than debt payment schemes by the individual states would have been. For example, the state of Massachusetts alone had planned to pay its debt by raising more than $1 million a year in new taxes. In contrast, the interest on the consolidated national debt of $75.6 million required only $4.6 million from the entire United States. And whereas states repaying their debt would have relied heavily on highly regressive property taxes or poll taxes, the federal government raised revenue mainly from tariffs paid primarily by the affluent. While the rich disproportionately benefited from federal assumption of state debt, they also disproportionately paid the costs, sparing ordinary Americans the taxes that the states otherwise might have imposed. But the Whiskey Rebels were too busy grabbing their muskets to understand their own interests.

In the same way, the Tea Partiers who denounce the TARP and the 2009 stimulus fail to understand that the alternatives to those much-demonized policies would have been much worse. In a financial crisis, the government must rescue the financial system on which the rest of the economy depends. Progressives can plausibly argue that it would have been better to nationalize the banks, while recapitalizing them. But Tea Party conservatives who argue that the government should have allowed the national and global banking systems simply to collapse are, to be blunt, ignorant fools. And they are ignorant fools, too, when they argue that the 2009 stimulus was too large, when in fact it was too skewed toward tax cuts and too small to play its necessary role in boosting aggregate demand when consumer spending had cratered. The depth of their ignorant folly is demonstrated by the fact that most credible Republican conservative economists supported both the TARP and some sort of stimulus.

[Starving Artist]

Thanks Crackrat, for posting the context of the quotes that Starving Artist so thoughtfully cut and pasted for us.

Once again, Starving Artist proves to be an embarrassment for reasonable conservatives out there.

Will you never learn to actually do some research before cutting and pasting from an idiot blog?I have to confess I expected a somewhat livelier thread this, but c'est la vie. :cool:

I take it from most of the responses so far that msot of you are taking the position that fleshing out the quotes has actually changed their meaning in a substantial way? Or that quoting remarks from private citizens or office-holder wannabe's cancels out remarks by congressional lawmakers, the Speaker of the House and the President?

[Robot Arm]

I take it from most of the responses so far that msot of you are taking the position that fleshing out the quotes has actually changed their meaning in a substantial way?Yes.
Or that quoting remarks from private citizens or office-holder wannabe's cancels out remarks by congressional lawmakers, the Speaker of the House and the President?Yes, in the same way that a random blogger or obscure academic cancels out someone with a national TV or radio show.

[emacknight]

Thanks Crackrat, for posting the context of the quotes that Starving Artist so thoughtfully cut and pasted for us.

Once again, Starving Artist proves to be an embarrassment for reasonable conservatives out there.

Will you never learn to actually do some research before cutting and pasting from an idiot blog?I have to confess I expected a somewhat livelier thread this, but c'est la vie. :cool:

I take it from most of the responses so far that msot of you are taking the position that fleshing out the quotes has actually changed their meaning in a substantial way? Or that quoting remarks from private citizens or office-holder wannabe's cancels out remarks by congressional lawmakers, the Speaker of the House and the President?

Do you really see nothing wrong with posting quotes shortened and out of context? Is that was it means to be a good conservative?

Fuck, the worst thing about this, is that you're too fucking lazy to find real quotes.

You should be ashamed. I know you're not, but you should be. It seems clear that to you the ends justifies the means.

I'd be more annoyed but I long ago wrote you off as a victim of Poe's Law, there is no way anyone is legitimately that stupid and partisan.

But for the love of Og, please keep posting this garbage, you are a liberal's best friend.

[Starving Artist]

Did anyone actually watch the clip I linked to? What I did was quote verbatim some of the lines from the clip, the idea being to lead the reader into watching the clip, wherein St. Ronnie explicates many of the beliefs and concerns of those of us on the right - especially the Tea Party.

Time and time again here I see posts or threads wanting to know what's behind the Tea Party, why it came into being and what is driving it. Well, there's a large part of your answer.

I knew of course that the clips were incomplete. I came upon most of them myself while Googling to make sure the clip's attributions were correct. And while I stand by the position that the quotes don't materially change what is objectionable about them, it would have defeated the purpose to post quotes that didn't match the ones in the clip. Neither Obama nor any other government official has any business telling American citizens that the time can come when they've made enough money; Nancy Pelosi unquestionably stated that congress must pass the health bill so people would know what's in it; Hare unquestionably and defiantly stated his lack of concern for the Constitution in drafting legislation because he considered his actions and his beliefs morally superior to it, etc., etc., etc. There is nothing in any of the expanded clips that gives the lie to the message of an arrogant, out of control Congress doing as it pleases (remember when Pelosi exhorted her lackeys in Congress to vote for the bill even if they get kicked out of office for it?) with little concern for the Constitution, the electorate or its proper role in governing the nation. That was the message behind the quotes and the link posted in the OP and it remains so now.

[Robot Arm]

Time and time again here I see posts or threads wanting to know what's behind the Tea Party, why it came into being and what is driving it.Really? I've seen plenty of posts criticizing the Tea Party, and plenty defending it, but I don't recall any questions about what inspired it. It seemed to me that most posters here have already made up their minds. And since the OP included the phrase "not that I expect any of this will gain any kind of traction around here,..." it seemed you had the same idea. (But later you said "I expected a somewhat livelier thread...", so who knows.)

My personal opinion is that the Tea Party is made up of people who can't admit when they've been wrong. Ever met anyone like that? The other day I was riding my bike on a bike path. (Pedestrians allowed too, of course, but it is signed as a bike route.) I came up behind a guy pushing a shopping cart, right down the middle of the path. There was maybe enough room to get by on either side, but people are liable to do anything when you come up behind them unexpectedly. That's why I've got a bell. I rang it. No response. I came up a little closer behind him and matched his pace. Then he noticed and moved to one side. As I rode past, he said I should say something when I want to get by. I told him I rang the bell. He said a voice was easier to hear over traffic.

Seriously? To start with, there's no reason to be in the middle of the path in the first place. I wasn't going to mention it, but then his first instinct wasn't to own up to what he'd been doing, he had to attack me. The fact was, I had tried to alert him. Was that good enough? No, he thinks a voice is easier to hear than a bell that rings out like, well, a bell.

So that's who's in the Tea Party. Are they right now? Only time will tell. I just think that their current beliefs are the only way they can cope without having to admit the past. Thirty years of Republicans have been spending this country into the poorhouse. But some people who voted for them just can't admit that, probably even to themselves. The only alternative is to say "we're not them anymore", but then they go out and make the exact same mistakes all over again. Tax cuts and a balanced budget? They have no choice but to continue to believe it.

[elucidator]

Well, heck, we already knew from whence the Tea Party! Its a grass roots, popular movement of a center-right nation rising up in disgust and revulsion at the deterioration of society under liberal tyranny. Duh.

[Euphonious Polemic]

take the position (of) flesh...


I find that this was quite a rude thing to say. Or did I take it out of context?

[gonzomax]

Starvin loves to defend the rights of the wealthy to gather as much money and power as they can. He complains about wealth redistribution ignoring the fact that is exactly what Bush did. They the Repubs cry about the deficits, pretending Cheney did not say"Reagan proved, deficits don't matter". Then fired Treasury Secretary Paul On'Neill when he warned of a looming fiscal crisis, because of the coming deficits.
Tea Baggers are more closely aligned with Democratic financial policy than the Repubs. They are just too stupid to figure it out.

[Saint Cad]

The Tea Party came about from 3 perceptions, all of which have some validity (although both side will argue how much validity.
1) The government wastes money
Democrats argue against trickle-down economics yet support it by having the government tax the rich so that it can trickle-down (read: redistributed) to the poor but bypassing the middle class (what is left of it). Now, give money to bailout large companies and banks that refuse to lend (a recreation of what happened in 1929 when Hoover gave the banks money. Looks like the Dems never learn from history) and it is clear that we need a government that has a tighter rein on spending.

2) The government is out of touch with Americans. The health-care bill was passed despite most Americans not wanting that bill. Proof that the TPartiers were right - read the thread on McDonalds workers losing health care and just wait when healthy Americans take the tax penalty then get Stage-3 cancer that the taxpayer will need to pay for. Oh and why are we being taxed for years before it even goes into effect? Oh that's right, to offset the cost so that it appears that the government will save money (see #1).

3) The Republicans are getting as bad as the Democrats. While they'll never be AS BAD as the Dems, the lay down on the health care bill and the Rep-led pork spending means that the TPartiers need to do this outside of the party system. The Reps are politicians first and Republicans second.

I agree with these points, especially with the hypocracy that Dems don't view tax-the-rich, feed-the-poor social welfare as trickle down economics. I also think that Keynsian economics is a disproven theory and that Obama has a tax-and-spend mentality and hired advisors that are no more than yes-men to that theory. But I am NOT a TBagger.

The problem is that TPartiers are also ultra social-conservatives and rather than trying to get some rationality into the system, it has been hijacked by PalinBeck to pull the Republicans to the right rather than towards the center where it should be. So now the TPartiers are just the Religious Right with a new name.

[Robot Arm]

3) The Republicans are getting as bad as the Democrats. While they'll never be AS BAD as the Dems,...Bollocks. The Democrats passed health care reform and at least try to pay for it. The Republicans passed the prescription drug benefit and put it on credit.

If you want fiscal responsibility, vote Democrat.

[emacknight]

Did anyone actually watch the clip I linked to? What I did was quote verbatim some of the lines from the clip, the idea being to lead the reader into watching the clip, wherein St. Ronnie explicates many of the beliefs and concerns of those of us on the right - especially the Tea Party.

Time and time again here I see posts or threads wanting to know what's behind the Tea Party, why it came into being and what is driving it. Well, there's a large part of your answer.

I knew of course that the clips were incomplete. I came upon most of them myself while Googling to make sure the clip's attributions were correct. And while I stand by the position that the quotes don't materially change what is objectionable about them, it would have defeated the purpose to post quotes that didn't match the ones in the clip. Neither Obama nor any other government official has any business telling American citizens that the time can come when they've made enough money; Nancy Pelosi unquestionably stated that congress must pass the health bill so people would know what's in it; Hare unquestionably and defiantly stated his lack of concern for the Constitution in drafting legislation because he considered his actions and his beliefs morally superior to it, etc., etc., etc. There is nothing in any of the expanded clips that gives the lie to the message of an arrogant, out of control Congress doing as it pleases (remember when Pelosi exhorted her lackeys in Congress to vote for the bill even if they get kicked out of office for it?) with little concern for the Constitution, the electorate or its proper role in governing the nation. That was the message behind the quotes and the link posted in the OP and it remains so now.

Holy fuck, you really might actually be that stupid and partisan.

Did you know that Minority Leader John Boehner recently said, "we're going to ship millions of jobs overseas."

What sort of message does that send?

Here's an even better quote from Obama, "Taxes are scheduled to go up substantially next year."

So as far as clips go, you need to watch this one
http://www.youtube.com/user/johnny5k

because THAT is where the tea party came from. Flat out fucking lies. Puppet masters pulling the strings of people to stupid and too lazy to think for themselves. And I'm sure that after watching that, you'll say something just as stupid like, "well, he still means he's going to raise taxes."

This clip (http://www.mediaite.com/tv/jon-stewart-skewers-fox-news-and-msnbc-for-skewed-coverage-of-obama/) starting at 5:30 shows the whole thing. Followed by Boehner telling us he plans to ship millions of jobs overseas.

You have so perfectly shown us where the Tea Party came from--idiots. Really fucking stupid people that believe shit like death panels, and this (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=576939) made up story about Kerry and Bush.

The Tea Party has actually made it harder for intelligent conservatives to be heard, it is a party of ignorance, and now just one big joke. Which is too bad. There are so many fiscal conservatives in American desperate for a voice. Real, honest, intelligent people that want the budget balanced, tax policy to be properly thought through, and for government to be smaller so that the tax burden can be lower. Instead, we have Sarah Palin telling people to "buck up or stay in the truck."

[emacknight]

The problem is that TPartiers are also ultra social-conservatives and rather than trying to get some rationality into the system, it has been hijacked by PalinBeck to pull the Republicans to the right rather than towards the center where it should be. So now the TPartiers are just the Religious Right with a new name.

I'm quoting this for truth in case anyone glossed over the bullshit revisionist history lesson and missed it.

As an outsider looking in, the Tea Party is a massive disappointment. They had an opportunity to create a party separate from the usual bullshit [of abortions and guns], and actually focus on fiscal conservative instead of social conservative. They failed. In a few months Tea Party candidates (cough Christine O'Donnell, cough) will lose any and all message about fiscal responsibility, and settle right back into the old comfortable chair of abortion and guns.

If the Tea Party had any balls, the first thing they would have demanded was higher taxes to balance the budget--true fiscal responsibility. The second thing they would have demanded was slashing the military in half. The third thing they would have demanded was a self paid for style of Social Security instead of a pension style. And lastly, they would have demanded massive overalls to the health care system so that government COULD get out of medicare.

[Saint Cad]

3) The Republicans are getting as bad as the Democrats. While they'll never be AS BAD as the Dems,...Bollocks. The Democrats passed health care reform and at least try to pay for it. The Republicans passed the prescription drug benefit and put it on credit.

If you want fiscal responsibility, vote Democrat.

Double Bullocks!!
The Democrats are not paying for health-care, the American tax-payers are unless Pelosi, Ried and Obama are opening up their personal checkbooks.

[emacknight]

Bollocks. The Democrats passed health care reform and at least try to pay for it. The Republicans passed the prescription drug benefit and put it on credit.

If you want fiscal responsibility, vote Democrat.

Double Bullocks!!
The Democrats are not paying for health-care, the American tax-payers are unless Pelosi, Ried and Obama are opening up their personal checkbooks.

Triple Bullocks!!!
Without a balanced budget no one is paying for health-care, especially the American tax-payer.

[emacknight]

"All this talk about rules: we make 'em up, as we go along."

~Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Florida

So what's more damaging. This quote? Or the fact that House Minority lead John Boehner actively help spread lies, the same way you are?

As was noted above, this quote is from Thomas Edison, but the speech Hastings made was edited and then posted on John Boehner's youtube channel.

You can see the partial and the full clip here (http://www.mediaite.com/online/john-boehners-office-selectively-edits-alcee-hastings-we-make-up-the-rules-clip/). And as the article says, there is lots of dumb shit that Hastings said, why edit the tape to present lies? Is it that hard to refute Hastings with truthful rebuttal?

So I present to you what the Tea Party is all about--lies. But it's okay, because Starving Artist tells us we can trust the conservatives to do what's right--and that I didn't have to quote out of context.

[Robot Arm]

Double Bullocks!!
The Democrats are not paying for health-care, the American tax-payers are unless Pelosi, Ried and Obama are opening up their personal checkbooks.Uh, yeah. The federal government is funded by taxpayers.

I didn't realize that was a new concept for you. Sorry.

[Digital Stimulus]

...Democrats argue against trickle-down economics yet support it by having the government tax the rich so that it can trickle-down (read: redistributed)...
...
...the hypocracy that Dems don't view tax-the-rich, feed-the-poor social welfare as trickle down economics.
I think you have an incorrect understanding of what "trickle-down economics" means. Here's a hint: it is certainly NOT the same as "redistribution".

[emacknight]

Double Bullocks!!
The Democrats are not paying for health-care, the American tax-payers are unless Pelosi, Ried and Obama are opening up their personal checkbooks.Uh, yeah. The federal government is funded by taxpayers.

I didn't realize that was a new concept for you. Sorry.

...Democrats argue against trickle-down economics yet support it by having the government tax the rich so that it can trickle-down (read: redistributed)...
...
...the hypocracy that Dems don't view tax-the-rich, feed-the-poor social welfare as trickle down economics.
I think you have an incorrect understanding of what "trickle-down economics" means. Here's a hint: it is certainly NOT the same as "redistribution".

Those two statements pretty much sum up the Tea Party: suddenly realizing that there is a deficit, and that they pay taxes. But having an entirely incorrect understanding of the two concepts.

They also seem to be okay with lying.

[Frank]

Now, give money to bailout large companies and banks that refuse to lend (a recreation of what happened in 1929 when Hoover gave the banks money. Looks like the Dems never learn from history) and it is clear that we need a government that has a tighter rein on spending.
This caught my eye. Would you educate me on Hoover giving money to the banks, please?

As far as TARP goes, all indications are that it was 1) a spectacular success, and 2) not anywhere near as costly as the doomsayers represented.

1) The U.S. (and, by extension, the world) had a banking industry with the sword of Damocles hanging over its head. It was apparent to everyone that the money markets were about to collapse. ("Everyone", because I've never heard an argument that they weren't, only that we should have let them collapse.) TARP prevented the Great Depression of our lifetimes. That we still wound up with a Great Recession is not good, but it's far better than the alternative.

2) The CBO estimates that rescuing the U.S. (and, by extension, the world) from a Great Depression II will wind up costing the taxpayers about $66 billion. The White House about $50 billion. Cheap at twice the price, I would say.

I'll also note that I, for one, remember which administration was in power when TARP was enacted, and that it is one of the very few items for which I applaud that administration.

[New Deal Democrat]

I agree with these points, especially with the hypocracy that Dems don't view tax-the-rich, feed-the-poor social welfare as trickle down economics. I also think that Keynsian economics is a disproven theory and that Obama has a tax-and-spend mentality and hired advisors that are no more than yes-men to that theory. But I am NOT a TBagger.



Economists cannot prove their theories the way physicists and chemists can with controlled, repeatable experiments. You can't go back in time, choose a different policy, and measure the different results.

Nevertheless, the theories of John Maynard Keynes are still respected among professional economists. Paul Krugman, who won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2008, is a committed Keynesian.

[Starving Artist]

Uh, yeah. The federal government is funded by taxpayers.

I didn't realize that was a new concept for you. Sorry.


I think you have an incorrect understanding of what "trickle-down economics" means. Here's a hint: it is certainly NOT the same as "redistribution".

Those two statements pretty much sum up the Tea Party: suddenly realizing that there is a deficit, and that they pay taxes. But having an entirely incorrect understanding of the two concepts.

They also seem to be okay with lying.Oh, please! Some of 'em lie just like some of any other group lies. (How did you feel about the Clintons, btw?) Some are bigots just like some of any other group are bigots. Some can't spell ('morans') just like some of any group can't spell. There have been many occasions around here where I've seen posts and OP's with improperly spelled words and I don't remember you or any of the other posters to this thread concluding therefore than they are idiots.

One thing we do know about the Tea Party is that as a group they are better educated and wealthier than the general population. This tells me they are likely smarter than the general population too.

Here (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/us/politics/15poll.html) is a NYT poll from last spring that sums up the Tea Party pretty well. Sprinkled about are nonsense comments which I'm sure you'll want to focus on, but elsewhere you'll find that the Tea Party in general is fed up with the direction the country is headed, which includes spending, government redistribution of wealth, and the government overreaching its proper role and infringing upon our Constitutionally mandated freedoms. Listen to Reagan in the clip I posted and you'll find out a great deal about what Tea Party members and other conservatives are concerned and angry about where it comes to the direction this country has been headed.

The problem is that TPartiers are also ultra social-conservatives and rather than trying to get some rationality into the system, it has been hijacked by PalinBeck to pull the Republicans to the right rather than towards the center where it should be. I have come disagree with the idea that Republicans and conservatives should seek a centrist position. The left in this country, being never satisfied, is always agitating for change, and this constant pressure for leftward movement always seems to acheive some measure of success. Thus the country, thanks largely to Democratic congresses over the last 80 years or so - which only a small percentage of the country ever approves of - has been moving inexorably to the left, and dragging centrists and Republicans along with it. (As an example of this leftward drift, look at how few Republican candidates these days take a strong stand against abortion. Without getting into the question of whether abortion itself is right or wrong, the fact is that it's become so well ingrained and over such a long period of time, that most people in the U.S. have come to accept it as a fact of life. Therefore, you find many fewer Republican candidates taking a strong stand against abortion anymore. And this is but one example of what I mean by the leftward drift the country has taken.)

Thus, to be a centrist means that you are constantly shifting your position to the left. Needless to say, if you're a conservative this is not a good thing to have happen. So when I see people extolling the virtues of a centrist position politically, I see them extolling the virtues of someone whose position is constantly moving to the left. Thus I'm in agreement with Rush Limbaugh (on this particular issue) when he says that we need to oppose Obama and the Congress and get back to the basic, fundamental Repubicanism. The way to get the country to run the way we as conservatives think it should be run is not to keep going along part way with what the Democrats are always pushing to do.

[Robot Arm]

Starving Artist today:

One thing we do know about the Tea Party is that as a group they are better educated and wealthier than the general population. This tells me they are likely smarter than the general population too.

Starving Artist three days ago:

...I would point out, Brain Glutton, that merely attending college is not any kind of reliable measure of innate intelligence, and intelligence alone is not any kind of measure of judgement, wisdom, self-discipline and things like that.

[emacknight]

Oh, please! Some of 'em lie just like some of any other group lies. (How did you feel about the Clintons, btw?) Some are bigots just like some of any other group are bigots. Some can't spell ('morans') just like some of any group can't spell. There have been many occasions around here where I've seen posts and OP's with improperly spelled words and I don't remember you or any of the other posters to this thread concluding therefore than they are idiots.

Let's be clear about something:

YOU started a thread, in which YOU posted a series of lies, and then YOU linked to a video which you called a cite.

Except, you don't believe what you did was wrong, to you the ends justifies the means. As you say, other people lie. The Clintons lied. Obama lied. So the Tea Party might as well lie, as long as it gets them in power.

So then after posting a video and series of lies you said:

Not that I expect any of this will gain any kind of traction around here, but in my opinion it goes a long way toward answering questions like why Sarah Palin is so popular despite her inexperience, what gave rise to the Tea Party, and why the electorate is so angry.

So what you're saying is that the electorate is angry because people keep lying to them. Did you see the video clips I posted? They show Hannity flat out lying to his viewers. Not that it will have any traction on YOU. Hannity did was he felt was right, isn't that how it goes when it's a conservative that is a lying and deceitful asshole?

Once again, you've proven the exact opposite of what you set out to do. You posted a series of lies, and shown us that the Tea Party is all about lies. They'll do what ever it takes to regain power.

So I thank you, for being dumb enough to post something so stupid. And hopefully people will realize that the Tea Party is nothing but lies to serve their goals. kudos.

One thing we do know about the Tea Party is that as a group they are better educated and wealthier than the general population. This tells me they are likely smarter than the general population too.

If that's true, why do they so easily fall for such stupid lies? And why do they know so little about economics and history?

Listen to Reagan in the clip I posted and you'll find out a great deal about what Tea Party members and other conservatives are concerned and angry about where it comes to the direction this country has been headed.

Again, the clip you showed was full of lies. You should be ashamed to have posted that. It did not support your position, he showed that you are either stupid or deceitful. Why should we believe anything else you have to say?

The problem is that TPartiers are also ultra social-conservatives and rather than trying to get some rationality into the system, it has been hijacked by PalinBeck to pull the Republicans to the right rather than towards the center where it should be. I have come disagree with the idea that Republicans and conservatives should seek a centrist position. The left in this country, being never satisfied, is always agitating for change, and this constant pressure for leftward movement always seems to acheive some measure of success. Thus the country, thanks largely to Democratic congresses over the last 80 years or so - which only a small percentage of the country ever approves of - has been moving inexorably to the left, and dragging centrists and Republicans along with it. (As an example of this leftward drift, look at how few Republican candidates these days take a strong stand against abortion. Without getting into the question of whether abortion itself is right or wrong, the fact is that it's become so well ingrained and over such a long period of time, that most people in the U.S. have come to accept it as a fact of life. Therefore, you find many fewer Republican candidates taking a strong stand against abortion anymore. And this is but one example of what I mean by the leftward drift the country has taken.)

Thus, to be a centrist means that you are constantly shifting your position to the left. Needless to say, if you're a conservative this is not a good thing to have happen. So when I see people extolling the virtues of a centrist position politically, I see them extolling the virtues of someone whose position is constantly moving to the left. Thus I'm in agreement with Rush Limbaugh (on this particular issue) when he says that we need to oppose Obama and the Congress and get back to the basic, fundamental Repubicanism. The way to get the country to run the way we as conservatives think it should be run is not to keep going along part way with what the Democrats are always pushing to do.

Yup, and thus ends the great Tea Party experiment. Start with people angry about the economy, and people legitimately bothered by how government fucked up, then bring it all back to abortion.

At this point, I actually feel sorry for you. Government is only going to get bigger, taxes are only going to get higher, black people share your water fountains, women get to vote, gays will soon be able to marry turtles. Life sure sucks for conservatives. Have a beer, listen to some Elton John, watch your grand children grow up. You really don't need to be that concerned about what other people do.

[emacknight]

Starving Artist today:

One thing we do know about the Tea Party is that as a group they are better educated and wealthier than the general population. This tells me they are likely smarter than the general population too.

Starving Artist three days ago:

...I would point out, Brain Glutton, that merely attending college is not any kind of reliable measure of innate intelligence, and intelligence alone is not any kind of measure of judgement, wisdom, self-discipline and things like that.

Dude, you totally took his statement out of context. What he was trying to say was that he's right and you're wrong. Why are you attacking him?! I don't see you attacking other people that post stupid shit.

[emacknight]

Why show quotes from three days ago, we can use much more recent stuff:

Hare unquestionably and defiantly stated his lack of concern for the Constitution in drafting legislation because he considered his actions and his beliefs morally superior to it, etc., etc., etc.

you'll find that the Tea Party in general is fed up with the direction the country is headed, which includes spending, government redistribution of wealth, and the government overreaching its proper role and infringing upon our Constitutionally mandated freedoms.

Okay, so here Starving Artist believes very strongly in upholding the constitution and its mandated freedoms. He first lied about what Hare said, and then explains further that Hare is a bad person because he is unconcerned about the constitution.

As an example of this leftward drift, look at how few Republican candidates these days take a strong stand against abortion.

Abortion is constitutionally protected. It's as much a right as gun ownership. So should republicans disregard the constitution, and speak out against a mandated freedom? Thus angering conservatives.

Or should they accept abortion, allowing society to slide to the left, thus angering conservatives.

Which is it? Abortion or the constitution?

[emacknight]

Here (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/210904) is a much better description of where the Tea Party came from and what it represents.

Of course, the fact that we're even sitting here two years after Bush talking about a GOP comeback is a profound testament to two things: One, the American voter's unmatched ability to forget what happened to him 10 seconds ago, and two, the Republican Party's incredible recuperative skill and bureaucratic ingenuity.

This is a party that in 2008 was not just beaten but obliterated, with nearly every one of its recognizable leaders reduced to historical-footnote status and pinned with blame for some ghastly political catastrophe. There were literally no healthy bodies left on the bench, but the Republicans managed to get back in the game anyway by plucking an assortment of nativist freaks, village idiots and Internet Hitlers out of thin air and training them into a giant ball of incoherent resentment just in time for the 2010 midterms.

They returned to prominence by outdoing Barack Obama at his own game: turning out masses of energized and disciplined supporters on the streets and overwhelming the ballot box with sheer enthusiasm.

But the best line:

Vast forests have already been sacrificed to the public debate about the Tea Party: what it is, what it means, where it's going. But after lengthy study of the phenomenon, I've concluded that the whole miserable narrative boils down to one stark fact: They're full of shit. All of them.

Which pretty much sums it all up. Now that it will have any traction, but it goes a long way to answering the questions I had about the movement.

At the voter level, the Tea Party is a movement that purports to be furious about government spending — only the reality is that the vast majority of its members are former Bush supporters who yawned through two terms of record deficits and spent the past two electoral cycles frothing not about spending but about John Kerry's medals and Barack Obama's Sixties associations. The average Tea Partier is sincerely against government spending — with the exception of the money spent on them. In fact, their lack of embarrassment when it comes to collecting government largesse is key to understanding what this movement is all about — and nowhere do we see that dynamic as clearly as here in Kentucky, where Rand Paul is barreling toward the Senate with the aid of conservative icons like Palin.

They're full of shit, each and every one of them. It is a party of lies, that uses manipulation and deceit to convince gullible morans to vote Republican again.

[twickster]

...

Fuck, the worst thing about this, is that you're too fucking lazy to find real quotes.

You should be ashamed. I know you're not, but you should be. It seems clear that to you the ends justifies the means.

I'd be more annoyed but I long ago wrote you off as a victim of Poe's Law, there is no way anyone is legitimately that stupid and partisan.

...



Holy fuck, you really might actually be that stupid and partisan.

[snip]

You have so perfectly shown us where the Tea Party came from--idiots. Really fucking stupid people that believe shit like death panels, and this (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=576939) made up story about Kerry and Bush. ...

emacknight, you're coming very close to personal insults here. Please avoid crossing that line.

Thanks,

twicster, for the SDMB

[emacknight]

Thanks Crackrat, for posting the context of the quotes that Starving Artist so thoughtfully cut and pasted for us.

Once again, Starving Artist proves to be an embarrassment for reasonable conservatives out there.

Will you never learn to actually do some research before cutting and pasting from an idiot blog?I have to confess I expected a somewhat livelier thread this, but c'est la vie. :cool:

I take it from most of the responses so far that msot of you are taking the position that fleshing out the quotes has actually changed their meaning in a substantial way? Or that quoting remarks from private citizens or office-holder wannabe's cancels out remarks by congressional lawmakers, the Speaker of the House and the President?

So you think altering quotes for your own benefit is okay. But over in this thread about Sarah Palin (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12974418&postcount=30) you take offense to the same practice.

How's about that quote in context, chum:

snip

So, as anyone can see, the way the left has portrayed her comment - which is allegedly that Alaska's proximity to Russia gives her foreign policy experience - is every bit as misleading and dishonest as anything Rush Limbaugh ever says.

Can we conclude that what you did was misleading and dishonest?

BTW did you watch the clip I posted?

[emacknight]

emacknight, you're coming very close to personal insults here. Please avoid crossing that line.

Thanks,

twicster, for the SDMB

Sorry.

[Starving Artist]

So you think altering quotes for your own benefit is okay. Let me ask you this: when you guys post out of context snippets by Rush Limbaugh or Sarah Palin or whoever on the conservative side, are you "altering quotes"? If so, it's such a common practice around here that it hardly deserves mention.

Still, I altered nothing. I posted the comments verbatim from the clip I linked to, for the reasons I stated above. And IMO none of the completed quotes materially alter the snippets in the clip, for reasons I also explained above.

Can we conclude that what you did was misleading and dishonest? Of course you can. And of course you will. But it wasn't.

BTW did you watch the clip I posted?No.

Now, having said that I've got things to do and I have neither the time nor inclination to deal with your often days-long diatribes over my posts. Have you perhaps noticed how the discussion in this thread has ground to halt in the wake of all your ranting and raving? You've done this several times before and while there isn't much that can be done about it, I'm simply not going to play along.

[River Hippie]

Religious Right demands their due (http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=130238835)

[Robot Arm]

Now, having said that I've got things to do and I have neither the time nor inclination to deal with your often days-long diatribes over my posts. Have you perhaps noticed how the discussion in this thread has ground to halt in the wake of all your ranting and raving?Let me get this straight, you start a thread, post a total of five times, then declare you're leaving, and you accuse someone else of grinding it to a halt.

Really? emacknight has done more to keep this thread going than you have.

[rowrrbazzle]

If you were trying to make an actual point you would have been better of at least trying to be bi-partisan. It hasn't stopped anybody on the left, including here.And the people who support Sarah Palin have clearly based their thinking on a rational assessment the role of government and the current congress people's opinions on the matter and then decided that what the country needs is a right-wing publicity whore who has folksy charm. Ah, that's what you call bi-partisanship. Res ipsa loquitur.

(Underlining added)...the Tea Party exists because most people hold ignorant stupid beliefs and like to be part of a gang, even though this readily leads to their exploitation by those with vested interests (ie the money behiond the Tea-Party).The irony, it burns.

[elucidator]

Gotta love that cite. Crosshairball. Very droll, especially that logo of the cat hacking up a hairball. Bit of a rightish sort of slant. Just a tad. Breitbart, Hewitt, Coulter, Beck, Malkin..and, oh! Micheal Savage as well! Most of the tighty righty sites disdain Mike "The Savage Wiener" Weiner, seeing as he is barking mad and venemous. Kinda like Glen Beck with tertiary syphillis.

Is this the sort of thing you offer to polite company, expecting anything but scorn and derision?

[Starving Artist]

Let me get this straight, you start a thread, post a total of five times, then declare you're leaving...I did nothing of the sort. I merely refused to engage with emacknight, a poster whom experience has shown can bog you down so far in straw men and accusations of things you never said that you spend all your time trying just to set the record straight. ...and you accuse someone else of grinding it to a halt.Well, the thread was moving along nicely and had generated around 40 posts in its first twelve hours, and then, in the wake of emack's multi-post rants, nothing but twickster's warning for the next twenty-four hours or so, whereupon it's picked back up again as the apparent result of a post I made since then. So I don't believe you've made a very case that emacknight has been driving the thread, and/or in support of your implication that I ground it to a halt.

Gotta love that cite. Crosshairball. Very droll, especially that logo of the cat hacking up a hairball. Bit of a rightish sort of slant. Just a tad. Breitbart, Hewitt, Coulter, Beck, Malkin..and, oh! Micheal Savage as well! Most of the tighty righty sites disdain Mike "The Savage Wiener" Weiner, seeing as he is barking mad and venemous. Kinda like Glen Beck with tertiary syphillis.

Is this the sort of thing you offer to polite company, expecting anything but scorn and derision?luci, luci, luci...remember when I said in the OP, "Not that I expect any of this will gain any kind of traction around here..."? (And besides, it's not like you never post anything from leftie sites, is it?)

Still, what on Earth leads you to believe I would expect this crowd to react to the OP with anything but scorn and derision? Scorn and derision is the de riguer response around here to anything even vaguely conserva...uh, I mean not rabidly liberal, now isn't it? And you'll notice I'm sure that nobody's said anything even vaguely in defense of Obama's statement or of Pelosi's statements, etc., etc. But the best defense is a good offense, yes, no?, and so here we are at a point where the Tea Party and I come in for all the abuse (and we can take it), while nary a peep gets said about the President of the United States voicing the sentiment that there comes a time when people have made enough money, and where the Speaker of the House encourages Democratic representatives to ignore the will of the people even if it costs them their jobs and claims that the health care bill needs to be passed so people will know what's in it. And how is it somehow an exuse to claim you don't have two days and two lawyers to read a bill? I mean, isn't it your job to know what's in the bill you're voting on? And what?...the government can't afford the lawyers and the time it takes to figure out the bills it's trying to pass?

Pretty weak sauce, luci. I'm glad I'm not on your side and not having to try to defend the statements these people have made. No wonder you guys would rather insult me instead.

[BrainGlutton]

[Scorn and derision is the de riguer response around here to anything even vaguely conserva...uh, I mean not rabidly liberal, now isn't it?

Well, no.

[Robot Arm]

...a poster whom experience has shown can bog you down so far in straw men and accusations of things you never said...

...your implication that I ground it to a halt.That's just about priceless.

[elucidator]

..(And besides, it's not like you never post anything from leftie sites, is it?)...
And I say so. I say it right out, this is a lefty site. Its a gesture of respect for my reader. Why I don't do is some pathetic passive-aggressive preemptive strike, I don't start in whining about how I won't get a fair hearing because everyone is prejudiced against me, boo hoo hoo. Like for instance...

...Still, what on Earth leads you to believe I would expect this crowd to react to the OP with anything but scorn and derision? Scorn and derision is the de riguer response around here to anything even vaguely conserva...uh, I mean not rabidly liberal, now isn't it?...

Your site has a couple of positive points. One, is a surprisingly accurate sense of itself, comparing itself to something the cat hawks up. Refreshing candor. The second was the count, there were two people there, and I was one of them. Not for long, mind. Also mildly interesting is its peculiar bent towards Catholicism.

You expect to be taken seriously, offering this kind of crap? They offer links to every right wing slime ball, not excluding Michael Savage, for Chrrisake! Michael Fucking Savage, Rush Limbaugh with rabies! Tell me you don't actually listen to that rectal pustule? Tell me you don't think that anyone who takes that festering pool of paranoia and venom seriously is worth my attention?

Because they do, you know. The people you are offering as sources of intelligent commentary, they approve of Michael the Savage Wiener, they link to him.

So, you want to be taken seriously, shown some respect? You could start by not offering craptastic sites. A little step, to be sure, but you got a long, long haul ahead of you.

[Starving Artist]

You expect to be taken seriously, offering this kind of crap? They offer links to every right wing slime ball, not excluding Michael Savage, for Chrrisake! Michael Fucking Savage, Rush Limbaugh with rabies! Tell me you don't actually listen to that rectal pustule? Tell me you don't think that anyone who takes that festering pool of paranoia and venom seriously is worth my attention?

Because they do, you know. The people you are offering as sources of intelligent commentary, they approve of Michael the Savage Wiener, they link to him.

So, you want to be taken seriously, shown some respect? You could start by not offering craptastic sites. A little step, to be sure, but you got a long, long haul ahead of you.What I expect - here on the most intelligent message board on the planet - is that people will react to information itself rather than where comes from. It doesn't matter a whit whether the quotes in an OP come from the lips of Rush Limbaugh himself or from the Daily Koz; what matters is whether the information presented is accurate. The information in the OP is accurate in two ways: one, it demonstrates the arrogance of our Democratic leaders; and two, it illustrates through the words of Ronald Reagan what a great many Tea Party members and other conservatives are resentful of and concerned about with regard to the direction govenment in this country is headed.

Now as to your mentioning upfront that you're posting information from a biased site, well, good for you. But that doesn't mean I'm bound by the same rules of etiquette that you've dreamed up for yourself, and it doesn't mean there was the slightest deception in posting from the site I did. I made no effort to mislead anyone as to what it was or where it came from, and given that fact I see no see no reason to post its political orientation beforehand. People around here are perfectly capable of recognizing for themselves that the link took them to a right-wing site. But again, that shouldn't matter in the slightest. What matters is what Obama, Pelosi, et al. said, and not only have you nor anyone else offered the slightest defense of their statements, you have chosen to condemn me simply because of where the information comes from.

So I say again, pretty weak sauce, luci.

[Princhester]

If the Tea Party had any balls, the first thing they would have demanded was higher taxes to balance the budget--true fiscal responsibility. The second thing...

Don't worry about the second thing. They would have been dead meat once they uttered the first.

[Saint Cad]

Now, give money to bailout large companies and banks that refuse to lend (a recreation of what happened in 1929 when Hoover gave the banks money. Looks like the Dems never learn from history) and it is clear that we need a government that has a tighter rein on spending.
This caught my eye. Would you educate me on Hoover giving money to the banks, please?

As far as TARP goes, all indications are that it was 1) a spectacular success, and 2) not anywhere near as costly as the doomsayers represented.

1) The U.S. (and, by extension, the world) had a banking industry with the sword of Damocles hanging over its head. It was apparent to everyone that the money markets were about to collapse. ("Everyone", because I've never heard an argument that they weren't, only that we should have let them collapse.) TARP prevented the Great Depression of our lifetimes. That we still wound up with a Great Recession is not good, but it's far better than the alternative.

2) The CBO estimates that rescuing the U.S. (and, by extension, the world) from a Great Depression II will wind up costing the taxpayers about $66 billion. The White House about $50 billion. Cheap at twice the price, I would say.

I'll also note that I, for one, remember which administration was in power when TARP was enacted, and that it is one of the very few items for which I applaud that administration.

When the Great Depression hit, Hoover gave a ton of money to the banks to loan out. The banks held on to the money saying thank you very much. Sound familiar?

As for the other points, I pointed out that the validity of the various points are open to debate. In fact, your point 1 is contradicted by New Deal Democrat whose argument would be that you can't prove that TARP saved the economy but you can't say that the economy was saved by TARP. In fact it might have been saved IN SPITE OF TARP or if left alone it may have been saved on its own. What proof do you have that without TARP we would have had Great Depression II?

[BrainGlutton]

If the Tea Party had any balls, the first thing they would have demanded was higher taxes to balance the budget--true fiscal responsibility. The second thing...

Don't worry about the second thing. They would have been dead meat once they uttered the first.

I remember when Ross Perot was trumpeting the deficit as Problem Number One, and promised to fix it the plain-common-sense way: Cut spending and raise taxes at the same time. Which might have been disastrous for the economy in practice, but, still . . . Never thought I'd miss him. :(

[Saint Cad]

Double Bullocks!!
The Democrats are not paying for health-care, the American tax-payers are unless Pelosi, Ried and Obama are opening up their personal checkbooks.Uh, yeah. The federal government is funded by taxpayers.

I didn't realize that was a new concept for you. Sorry.

Then the supporters of UHC should be honest and say the tax-payers are paying for it NOT the Democrats. Saying "the Democrats" are paying for it implies they are paying for it personally instead of committing all of us. It's easy to be magnanimous with other people's money.

=Digital Stimulus]I think you have an incorrect understanding of what "trickle-down economics" means. Here's a hint: it is certainly NOT the same as "redistribution".

Two things:
one, the points I was originally making was from the Tea Party perspective so strict accuracy is open to interpretation. But irregardless of accuracy, the Tea Partiers believe them to be true.

two, while government redistribution is not strictly trickle-down, it does have a similar theory
Republican trickle down: Rich have money -> rich spend money -> something magic -> poor are better off
Democratic social welfare: Rich have money -> rich pay taxes -> something magic -> poor are better off.

My argument was that to imply that the paradigm rich -> poor is not a variation of trickle-down is hypocritical. Call it forced trickle-down while bypassing the middle class if you want. And again, one could argue that trickle down is ineffective and social welfare is effective but the are both way to redistribute the money from the rich to the poor

[Frank]

This caught my eye. Would you educate me on Hoover giving money to the banks, please?
When the Great Depression hit, Hoover gave a ton of money to the banks to loan out. The banks held on to the money saying thank you very much. Sound familiar?
Can you cite that, please? I googled your assertion the other day, and found nothing.

[Boyo Jim]

When the Great Depression hit, Hoover gave a ton of money to the banks to loan out. The banks held on to the money saying thank you very much. Sound familiar?
Can you cite that, please? I googled your assertion the other day, and found nothing.

I'm looking to, and what I've found says pretty much the opposite. From Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression): ...[Milton] Friedman argued that the downward turn in the economy, starting with the stock market crash, would have been just another recession.[24] However, the Federal Reserve allowed some large public bank failures – particularly that of the New York Bank of the United States – which produced panic and widespread runs on local banks, and the Federal Reserve sat idly by while banks collapsed. He claimed that, if the Fed had provided emergency lending to these key banks, or simply bought government bonds on the open market to provide liquidity and increase the quantity of money after the key banks fell, all the rest of the banks would not have fallen after the large ones did, and the money supply would not have fallen as far and as fast as it did.[25] With significantly less money to go around, businessmen could not get new loans and could not even get their old loans renewed, forcing many to stop investing. This interpretation blames the Federal Reserve for inaction, especially the New York branch...

[Chronos]

My argument was that to imply that the paradigm rich -> poor is not a variation of trickle-down is hypocritical. Call it forced trickle-down while bypassing the middle class if you want. And again, one could argue that trickle down is ineffective and social welfare is effective but the are both way to redistribute the money from the rich to the poor Except that the whole problem with the trickle-down idea is that it doesn't trickle down: It consists of taking money away from the poor and giving it to the rich, and then the rich keep it. Is it really difficult to see that this is different from, and in fact pretty much opposite of, transferring money from the rich to the poor?


Then the supporters of UHC should be honest and say the tax-payers are paying for it NOT the Democrats. Saying "the Democrats" are paying for it implies they are paying for it personally instead of committing all of us. It's easy to be magnanimous with other people's money.
OK, then, the Democrats passed a plan and admitted that it had to be paid for. It's still a lot more honest than the "This is what's going to happen, but we're not paying for it" the Republicans delivered.

[Digital Stimulus]

two, while government redistribution is not strictly trickle-down, it does have a similar theory
No, really, it doesn't. Unless you're using Humpty Dumpty language (http://www.wordspy.com/words/HumptyDumptylanguage.asp).

[Robot Arm]

Then the supporters of UHC should be honest and say the tax-payers are paying for it NOT the Democrats. Saying "the Democrats" are paying for it implies they are paying for it personally instead of committing all of us.Oh please, it's a standard turn of phrase in political discussions. Think of it like "Wall Street reacted to the news..." A street is just asphalt with lines painted on it. It can't react to anything, but we all know what the phrase means.

[emacknight]

Then the supporters of UHC should be honest and say the tax-payers are paying for it NOT the Democrats. Saying "the Democrats" are paying for it implies they are paying for it personally instead of committing all of us.Oh please, it's a standard turn of phrase in political discussions. Think of it like "Wall Street reacted to the news..." A street is just asphalt with lines painted on it. It can't react to anything, but we all know what the phrase means.

They'll certainly pay for it in November.

[Clothahump]

One simple question for Starving Artist: Would the Tea Party movement exist had John McCain won the presidency in 2008?

That's just silly. John McCain is a republican, and therefore would have worked toward smaller government, tax cuts, increased defense spending, he would have gotten the government out of everyone's Medicare, and he would have cut taxes.

-Joe
Doubtful. McCain is a progressive. He's just not as rabid about it as Obama and Clinton. Had he gotten elected, he probably would have wound up doing as much damage as Obama has, but it would have taken him longer and not been quite so noticeable.

[Saint Cad]

Can you cite that, please? I googled your assertion the other day, and found nothing.

I'm looking to, and what I've found says pretty much the opposite. From Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression): ...[Milton] Friedman argued that the downward turn in the economy, starting with the stock market crash, would have been just another recession.[24] However, the Federal Reserve allowed some large public bank failures – particularly that of the New York Bank of the United States – which produced panic and widespread runs on local banks, and the Federal Reserve sat idly by while banks collapsed. He claimed that, if the Fed had provided emergency lending to these key banks, or simply bought government bonds on the open market to provide liquidity and increase the quantity of money after the key banks fell, all the rest of the banks would not have fallen after the large ones did, and the money supply would not have fallen as far and as fast as it did.[25] With significantly less money to go around, businessmen could not get new loans and could not even get their old loans renewed, forcing many to stop investing. This interpretation blames the Federal Reserve for inaction, especially the New York branch...

That's because it wasn't the Federal Reserve that did it, it was the Reconstruction Finance Corporation in 1932.

[Boyo Jim]

Fine, please find a cite for it.

[Least Original User Name Ever]

That's just silly. John McCain is a republican, and therefore would have worked toward smaller government, tax cuts, increased defense spending, he would have gotten the government out of everyone's Medicare, and he would have cut taxes.

-Joe
Doubtful. McCain is a progressive. He's just not as rabid about it as Obama and Clinton. Had he gotten elected, he probably would have wound up doing as much damage as Obama has, but it would have taken him longer and not been quite so noticeable.

Methinks you need to update your definition of "progressive", as it applies to politics.

From Wikipedia: "Today, most progressive politicians in the United States associate with the Democratic Party or the Green Party US. In the US Congress there exists the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which is often in opposition to the more conservative Democrats, who form the Blue Dogs caucus. Some of the more notable progressive members of Congress have included Ted Kennedy, Russ Feingold, Dennis Kucinich, Barney Frank, Bernie Sanders, Al Franken, John Conyers, John Lewis, Nancy Pelosi and Paul Wellstone."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressivism

Yeah, putting John McCain in that group seems off (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueZ6tvqhk8U).

[emacknight]

Fine, please find a cite for it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstruction_Finance_Corporation

[emacknight]

Here is a much more damaging admission by Obama:

"Taxes are scheduled to go up substantially next year--for everybody." (http://www.youtube.com/user/johnny5k)

[Boyo Jim]

Fine, please find a cite for it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstruction_Finance_Corporation

I found that. I meant a cite that the government (through this or some other institution) poured money into banks which kept it.

This site says nearly the opposite.

The agency gave $2 billion in aid to state and local governments and made loans to banks, railroads, farm mortgage associations, and other businesses. The loans were nearly all repaid.

Further down:
The RFC was bogged down in bureaucracy and failed to disburse much of its funds. It failed to reverse the growth of mass unemployment before 1933. Butkiewicz (1995) shows that the RFC initially succeeded in reducing bank failures, but the publication of the names of the recipients of loans beginning in August 1932 (at the demand of Congress) significantly reduced the effectiveness of its loans to banks because it appeared that political considerations had motivated certain loans. Partisan politics thwarted the RFC's efforts, though in 1932 monetary conditions improved because the RFC slowed the decline in the money supply.

[garygnu]

Here is a much more damaging admission by Obama:

"Taxes are scheduled to go up substantially next year--for everybody." (http://www.youtube.com/user/johnny5k)
Did you watch the whole clip before posting, or am I being whooshed?

[emacknight]

Here is a much more damaging admission by Obama:

"Taxes are scheduled to go up substantially next year--for everybody." (http://www.youtube.com/user/johnny5k)
Did you watch the whole clip before posting, or am I being whooshed?

It still proves what Obama really thinks.

[Digital Stimulus]

Time and time again here I see posts or threads wanting to know what's behind the Tea Party, why it came into being and what is driving it.
Of course, adherents do like to ignore the obvious (http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/10/05/tea-party-is-much-like-the-religious-right-only-moreso-surve/)...

[elucidator]

Well, one of the forces driving the tea party, we are given to understand, is a firm commitment to oppose the creeping socialism hidden in the phrase "net neutrality", and an unyielding agreement with such patriotic institutions as Verizon and Comcast.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/13/tea-party-net-neutrality-_n_681173.html

(If the HuffPost is too partisan for your tastes, a couple dozen similar cites can be had by the simple expedient of googling "tea party net neutrality". If you like, a passionate if somewhat muddled screed for the TP position is available here: http://www.nhteapartycoalition.org/tea/2010/05/01/say-no-to-net-neutrality/)

Who'd a thunk it? Hidden somewhere beneath the surface lay a seething issue, net neutrality. From whence, one wonders, this unshakable commitment to the well being of Verizon and Comcast. One searches in vain for any previous statement to that effect. Looking at pictures of the milling throngs, one cannot escape the impression that if any of these people have an e-mail addy, it most likely ends with @aol.com.

But no! These are very sophisticated people, tech-wise, and widely knowledgeable about the issues confronting the spread of the intertubes.

Well, either that, or the groups like Dick Armey's Tea Party Express are making it up. Trying to exploit the vast ignorance of the tea party lemmings to their corporate sponsors advantage. I had the impression that the cable company is not widely beloved of the people, but Mr Armey is here to assure otherwise, that the common people, the real Americans, totally adore Comcast and Verizon, and stand ready to defend them with vigor.

Grass roots, my Aunt Fanny!

[asterion]

Did you watch the whole clip before posting, or am I being whooshed?

It still proves what Obama really thinks.

Huh? The 2001 and 2003 tax cuts were passed with an expiration date at the end of 2010. Unless Congress acts to extend part or all of those cuts, taxes will go up between 3 and 5 percent depending on your exact combination of brackets. The only bracket that doesn't go up is in-between $8,375 and $34,000 if single or $16,750 to $68,000 if married. If you're single and happen to fall into that marginal tax bracket, your taxes will go up $419 due to the elimination of the 10% bottom bracket. Exact numbers, of course, would be modified by the other changes.

So of course Obama thinks that taxes are scheduled to go up substantially for everyone. They are, and the schedule was set 6 years before Obama was in office. So how about you explain what you mean?

[emacknight]

It still proves what Obama really thinks.

Huh? The 2001 and 2003 tax cuts were passed with an expiration date at the end of 2010. Unless Congress acts to extend part or all of those cuts, taxes will go up between 3 and 5 percent depending on your exact combination of brackets. The only bracket that doesn't go up is in-between $8,375 and $34,000 if single or $16,750 to $68,000 if married. If you're single and happen to fall into that marginal tax bracket, your taxes will go up $419 due to the elimination of the 10% bottom bracket. Exact numbers, of course, would be modified by the other changes.

So of course Obama thinks that taxes are scheduled to go up substantially for everyone. They are, and the schedule was set 6 years before Obama was in office. So how about you explain what you mean?

What I mean is that when I hear Obama speak it's like Charlie Brown and his teacher (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUyLwXhqlWU). Doesn't what he says or does, it's all just {class warfare} {class warfare} {class warfare} {class warfare} {class warfare} {class warfare} {class warfare} {class warfare}

I have formed a very deep seated and long standing preconception of what he (and other liberals) think and believe. Most of it was lies I read on the interweb or heard on talk radio, none of it relied on my own independent thought or research.

So if Obama says, "I love puppies and kittens." What he's really saying is that the rich need to be taxed more so welfare queens can smoke crack and have abortions. I know this to be true because Obama is a liberal, and those are the things I was told liberals believe.

Oh, and those numbers you quoted are just opinions, and they're wrong. You can use numbers to show anything you want, have you noticed how frequently liberals try to use numbers? Moral superiority. And the Arabs came up with the number system. And obama palls around with terrorists.

[Saint Cad]

Fine, please find a cite for it.

Here's an interesting take on the RFC. (http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1523.html) I challenge all stimulus proponants to read the final paragraph

Democratic politicians argued with some justification that federal assistance was going to the wrong end of the economic pyramid. They believed that recovery would not occur until the people at the bottom of the heap had their purchasing power restored, but the RFC poured money in at the top. To many Americans, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation was viewed as a relief program for big business only.

Another cite (http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/butkiewicz.finance.corp.reconstruction) Remember that the RFC was started in 1932
Decline in Bank Lending Concerns RFC and New Deal Officials

After 1933, bank assets and bank deposits both increased. However, banks changed their asset allocation dramatically during the recovery years. Prior to the depression, banks primarily made loans, and purchased some securities, such as U.S. Treasury securities. During the recovery years, banks primarily purchased securities, which involved less risk. Whether due to concerns over safety, or because potential borrowers had weakened financial positions due to the depression, bank lending did not recover, as indicated by the data in Table 1.

The relative decline in bank lending was a major concern for RFC officials and the New Dealers, who felt that lack of lending by banks was hindering economic recovery. The sentiment within the Roosevelt administration was that the problem was banks' unwillingness to lend. They viewed the lending by the Commodity Credit Corporation and the Electric Home and Farm Authority, as well as reports from members of Congress, as evidence that there was unsatisfied business loan demand.

[gonzomax]

The wealthy and powerful bankers and their institutions that caused the crash, were made whole. The guys who looted the world into bankruptcy received their big salaries and bonuses.
The Stimulus program had to take a third of their money for a tax break for the rich before the Repubs would allow a little help for those who were suffering.
The wealthy and powerful were not slighted at all. They managed to loot quite well.

[enipla]

Watch Colorado over the next few years. If amendments 60, 61 and proposition 101 pass, the state will be ruined. They are all about tax cuts. What they really do is hog tie state and local governments ability to provide services.

If the people of Colorado don’t want any government, that’s what they will get. When they can’t get to work because the roads aren’t plowed, or their kids can’t get into college because 8000 teachers lost their jobs, they will have no one but themselves to blame. Colorado is already at the bottom as far as $ per student (#34). Amendment 60 would cut the funding for schools in half. Yep 50% less funding for education when we already behind the eight ball.

It’s estimated that 60, 61, and 101 would put 72,000 people out of work. It will also make it nearly impossible for the state or local governments to build ANY new infrastructure. So much for getting any new business in the state.

But hey, it may give the average family a few hundred bucks a year. IF you still have a job. How the ‘evil three’ (as they are called) ever got on the ballot is beyond me.

In a recent poll, it seems that even republicans are against these initiatives. I hope that my fellow Coloradoans won’t vote our state into a deeper recession.

The folks that are for these initiatives are the Tea Party. Ignorant fools that want that new flat screen TV, but can’t figure out how to pay for it. The Tea Party won’t look behind them to what Bush did to the country and can’t look ahead beyond next Tuesday.

[gonzomax]

Angle
O'Donnell
Robinson
Paladino
Tea Bagger have just got it so together. They brought this group to the national scene demonstrating the quality of candidates that represent their ideas. Something to feel proud of .

[Enderw24]

What I did was quote verbatim some of the lines from the clip, the idea being to lead the reader...

I knew of course that the clips were incomplete...

...any other government official has any business telling American citizens that the time can come when they've made enough money.

...congress must pass the health bill so people would know what's in it


Not that I expect any of this will gain any kind of traction around here, but in my opinion it goes a long way toward answering questions like why Starving Artist is so unpopular in spite of his inexperience and why the board members are so angry.

[BrainGlutton]

The proud stalwarts of the Tea Party
Have lusts that are hearty but naughty
Such as offering their sacks
As mid-morning snacks
To all and to sundry! How haughty!

[BrainGlutton]

That's just silly. John McCain is a republican, and therefore would have worked toward smaller government, tax cuts, increased defense spending, he would have gotten the government out of everyone's Medicare, and he would have cut taxes.

-Joe
Doubtful. McCain is a progressive. He's just not as rabid about it as Obama and Clinton.

:confused: Obama and Clinton are not progressives.

[Euphonious Polemic]

Watch Colorado over the next few years. If amendments 60, 61 and proposition 101 pass, the state will be ruined. They are all about tax cuts. What they really do is hog tie state and local governments ability to provide services.

If the people of Colorado don’t want any government, that’s what they will get. When they can’t get to work because the roads aren’t plowed, or their kids can’t get into college because 8000 teachers lost their jobs, they will have no one but themselves to blame. Colorado is already at the bottom as far as $ per student (#34). Amendment 60 would cut the funding for schools in half. Yep 50% less funding for education when we already behind the eight ball.

It’s estimated that 60, 61, and 101 would put 72,000 people out of work. It will also make it nearly impossible for the state or local governments to build ANY new infrastructure. So much for getting any new business in the state.

But hey, it may give the average family a few hundred bucks a year. IF you still have a job. How the ‘evil three’ (as they are called) ever got on the ballot is beyond me.




Not to worry. If your worst fears come to pass, these amendments go through, and Colorado loses jobs, teachers and infrastructure....

In several years, the Democrats will be blamed for ruining society, and a suggestion will be made that cutting taxes EVEN MORE will surely be the solution.

[Lamar Mundane]

Watch Colorado over the next few years. If amendments 60, 61 and proposition 101 pass, the state will be ruined. They are all about tax cuts. What they really do is hog tie state and local governments ability to provide services.

If the people of Colorado don’t want any government, that’s what they will get. When they can’t get to work because the roads aren’t plowed, or their kids can’t get into college because 8000 teachers lost their jobs, they will have no one but themselves to blame. Colorado is already at the bottom as far as $ per student (#34). Amendment 60 would cut the funding for schools in half. Yep 50% less funding for education when we already behind the eight ball.

It’s estimated that 60, 61, and 101 would put 72,000 people out of work. It will also make it nearly impossible for the state or local governments to build ANY new infrastructure. So much for getting any new business in the state.

But hey, it may give the average family a few hundred bucks a year. IF you still have a job. How the ‘evil three’ (as they are called) ever got on the ballot is beyond me.





Not to worry. If your worst fears come to pass, these amendments go through, and Colorado loses jobs, teachers and infrastructure....

In several years, the Democrats will be blamed for ruining society, and a suggestion will be made that cutting taxes EVEN MORE will surely be the solution.

Thankfully, they're not going to pass. Coloradoans are pretty responsible about voting for amendments, since Amendment 2 at least. The stupid "Personhood" amendment will fail spectacularly as well. Colorado has to change it's initiative process or something really awful will get put into the State Constitution before long. All you need to do is get 75,000 signatures on a petition and you can put anything before the voters. Anything.

[gonzomax]

If tax cuts to the rich creates jobs, we must have lots of jobs. The tax load on the rich gets smaller and smaller. There must be all kinds of jobs.
Clinton had a horrible confiscatory tax rate that hurt business terribly. Of course we had full employment then. Is there something wrong with the Repub concept of lowering taxes on the rich creates jobs? Other than it has never worked before? It does not work and will not work. Yhey don't even put money into the economy like poor or middle class people with extra money would do.

[emacknight]

It seems lies are the only official party platform the Tea Party has offered. What ever it takes to get elected, they'll do.

Sharron Angle just tried to rewrite history by telling a group of Hispanic youth that the 9/11 hijackers entered the US from Canada.

So first off, if there was any doubt that the Tea Party is just another power obsessed political organization, she just nailed it. Kudos to her for being brave enough to demonize the northern border security with a group of Hispanics.

But that's not the point, the point is she flat out lied, or she's an idiot. Maybe both.

What we know is that our northern border is where the terrorists came through. That's the most porous border that we have. We cannot allow terrorists; we cannot allow anyone to come across our border if we don't know why they're coming.

So how many of the 9/11 terrorists entered the U.S. from Canada? None, not one. They entered the US legally with student visas.

Whence the Tea Party? Bald faced lies.

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Canada/20101019/sept-11-myth-canadian-border-101019/

[Boyo Jim]

She was talking about the terrorists during the French and Indian War.

[Gyrate]

She was talking about the terrorists during the French and Indian War.Well, it couldn't be the War of 1812. Everyone knows that the whole thing was a government conspiracy to bring down the White House by setting off barrels of gunpowder hidden in the basement and then blame it all on the British. Some claim that an unknown man standing nearby overheard saying "Pull it" was actually buying a young chicken at the time but that's what they want you to think.