Thread: Tea Parties
View Single Post
Old 04-19-2009, 08:51 AM   #364 (permalink)
pan6467
Lennonite Priest
 
pan6467's Avatar
 
Location: Mansfield, Ohio USA
Quote:
Originally Posted by Willravel View Post
Dunedan, that wasn't what the folks were pissed about at my Tea Party or the Tea Party in SF or LA, according to my friends that went to the counter-protests there. I myself witnessed exactly what level of devotion these people have to what I understand are libertarian views; there was virtually none. I doubt 2 of the 400 or so people at the SJ protest could even understand what you're posting, let alone come to the same conclusion. They weren't there to disagree with the bailout because of the deficit growth. They were there because "don't tread on me" or "life begins at conception" or "NObama", and when you actually speak to them you find out how little they actually know. When you get your information from Fox News and Drudge, you end up disconnected from reality. At least 6 people I spoke to said they were being taxed without representation, as if when your candidate loses you somehow don't have a representative in the House or Senate.

Maybe you attended a different protest, the one with substance and legitimate concerns and well educated people, but I'm afraid that even if that was the case yours was the exception and not the rule. Your viewpoint is not the viewpoint of the majority of Tea Partiers. Your viewpoint is libertarian, theirs is just run-of-the-mill neoconservative.
See Will, if you or your friends go believing one way then you see the Tea Parties that way and refuse to see them for what they truly were.

Same as the people who went solely because Glenn Beck/Limbaugh/Faux News etc told them to go.

My experience was there were far more knowledgeable people there that were there to protest what the future holds, as Dunedin, eloquently explained. But that's what I went looking for.

What I saw as a whole were a bunch of people roughly my age on the average who never truly protested and have lived mostly comfortable lives knowing that that comfort level is about to take a drastic negative change and their children will never be able to live the lives they were able to, much like we have not been able to live to the comfort level of our parents, because taxes, inflation, greed, corruption and debt have taken away opportunities for us that they had. Those same elements have not been getting better, they are in fact worsening. It's easy to say, "income taxes will be lower" but when taxes on everything else goes up, when the middle class are being squeezed more and more and when the dollar is being printed at a rate that inflation will make those "lower income taxes" worthless, something has to be done.

Now, if Obama were investing in small businesses and the infrastructure instead of bailouts, he'd be creating a tax base and I could see a feasible solution. But, he isn't doing that. He is bailing out banks that continue to raise credit cards fees and interest rates, while tightening their credit belts and increasing foreclosures and showing more profit. That is not helping the population as whole.

When the auto industry, which is a HUGE tax base for the communities and Fed. is suffering, workers may have to take pay cuts just to keep jobs and plants close down, that tax base is being eroded. So, while you can tell a GM or Chrysler employee, "Yeah, but you'll be paying less in taxes"... what they lost in pay and benefits will still force them into a financial loss. They have less disposable income and the small business takes the hit because the bigger businesses can take a hit far longer than small business... thus that tax base is lost. Tell a mom and pop who owned a store by a factory that closed down.... "Yeah, but you'll pay lower income taxes" as their dreams go up in smoke.

As property values fall, the communities that rely on property taxes go bankrupt. So they start cutting services. Roads become worse, forcing more car repairs, crime increases, lowering property values further, and it spirals downward, tell the people affected "yeah, but you'll be paying lower taxes". Tell the city/county/state employees that will be or are getting laid off with no sight to being rehired, "yeah but your income taxes will be less."

The point is, Obama is not using his spending to build a tax base, he is continuing to destroy the tax base that has been eroding for the past 30 years. Only, he's destroying it at a much much faster rate and has done so in roughly 100 days worth of policies.

To have people sit there and talk about 95% will be paying lower income taxes and bragging how great Obama is.... is blind to the destruction of the tax base itself. And to blame all this on Obama is blind to the failed trickle down economic policies that have been in place and the greed, corruption and total lack of investments into maintaining and growing the tax base. That is complete financial suicide that we will pay for instead of retiring, our children and grandchildren will pay for with lower standards of living and freedoms. Because as Obama "bails out the states and dictates where that money goes.... our freedoms become lessened.... that will be part of the price we pay.

My view at the tea party was many got that idea. But I'm biased because those people were the ones I looked for.
__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

Last edited by pan6467; 04-19-2009 at 09:10 AM..
pan6467 is offline  
 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360