Quote:
Originally Posted by Willravel
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.
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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.