For the record, I have never endorsed, encouraged, nor agreed to any armed insurrection against the federal government. The only solution to rampant stateism is through the electoral process and the fair election of freedom-loving moderates.

...and another thing: The fact that you people would get there so easily in discussion is frightening. I am involved in community level movements which oppose rampant federalism (Tea Party Movement) and I have never been present when ANY discussion of armed insurrection has occurred. It is absolute INSANITY to suggest that any discussion like that is occurring. We are encouraging involvement in local and state government. We are encouraging you contacting your representatives with polite and educated opposition and questions about current legislation. Queries generally surround the cost of the suggested legislation. We may even assemble to have our voices heard. These assemblies attact other groups and we can not stop that from occurring, as their voice is no less valid than ours - their message might be judged less valid, but their voice is not.

You people are so far off the spectrum of reality in this thread that it is ridiculous. You have worked SO HARD to marginalize the message in your own minds that any further discussion is moot. I am going to opt of of this thread and perhaps others because I don't even want to be associated with speech such as this. If I could delete my posts out of this thread, as innoculous as they are - I would.

You people? Excuse me?

That's what I said. Is it upsetting to be bucketed and marginalized? To be grouped with others without justification? Hmmm.

Interesting meta argument. Let's get back to the topic.

The topic seems to be "Look at all these crazy tea party people. Aren't they all ignorant lunatics?!?!" So, I don't think my calling you out on generalizing the participants is off-topic at all.

Well, what else are they if not frenzied ignoramuses?

I am really disappointed in you Halx, I expected more from you. Done with this thread.

This constitutional republic that was built was designed to protect the rights of the minority from the desires of the majority. I'm guessing that this was something pretty important to you from 2000-2008, but is probably less so currently. would that be about right?

and wanting to disregard the rights and fears of others to implement policy that YOU deem worthy makes you what? for a clue, look at the 3rd word of your last sentence above.

---------- Post added at 10:59 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:57 AM ----------

then make me an offer. you obviously don't have them for the reasons the founders intended.

---------- Post added at 11:05 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:59 AM ----------

most people that claim they support the second amendment then include a 'but' have no clue about the second amendment to begin with. It's a phrase used by them to make them seem 'mainstream' and reasonable when all it really does is show that they are full of shit.

---------- Post added at 11:08 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:05 AM ----------

They are nothing but that, Halx. in fact, I want you and all of your other brethren in the liberal progressive matrix to not only continue thinking that, but I want you to ramp it up to the Nth degree. I want to see you collaborate with all the other liberal groups out there and ostracize anyone who is not totally on board with your agenda. Get downright vicious in the rhetoric employed to group all others not aligned with you as frenzied ignoramuses.
Can you do that for me, please?

I'm writing out a lengthy self-inquiry to the nature of my opinions, and that will be posted later. In the meantime, I simply want to know HOW I am supposed to be interpreting these people if not for the brazen stupidity that they are displaying. I'm not calling them frenzied ignoramuses because they aren't aligned with me, I am calling them so because their arguments are based off of UNREALITY. Am I supposed to be taking them seriously despite their lack of intellectual integrity? Even here on the TFP, you will not be taken seriously if you can't make points based on the same reality that we all share.

These people are not rallying because of taxes. They are not rallying because of debt. They are rallying because their representatives have polarized them against their opposition. They are rallying because they lost an election and now any decision that is not ideal is absolutely unacceptable. Regardless of the unrealized reality that these decisions are being made with their best interests in mind, they fight back even after learning that things aren't as bad as they thought.

No, I am not some government apologist. I am as skeptic as they come. I lean pretty close to the Libertarian platform on social rights, but I can't get over the moral obligation I have to look out for people less fortunate than me. I am OK with paying taxes as long as it goes toward making the world I live in a better place.

I don't agree with everything Obama does. He supports the Patriot Act, which is a huge privacy violation in my book. However, I cannot argue against healthcare reform. This may come as a surprise, but I am one of those uninsured. I'm afraid to get sick and I want change. I am happy with the proposed changes. These people are against the reform for FALLACIOUS reasons. I cannot sympathize.

So let's get back to me "marginalizing" the tea baggers. dk seems to think that I am railing on them because they disagree with me. I constantly maintain that it is not because we disagree. A disagreement would be along the lines of: I disagree with the need for war, but you think it is necessary in general. Let me tell you what is NOT a disagreement, but in fact a fallacy: I think the Iraq war was unnecessary, but you think the Iraq war was necessary because it put the clamps on the terrorists. You see, it is a fallacy because Iraq had absolutely no tie to any terrorists or any weapons of mass destruction. We knew this then and we know it now. So, I am not "disagreeing" with the tea baggers, they are basing their opinions off of fallacies. Their fallacies center around Obama's lack of credibility and lies that their representatives have told them about the health care reform.

I am not marginalizing people because we disagree, I am dismissing their INVALID opinions because they do not stand up to the test of evidence and proof.

Wait, so you support the president now? Or by "moderates", do you mean middle right?
You probably have. I've only been at three (San Jose, Vallejo, Morgan Hill), but a common trait is the not so subtle threat of physical force, especially armed. If you're missing it, read the signs.
If only that were the case. You assemble because the events are organized by either a corporate owned radio station, a member of the legislative, or the Fox News channel. You assemble for myriad reasons, the only commonality is anger at the right (most of which is entirely unfounded). The few people that do show up for honest libertarian reasons are drowned out by the sea of stupid. I think you think we don't have good reason to believe that the "Obama = Nazi" people are the rule, not the exception, but you being involved in the movement does not give you a monopoly on truth. I've been to these and so have other people. I even took pictures and posted them in another thread.

As for validity, no, that's not how it works. If you're complaints are based on a fundamental misunderstanding of reality, you will be judged to be less valid.
I don't have to work hard to marginalize someone that will photoshop the first (half) black president to look like an African witch doctor. I don't have to work to marginalize someone that will call someone a communist AND a Nazi. I don't have to work hard to marginalize the fact that this "grass roots" movement has been corporate controlled and directed since day one. I don't have to work hard to marginalize people that will outright lie about the number of people at their protest.

People like me who are fed up with the government treating my bank account like their personal piggy bank.

After a bailout, a buyout of GM and Chrysler, cash for clunkers, credit for homebuyers, and now a national health plan, I've had enough. Obama's actions are the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak.

I've paid my bills and never had the government bail me out. I'm tired of the government taking my money to compensate someone else for their failures.

A friend of mine went to last weekend's DC protest. She's smart enough to write a protest poster and spell all the words correctly. I would have gone with her, except I had prior commitments.

And by the way, I don't waste my time with Rush, Glenn Beck, etc, nor do I read Fox news that much.

Oh, and for the record, I never considered violent opposition in my arguments until dk brought it up.

What always amazes me is how any defense of the tea parties always revolve around some meta discussion about political participation. The defense is never about how their points a, b, and c make sense. It is always about how they shouldn't be marginalized, how they have the right to speak, how they are doing just like "the left" did, and etc. etc.

The closest we ever come to discussing the tea parties themselves is when someone points out that there are reasonable members that are a part of the movement, how not everyone is a loony, and sometimes even how the loony wing is a minority. And I am sure those are all possible things. But here's a social movements 101 protip: the message that matters is of the movement, not of individuals. And right now the message being put forth by the tea parties IS the message of the loonies and the fringe. So it doesn't matter what the reasonable people in the movement think, it matters what the message of the movement itself is, as framed by its leaders, its backers in the media, and so on.

And that message right now is as misguided and contradictory as they come. This mixture of taxation protest coupled with pleas of more military spending and a defense of medicare simply doesn't make sense, just as the "Indonesian Muslim" attacks...

Unfortunately, it is a sad statement about American democracy that those who oppose Obama for more legitimate reasons feel like they have no choice but being co-opted by loonie wing of the republican party.

Let's not forget that the bailouts were initiated under the Bush administration.

The government has blown trillions of dollars on a war that was unnecessary, but we start getting pissed off when we try to jump start the economy? Settle down people. The Bush administration set us up for one hell of a ride.

First point, dislike it all you like, the bailout was actually profitable for the govt. AIG is making its back payments on time, and the govts. share of citigroup have actually turned out a 11 billion dollar profit.


Second point, while the govt. did indeed spend a lot of money on car makers and etc., none of those expenditures even come close to medicare and military, which are close to half the entire budget and should increase further in time. And these two spending items are things tea party protests want more of! That is the lunacy.

I'm no fan of W, but I'm not going to lay the blame for the collapse of the economy at his feet. The economy failed due to practicing a flawed economic model to begin with, a pattern that was begun decades ago.

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Troof, brother. Get all militant on me, and I might get militant back.

by the way, this is the best take down of the tea parties, and it comes from a Reagon admin. economist:

Tax Tea Party Time, Part Two - Forbes.com

the meta-argument:
this incoherent nonsense is a viable form of political participation in a democracy--which means that informed debate is an option and no more than that so effectively anything goes--which is of course as far from a democratic notion as is imaginable---worse in many ways than State Oppression because it guts the process from the inside, and does so in the name of extending and embodying what it guts

why it's being floated:
it's the only line of defense abstract enough to encompass the hodge-podge of far right wing interest groups that have banded together. there's no way to defend the contents directly. so all that matters is Performance. once you go there, the usual facile relativizing moves all follow. for example: poor me, look at how my conservatism is being victimized, why those Evil Leftists aren't accused of being idiots in the same way as i am being. poor me, victim again.

a riff:

i still maintain that what we're seeing here is a performance of nothing more or less than an outburst of conservative paranoia, run through some Outrage over being Persecuted by obama, who is now the Evil Father who exists only to Inflict Injury on the shattered ego of conservative politics.

this Persecution follows not from obama having the audacity, the gall, to say that something has to be done to change the way health care is understood and delivered in the united states--they can't even agree that health care is the actual issue at hand, perhaps thinking that calling for a national debate on the question is some kind of Trap the sole function of which is to Further Persecute conservatives.

the problem is that conservatives had power for 8 years, they fucked it all up, their ideology lay in ruins, they're talking to no-one but themselves.

the problem is particular to populist conservatism, which was always used by the republican party. i suspect that these folk feel collectively cut adrift, and have no sense of being able to influence the coming Wave of New Persecutions.

and the populist right--and it's political expressions--have long shown themselves incapable of distinguishing between their own political fortunes and that of this larger hallucination that is their america. it's as if the feeling of being-impotent politically that is specific to populist conservatism is staged internally as an apocalypse.

however it came into being, it's clearly of no consequence to any of these folk, or the handlers that set them into motion, or the corporate entities that funnel money into those handlers for their own reasons, that the spectacle is a serious problem, damaging the actually existing america of which the conservative hallucination is but a small and shrinking part.


it's infantile.

You're never gonna get through to Republicans using the facts, dippin. Truth of the matter is, if McCain had won the election, you wouldn't hear a peep from them.

and those of us who are really pissed off right now were pissed back when Bush started this ride. Getting pretty damned tired of being lumped in with the group of those who are only upset because Obama is doing it now.

---------- Post added at 12:41 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:39 PM ----------

cite please. I know I'd like to see the military budget cut, pretty sure alot of my associates also would like to see that happen. so i'm sure you can show me where I'm in the fringe element of that group, right?

dippin, both of your last two posts have been very good.

I suspect that you and your friend are against most of the health care reform proposals. I am genuinely curious to understand this position without any left or right name calling. If the estimates are somewhat true that at the present rate health insurance will cost the average family $30,000 per year by 2019, do you think this is sustainable? Is it the anti-reform protesters' position that the out of control health care cost will take care of itself and the government should leave things as they are?

Hmm... let's see... in following with the keen sense of logic, deductive reasoning, science, and sense of fairness applied here by you and others, you might as well call them witches.



The herd on this thread seems about as informed on the subject as the fine citizens portrayed in this clip.

the article dippin linked to above makes the obvious point, the one that's been made repeatedly by analysts from different areas of the political spectrum (populist conservatism aside of course)--which is that the movements themselves shaped by (depart from & refer back to) the situation of the republican party and, within that, to the particular situation of the coalition that the republicans stood to benefit from that pulled in the far right. this has a pretty definite history---it got underway in earnest during the clinton period, but it's origins extend well before that.

the aim of the movement is, as i've said before, dominating news cycles. the strategy is to generate a sense of loss of momentum for the image of obama.

so what matters is that the teabagtypes get television coverage, not so much what they say. what matters is that cameras turn to them. what this presupposes is that conservative actions get press exposure in ways that have no correlate for anything on the left such as it is.

for many years, a lynchpin of conservative political discourse has been projection: anything conservatives do is staged as a reaction to, or is legitimated with reference to, something that happens from it's mirror image in "the left". so it is with the astonishing amount of press coverage that's been lavished on a movement that seems to me entirely incoherent. to maintain the illusion of "the liberal press"---source of much of the right's misfortune in the land shaped by it's internal language---there has to be no particular difference in amounts of coverage between these actions and any other. that this is materially false is beside the point.

==============
conservative language is a funny thing. you can gather information and assemble a pretty good idea of how it's going to be used at any given point. the language is pretty compact and is predicated on generating a clear us/them distinction. this distinction repeats at most other registers.

it's not surprising that folk who mobilize around that language don't inhabit the cognitive space shaped by it at all times, and that talking as individuals there'd be considerable variation in how x or y thinks.

but we're talking about an organized political action here. we're talking about a collective action that relies on certain common assumptions. we're talking about an organized action that is strange because there's no agreement as to what the issue at hand really is. there's no particular problem with talking about the actions as actions.

but i think most of the tfp conservative folk know this full well---for example, even though roachboy and many folk argue about stuff on different grounds and sometimes in a kinda heated manner, i expect that any could have a beer one on one and things would be fine, and quite different than these discussions.

but this is obvious.
it's been obvious.
you can talk about how an action is organized and not make statements about the attitudes of every individual who supports that action.
but if we all know that, then what's the point of all the snippy posts here complaining about how misunderstood this or that individual conservative feels for apparently feeling lumped in with the teabaggers (an expression i like)?

Please, point out the points we're uninformed about. I'm dying to know.

Tea Party Handbook: Medicare Advantage is One Target

Also, a quick google search of teapartypatriots.org:

http://teapartypatriots.org/Group/Be...llwood_City_Pa.

"To bring public attention to what is in the HR 3200 Bill, how the government wants access to your checking account, large Medicare cut backs and how the impact of the bill will destroy small business by forcing health care on all employees! "

Of course, silence often speaks louder than words, and of all the things to protest and to cut, the 912dc.org site has no mention whatsoever of cutting medicare.

as far as military spending goes, a simple google of military budget tea parties:

Missile Defense - Tea Party

http://www.myheritage.org/assets/pdf...budget_4-3.pdf

"The Obama budget fails to fully fund the core defense needs of the United States. About $30 billion more is needed in the base defense budget."

Tea Party Talking Points: Obama's War on the American Dream

"Instead of cutting defense spending, the Administration should restore missile defense funding and maintain a minimum defense budget of 4% of GDP for the next 10 years, not including war funding."

[QUOTE=dksuddeth;2704152]This constitutional republic that was built was designed to protect the rights of the minority from the desires of the majority. I'm guessing that this was something pretty important to you from 2000-2008, but is probably less so currently. would that be about right?


and wanting to disregard the rights and fears of others to implement policy that YOU deem worthy makes you what? for a clue, look at the 3rd word of your last sentence above.[COLOR="DarkSlateGray"]

---------- Post added at 10:59 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:57 AM ----------

I have no problem with standing up for the minority, as long as their arguments are based on reality and facts, not emotional nonsense and misinformation.

I don't disregard the rights and fears of others, once those fears have been effectively proven to be irrational, and people still fear them anyway, that is willfull ignorance on their part and they can't be helped. I wish it weren't so but you can't help someone who refuses to see reality.

First, it's not just the health care reform. I don't think the government should be bailing out the economy in any way, shape or form. And I don't care what Bush and his predecessors did or didn't do. They aren't in office now. Obama is and he needs to assume responsibility for what he's done. And he's gone over the top and not even paused to look back.

Second, I don't think the government has any business running a for profit company or making profits by loaning them money, etc. It's just too easy for the government to pass laws and regulations benefiting the companies they run or do business with and harm competitors. I had the impression there were laws preventing that for exactly taht reason.

Third, I think the government trying to stimulate the economy is a tremendous waste of taxpayer money with a good chance of not being repaid. I think part of the crash is a readjustment of the size of the economy since borrowed money isn't so available to finance people's lifestyles and drive up demand/prices for products.

As far as the health care, I watched Obama's speech to Congress and have the following objections

Obama wants no restrictions on insurance because of prior conditions. That sounds nice, but what happens when insurance companies start losing money because they have to hold their premiums down but their costs go up because of more treatment? What about people with self-inflicted prior conditions? Why shouldn't they assume responsibility for the consequences of their actions?

Obama wants no cap on insurance coverage. That also sounds nice, but again, what happens to the insurance companies because their premiums can't rise but their costs go up because people now have unlimited money for medical treatment?

Why should insurance companies not be allowed to make a profit when other essential businesses like farmers are allowed to make profits? I'm pretty sure insurance companies are part of my 401K funds, and I'd like to make money off my investments.

Obama says he wants to at least in part fund health care by savings in Medicare. I saw one figure where the plan is to find $500B in savings in Medicare in 10 years. One website I found puts the Medicare budget somewhere around $400B/year. So somehow Obama has found 8% savings in Medicare. That seems like an awful lot of inefficiency/fraud to me. Why should I trust the government to fund another major program when they can't run Medicare efficiently, and have similar problems with controlling expenses for agencies like the Post Office and Conrail?

Obama wants to provide tax credits or reimbursement to people who can't afford to buy insurance. If someone is disabled, I don't have a problem with that. If someone is not disabled, I do have a problem. I work to support myself. I've never gotten a tax credit for anything. Why should someone else who is capable of working get a handout?

Another way Obama wants to pay for health care is to raise taxes, such as this idea, under the pretense of preventing obesity. Yeah, it's a small tax, somewhere around 8%, but it's still another tax.

Can A Soda Tax Really Curb Obesity? - Forbes.com

The momentum for federal taxes on soda is growing. President Barack Obama recently said he thought Congress "should be exploring" the idea of a tax on sugared drinks as a way of tackling the nation's ever-expanding waistline. Thomas Frieden, the president's nominee for director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, argued in an article for the New England Journal of Medicine last April that "a penny-per-ounce excise tax could reduce consumption of sugared sodas by more than 10%."

Lastly, I think his plan still comes down to rationing of medical care. This article backs me up on that. It's going to take a few years to come up withe the additional doctors and other medical staff to support the demand.

50 million new patients? Expect doc shortages - Health care- msnbc.com

Among the many hurdles facing President Barack Obama's plan to revamp the nation's health care system is a shortage of primary care physicians — those legions of overworked doctors who provide the front line of medical care for both the sick and those hoping to stay healthy.

As Massachusetts' experience shows, extending health care to 50 million uninsured Americans will only further stress the system and could force many of those newly insured back into costly emergency rooms for routine care if they can't find a primary care doctor, health care observers said.

Massachusetts, home of the nation's most ambitious health care law, has seen the need for primary care doctors shoot up with the addition of 428,000 people to the ranks of the insured under a 2006 law that mandates health care for nearly all residents.

The racism and race baiting behind the tea parties and the 9/12 project.

yes will. Glenn Beck speaks for the entire population of conservative people and we're all racists. We hate black people.

I don't see where he implied that.

strawman much?

dogzilla,
I understand you have objections to President Obama's health care proposals. Specifically his attempt to deal with pre-conditions, caps and affordability. Do you even see these things as problems that need to be addressed? Do you think the non-competitive system we now have with out of control costs and denial of insurance is sustainable?

it only makes sense that a system which provides access to basic health care would have a system interest in preventative treatment--in helping people keep themselves healthier for longer.
it is self-evident that obesity is a serious health problem in the united states: if raising the price of sugar and/or hfcs based sodas would contribute toward a reduction in obesity, where's the problem?
even if it doesn't mean that instantly everyone looses a bunch of weight, you cannot seriously believe that such sodas are not problematic, particularly if consumed regularly.
that these things would be advertised as they are, without regard for the health consequences of their consumption, is one indicator amongst thousands (many) that capitalism is NOT rational that regulations ARE required. profit motive does not coincide with anything but itself: if "enlightened self-interest" is not enough to extend, say, the sense of interests of a coca-cola corporation beyond generating revenues for itself and into consideration of the health consequences for it's own market, then they have to be forced to. a tax is a relatively benign way to do this. regulation outright would be better.

If health care costs continue to rise faster than inflation rates or rates of increase in individual income, probably not. However, I don't see how allowing either coverage of preconditions or eliminating caps, which I think ends up increasing costs to insurance companies helps control costs.

I don't know what the answer to the health care issue is, but I don't think solutions which increase demand without some way to ensure supply increases equivalently are going to solve anything.

Nor do I believe that any solution that tries to cap profitability of a company will be a satisfactory long term solution either.
Maybe more interest in preventive care helps.

dogzilla do you realize that medicare is already much more efficient than the private industry? Medicare has about a 2% overhead and private insurance has about a 30% overhead. That is a huge difference.

The mean cost of basic health coverage for a family is estimated to be $30,000 a year by 2019. I'm sorry but most people don't make $30,000 a year. We have a health care crises and doing nothing will not solve the problem.

Look at it this way, if you are driving a car where the steering is out and you are approaching the grand canyon do you hit the breaks? Or do you say I don't want to stop because hitting the breaks might ruin my breaks.

Personally I think the best system would be to go to a single payer system with very little overhead that covers every citizen and tax paying legal resident. This would be a copay system in which people's copays would be determined by a sliding scale and income. If people wanted additional coverage they could then get it from private insurance.

---------- Post added at 03:12 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:08 PM ----------

I also don't think adding those protections will lower costs, no one does. Those are protections for the people. The cost lowering must come from elsewhere in the bill. My personal favorite ways to lower cost would be to 1) provide a public option to compete with private industry forcing them to lower their costs, 2) Malpractice reform/elimination of defensive medicine, 3) educating people on better lifestyle habbits (no more chocolate covered bacon or fried coke...)

I'll agree with you about promotion of preventive care, as well as promotion of healthy lifestyle choices by education.

I don't agree about taxation or regulation though. I happen to drink non-diet soda on a regular basis. Maybe too much, maybe not. Any diet soda I've tried tastes awful and Aspertame seems to give me headaches.

My weight is not out of control, in part due to a sometimes intense workout routine. I understand the hazards of obestity. So I'm being penalized because somebody else lets their weight get out of control.

What's next? A pizza tax?

[QUOTE=Rekna;2704783]dogzilla do you realize that medicare is already much more efficient than the private industry? Medicare has about a 2% overhead and private insurance has about a 30% overhead. That is a huge difference.

Medicaid is not as efficient as health insurance. A very small percentage of doctors will accept it because they don't pay proportionally to health carriers. It has a lower overhead because it only covers a tiny fraction of the population.

[quote=rahl;2704787]that is not the reason it has a lower overhead. Every public system in the world that we have data on has lower overhead.

---------- Post added at 07:37 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:36 AM ----------

So unless it can be proven that every single member of a movement believes something, they cannot be criticized?

[quote=rahl;2704787]I aplogize for this post. I thought we were talking about MEDICAID. You were talking about MEDICARE. I'm not as familiar with medicare.

Sure you were; I recall Glenn Beck doing a speech on it every night, crying for Americans being bled dry, losing their jobs while the government bailed the big boys out. Tea parties were rampant, and Bush was called a Nazi by the entire republican party. Right?