Cimarron29414

I went to early TEA party events, but have not been recently - primarily because Palin became a prominent figure and if she is going to be the face of the national TEA party, then I'm obviously not a TEA party member.

Having said that, I would say the early iteration was primarily FOR government fiscal responsibility. In simplest terms, don't spend a dollar which you do not have. It's pretty obvious why this would appear to be anti-Obama, since he spent trillions of dollars he didn't have. So, yeah - a negative spin on the movement would look very much like the party of No.

Social issues will inevitably need to be defined if a political party wants to be a viable national identity. I'd say they have not been strongly defined yet in the TEA party.

Personally, I am pro-civil union for everyone. I don't think I should be married in the eyes of the State, as marriage is a convenant with God in my opinion. The State should not acknowledge my covenant with God, but can acknowledge my signed document saying that if I divorce my wife gets half my stuff, and if I get sick, I want her to pull the plug, etc. I believe all tax payers should receive the same benefits from their taxes - and that contract law should be extended to the person of your choice.
For example, I don't have a problem with two spinster sisters signing a civil union contract. The only stipulation I would create is that the contract must exist between two and only two adults, and that one can not enter into another contract without disolving the first one. Besides that, why should I care who you want to give your shit to and who you want to visit you in the hospital?

Politically, I am pro-choice. I would not encourage many people to have abortions, so at a personal level I am (mostly) pro-life. However, that's the beauty of a political landscape which gives a choice - it allows all people to make the personal decision which is right for them. Which is why I believe a choice should exist.

I would legalize Marjiuana tomorrow, if I could. It would be a great crop to have and a great taxable revenue source.

Those are the big three social issues, and where I stand, as an "almost TEA party member". However, I am in the slight minority in the organization, as far as I can tell. I do enjoy the debates with social conservatives on these matters.

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Baraka_Guru

This is key, I think. It's also why I don't agree with the Tea Party position. I'm also for fiscal responsibility; however, the Tea Party is specifically against deficit spending, or, perhaps, Keynesian economics in particular.

The idea of being so rigidly against deficit spending seems disastrous to me. Ideally, a government is at the mercy of economic variables over which they have some or no control. The thing to keep in mind is that sometimes you have to borrow money when running operations. Even the best-managed companies do this. To suggest that you never go over budget or that you should never borrow money or that you should spend money in bad times to alleviate some root problems to me is folly.

In Canada, attempts have been made to make balancing budgets mandatory, but come 2008, that seemed a silly thing to do. Basically, if you balance your budget in a down economy, you are going to have to severely cut existing programs, which can have a negative spiraling effect.

In the U.S., this would likely come mainly in the form of either a) hitting the poor, or b) hitting the military budget.

It would make most sense to slash the military budget, and severely. The U.S. is grossly overspending in that area; it's ridiculous. Why isn't the Tea Party going after that? There's a lot of money being sunk into that.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
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Cimarron29414

bg-

HUGE difference between having a problem and taking out a loan, and consistently spending $300B to $1.5T more dollars than you can possibly take in. I think that is the difference, at least for me.

If you look at the deficit spending and it's explosion, it corresponds precisely to these people uniting. I was going to TEA party rallies when Bush was in office.

I can't really speak for the TEA party. I'm fine with all forms of spending cuts in the international arena, both in military and foreign aid. Foreign aid should come through US charities, which have always stepped up. There's no need for the federal government to do it.

__________________
Gives a man a halo, does mead.

"Here lies The_Jazz: Killed by an ambitious, sparkly, pink butterfly."

Baraka_Guru

I agree. This is why I said I support deficit spending and fiscal responsibility. What's going on in government spending in the U.S. is disastrous and can't continue on the same course. However, the Tea Party wants to curb spending in such a severe way that it seems unfeasible without sending shockwaves throughout the country.

There are a number of factors at play. Much of it has to do with the balance of trade and the rise of economies outside of the U.S. It also has to do with special funding for a couple of wars 10 years in. It also has to do with maintaining cold-war defense spending.

Now throw in an aging population and social security and you have a mess.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Cimarron29414

We certainly do.

__________________
Gives a man a halo, does mead.

"Here lies The_Jazz: Killed by an ambitious, sparkly, pink butterfly."

FuglyStick

One Tea Party candidate is showing her colors.
The Associated Press: AP Exclusive: No gay adoptions, says GOP's Angle

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Baraka_Guru

Ya gots ta love hateful radicals.

I like how she wants schools to allow for "publicly acknowledg[ing] the Creator," yet she refuses to acknowledge very real relationships and very real family structures.

But what's her connection to the Tea Party?

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Tully Mars

She the Tea Party's Chosen one to defeat Ried in Nevada

I think the GOP and the Tea Party folks would be wise to research the effects of Ralph Nader and Ross Perot.

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Willravel

Hatred. The Tea Party's social platform is hatred. They hate the poor (despite the fact many of them are poor), they hate women, they hate non-whites, they hate gays, they hate unions, they hate the environment, they hate government spending that doesn't include warfare, and they hate peace.

The_Dunedan

Horseshit.
Pure and simple horseshit.

I will ask you, -once- sirrah, to retract that vile slander against friends and family of mine. I am not a Tea Party member (not being a "joiner" anyway), but I know many good people who are. Your caricature is disgusting.

Baraka_Guru

So she's the "Tea Party Nevada" candidate...specifically....

This seems like an exaggeration. I think a lot of Tea Partiers would read this and think, "You've got to be kidding me." It'd be like conservatives calling liberals babykillers. OH, wait....

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Willravel

I wish I was exaggerating, but it's true. I've been to three of these things and it's not some valiant protest about taxes. It's hatred that comes from fear that comes from ignorance and being intentionally frightened by their Republican and Fox News leaders. Anyone that says otherwise is welcome to join me at one of these things so I can actually point it out to them.

Edit:
I'm sorry you're too close to them to see it, but unless every piece of information to come out about the Tea Parties AND my own experiences are somehow wrong, you don't know what you're talking about. You act as if because it's your friends and family somehow I don't have permission to tell the truth. That's absurd.

FuglyStick

The Tea Party crowd who are supporters of fiscal responsibility are being sold down the river by the Pied Pipers of the movement. Palin and company are beating the fiscal responsibility drum to get the votes they need, when their real objective is a wholesale reactionary social agenda.

---------- Post added at 11:29 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:11 PM ----------

I'm with you, Will. The evidence is right in front of our fucking eyes, and the Tea Party supporters on this board have the fucking gall to cry and say "that's not fair."

Well, FUCK. THAT.

I don't think the members of this board should be required to coddle those that support bigots, homophobes, and hate mongers. Censor me if you feel you must, but I'm not going to play along.

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Wes Mantooth

mmm it is a shame Fugly. I don't understand the rights constant need to pander to extremists and hatemongers its really unnecessary, all they're doing is alienating moderate voters and level headed Republicans who would otherwise support them. What choices do we really have left? Democrats and bat shit crazy?

It's beyond my comprehension why nobody is trying to pick up the slack and create a viable third party that presents a real alternative. The timing couldn't be better as approval of either party is below 50% and support of third party candidates seems to be gaining traction with each election. The Tea Party could fill that void, but it seems they're content just being the new GOP only with 50% more wackiness.

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Seaver

I am NOT a Tea Party supporter... but you must be fair in this regard. I recall you yourself disregarding pictures of left wing demonstrators 00-06 as lunatic fringe not representing the movement... I recall Host even claiming they were Republican plants. Hell... if I remember correctly you yourself were part of the fringe of 9/11 conspiracy theorists with the only result was GW masterminded the entire thing.

A retarded racist monkey claim vs. accusation of killing +3,000 people.... I'm sorry but I know which is worse here.

__________________
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Willravel

I never ever said GW was responsible for 9/11. Ever. The man can barely eat a pretzel. I saw something that didn't make sense and I asked questions and didn't get satisfactory answers. There was no hate at all involved. There was frustration at times, but never hate.

The problem with assuming the images I posted are somehow just the fringe of the Tea Party is that there's no evidence of that. The anti-war movement was united behind one simple thing: no war in Iraq. That's all that brought us together. It was our singular goal and nothing else mattered. Though some might claim the singular goal of the tea party has something to do with not liking the Bush bailouts or taxation, the reality is that they're not united behind any one thing other than their anger at a whole bunch of things Fox News tells them to be angry at or scared of. It's that directionless (I'm not sure directionless is a word) anger that leads them to just be a hate-movement. I hate Obama because he's a secret Kenyan (a staggering 41% of Republicans think President Obama wasn't born in the US). I hate illegal immigrants. I hate 'abortionists'. I hate socialists. I hate Nanci Pelosi or Harry Reid. I hate gays. You've been to the Tea Party rallies, right? The vast majority of people fall under these statements. The few actual libertarians that showed up at the beginning jumped ship as soon as they realized the thing was morphing into the Fox News corporate rally system.

Show me evidence they're a part of the lunatic fringe.

Edit: And, perhaps most importantly, the anti-war movement was not started nor embraced by any media outlet. it was a real grassroots movement that gained massive support from the people through word of mouth. The protests in 2003 were the largest in human history and were together for a cause that, it turns out, was right. We were lied to by the government about Iraq and we invaded them based on those lies. Despite the fact we ultimately failed, the anti-war movement in the lead up to the invasion in 2003 was righteous and groundbreaking.

Compare that to the Tea Party. The Tea Party's roots can be directly traced to Dave Ramsey on an episode of Fox and Friends in February of 2009. Without his absurd outburst, the thing would have been a few dozen forum members enjoying a day in the park. Because Fox and talk radio picked it up and took the reigns, it became a pseudo-movement. By the time April 15th came around, Fox was playing an active role in organizing the protests (which were about... a lot of stuff, actually, but mainly they were complaining about high taxes even though about half of Tea Partiers pay no federal income taxes). A lot of very angry and ignorant people showed up, along with a few well-meaning libertarians and anarchists, who quickly fled once they realized what was really going on. Now the movement is a joke, an albatross for the GOP. Unlike the anti-war movement, the Tea Party movement has been proven wrong on their major complaints (taxes are actually ,low, not high, the Bush Administration bailed out Wall Street, not President Obama, illegal immigration is actually getting smaller because of American economic problems, they don't actually want a balanced budget, just tax cuts and insane military spending, healthcare legislation hasn't lead to Nazism or socialism or even antidisestablishmentarianism, etc., etc.).

FoolThemAll

You know how when you frequent RedState you see some interesting and entertaining stuff but not really a worthwhile debate space but, what the hell, let's try getting at some of the nuggets of good conversation and you do for a while but then the more outlandish and dishonest claims and the less pristine moderation reminds you that it's all kinda interesting and entertaining but not really worthwhile?

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I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.

Seaver

No. I refuse to support the Tea Party because of it's anti-intellectualism. They turned to supporting politicians which openly brag about being ignorant and assume anyone who actually understands, or strives to understand, complex situations as "elitist".

__________________
"Smite the rocks with the rod of knowledge, and fountains of unstinted wealth will gush forth." - Ashbel Smith as he laid the first cornerstone of the University of Texas

pan6467

This is just such a fucking miscaricature it's pathetic. It's like saying the Dems hate the rich (even tho most in the top echelons are), they hate and blame the White WASP man for everything, they make mockeries of "traditional family values" such as monogamous heterosexual marriages and raising their kids with spankings if needed, they hate management, they want gas up to $10 a gallon and force people thru economic blackmail and inaffordability their values, they hate everything the government spends money on except social programs and sending billions upon billions to other countries, they would rather dismantle the military totally and let us be invaded.

There maybe radicals on the far left that believe a few of those but not all of them and if someone here categorized the whole party that way, people would be jumping their shit and telling them how hateful they are.

But it's ok if Willravel categorizes a group of people as hatemongering ultra right wing nuts.

As one who likes what the Tea Party stands for in principle but doesn't like the fact it is basically being used by people like Beck and Levine, i can say that no one I know in the tea party is the hateful person you describe.

Most are people trying to hold onto what they have and are living in fear because BOTH parties care more about power and getting through what they want than the people they are supposedly serving.

They see Marie Antoinette... err Michelle Obama taking trips while millions are losing everything. They see billions of our tax dollars going overseas but then social services here being cut and taxes going up.

The vast majority of tea partiers I know aren't so much worried about gay marriage, abortion and race... but they do care about illegal immigration that is bankrupting states, raising crime rates, taking jobs away, they do care about money spent to promote social issues that the PEOPLE should vote on and not be dictated to accept. They want a government responsible and responsive to the people not special interest groups, lobbyists and the wealthy.

The problem lies not in the tea party values and what it stands for, the problem lies in mischaracterizations like WillRavel's and the media's and the wack jobs using the party to put forth their own agendas.

The problem lies in the fact that this is a grassroots movement that could be very strong and influence elections with a core value of rebuilding America, but is instead lacking leadership strong enough to kick out the Levines and Becks and stand up to the left leaning media that wants to mislabel and scare people away from the party.

---------- Post added at 04:24 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:08 PM ----------

Why does the press seem to want to just show the negative very minute minority, and not show the signs that demonstrate what they truly stand for.

But be part of the hate and continue pushing it, instead of meaningful debate with real members that don't believe in those signs. I wonder how many of those people carrying those signs were plants to push an agenda from people on the left trying to trivialize and mischaracterize the Tea Party.

I will say this, the last picture is one I see as not that negative. I see a lot of the Left trashing our country, and a guy who wants to take pride in it. It's ok for Rev. wright to say God Damn America, but not for this guy to say "Damn Obama"? People on the left were saying far worse about Bush.

But the second sign that probably wasn't meant to get any attention, "End the Federal Reserve Now" is an example of the majority of signs you will see at Tea Party demonstrations.

__________________
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?"

Willravel

Pathetic is defending bigots. Every single Tea party I've personally been to as well as countless images from all of the Tea Parties tell a tale not even you can spin. They're people united by fear and hatred. All the lies and false comparisons in the world can't change that. Deal with it.
I don't need to categorize anyone as anything, they do it themselves. Remember Mark Williams, one of the few actual leaders in the Tea Party movement? If you don't, google him. It not that a few bad apples in the Tea Party are racist, it's that a lot of them show up to every single rally and no one at the rallies EVER asks them to leave or disagrees with them.
Which is?
What specifically has Michelle Obama done that's in any way like the characterization of Marie Antoinette? Don't ignore this, I don't like hit-and-run comments like this. If I called Laura Bush an ignorant dilettante, I'd have backed it up so be prepared to do the same.
Why do you so obstinately ignore the obvious? How deep-seated is your cognitive dissonance? These signs are THE NORM. They're at all the rallies and they're never asked to leave. All you're doing by defending them is showing your unabashed bias.

Edit: Sorry, I know I keep editing these after posting them, but I have more to say.

In Philadelphia a week or so ago, there was a 'UniTea' event, a Tea party affiliated event that was supposed to demonstrate the racial diversity of the Tea Party. Guess how many people showed up? Less than 200, including about a dozen media. And almost all of them were white.

FuglyStick

Apparently Pan is prone to sucking up catchy sound bites.

Tell us again, Pan, how you are immune to the persuasions of main stream media. The fact is, you'll enlist any rhetoric that supports your position.

You're a hypocrite.

__________________
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dogzilla

Oh really? Then the liberals have some house cleaning to do to disown people like Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan, Jeremiah Wright, etc.

The people in the Tea Party that I know aren't into any of the above. They just want the federal government to keep it's hand out of their wallets.

I for one am fed up with handing over my income to those who are unwilling to work.

Willravel

I'd love it if you would point out where instances of racism or foolishness done by any of those people were defended by anyone here. Please, I'll wait.

Until then, it's a tu quoque fallacy and it's not going to fly. The Tea Party is a hate group.

dogzilla

I don't see anyone condemning them either. It would take me about a half hour to come back with at least one instance of a bigoted, racist or hateful remark from each of the above.

The Tea Party is a hate group because you say it is? I really don't think so. It probably wouldn't take me too long to find similar remarks from members of some liberal groups as well.

The_Dunedan

And you are a bigot.

Remember how the Tea Party -has- no leaders, bigot? Or did you conveniantly forget that part in your rush to smear honest people with honest concerns?

Remember, bigot, how Mr. Williams was told, in no uncertain terms, to getthafuckout after his little tirade? By a BLACK Tea Party member, remember!? And remember how many folks stood with that BLACK Tea Party member and supported Mr. William's shunning and ejection!? Or is that all too inconvenient because it blows your bigoted preconception of your opponents as racist Neandertals clean out of the water? Kinda like Baraka's data from a few weeks ago, showing the TP to be 12-20% MINORITY?!

Your entire disgusting, slanderous, libellous, calumnous and utterly unsupported caricature of the Tea Party has been gained by hanging around with leftist "counter-protestors" who spent the whole time jerking each other's dicks and reassuring each other that "those people over there" were nothing but hateful bigoted rightwing fearmongers led on by the nose. I can smell it in every word you type. You never "attended" any TP rallies or actually TALKED TO any TP members: you just hung around sneering from the sidelines with plenty of your leftist supporters present to validate your bigotry and prejudice.

Oh, and by the way, you might want to look up an outfit called crashtheteaparty.com. A fair number of those signs probably -are- from leftist plants (who are quite up-front about their plans), and they're playing you like a fiddle in the tune of KKK.

And I would -dearly- love for -you- to point out where anybody here supported Mark Williams. I would -dearly- love for you to point out where the majority of TP attendees supported such a thing. But you can't, except to point to any marginally non-PC sign (dozens or hundreds of such signs out of tens or hundreds of thousands in total) or placard, indeed anything which portrays Massa Obama in anything other than favorable and totally realistic light, as evidence of racism.

Satire? RACISM!
Play on words? RACISM!
Altered image? RACISM! Jesus H. CHRIST don't you people have anything to contribute other than "you evil RACIST hatemonger you!"???

You're so fucking full of shit your eyes are floating.

roachboy

__________________
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it make you sick.

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Willravel

I don't hate white people or older people or Republican people or any people. Nothing in what I've said suggests any kind of hatred.
I'm talking about the Tea Party, not honest people with honest concerns.

The Tea Party has leaders. Their names are Beck and Palin and Hannity, but those leaders almost never take an active role in organizing events. For that, there are lower-level leaders like Mark Williams (mostly, the leaders are either talk-radio hosts or racist lunatics). Williams is hardly the exception, though. There's Dale Robertson, the operator of Teaparty.org, who is actually the guy in the picture I posted above with the sign that reads “Congress = Slaveowner, Taxpayer = Niggar.” There's the head of the Springboro Tea Party, Sonny Thomas, who posted on his twitter: “Illegals everywhere today! So many spics makes me feel like a speck. Grrr. Wheres my gun!?” And that's just scratching the surface. I've got a bookmark folder full of these people that I'd be glad to share. The question is: when will you run out of excuses?
He was told to get out by the NAACP first. The Tea Party only kicked him out AFTER the NAACP decided to go after Mark Williams. Did you intentionally leave that part out or were you unaware?
Wait, you're proud that the Tea Party is 12-20% (that's a hell of a margin) non-white? Here's the actual findings of the CNN poll (which isn't scientific):
Source
Ouch.
You've yet to actually demonstrate via verifiable evidence or compelling argument that I'm wrong. All you're doing is attacking me, which is useless in debate. Ad homs are fallacies for a reason.
I've attended several. Here's a post from April 15, 2009 where I actually posted pictures I took myself from the first Tea Party protest I attended. So there you have real, actual, photographic evidence I've been to at least one of these things.

Tully Mars

Having not been to to any Tea Parties I have no idea if they're mostly racist or not. I know when Bush was POTUS I didn't agree with much of anything he did after he invaded iraq. Still I would not have attended any event showing him being burned in effigy or dressed up like a monkey. If someone wanted to have an honest discussion regarding options to change the course he set the country on I'd have no problem attending that. And I think that's my problem with the Tea Party folks. I don't think their being honest in their debate. They want to lower taxes. They're tried of the government taking their money. I hate to tell you this but your money's already spent and you I and every other US voter basically let that happen. "Hey let's go to war, spend billions and billions of dollars we don't have and just for good measure let's lower taxes at the same time. The money for the war? Oh, just borrow it." Yeah, that'll work out great. Where were you guys when all this spending was going on? I hear a lot of my friends who agree with the Tea Party state they weren't happy about the spending Bush did. Problem with that is I knew them then and I remember them cheer leading just about everything that guy did. So I call BULL SHIT. Taxes are at there lowest levels since Truman was in office and the Tea party folks have no interest in coming up with realistic solutions to keep us from passing on to our grand children the massive debt we've run up. All I hear is lower my taxes, spend less, I'm tried of paying people not to work. None of that solves the problems we currently face.

__________________
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FuglyStick

Speaks for itself, don't it?

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powerclown

Its nonsense and you know it. Or maybe you don't. Anyway, what it is in my eyes is a nationwide expression of conservative dissatisfaction with what they see as a government gone too far left and if you ask me they have a reason to be pissed what with all the government intervention and policy decision made by the Obama Administration. If its possible for you to read between the lines, exuberant posters and bread and circuses you couldn't miss the ideological point being made. You point out the worst elements and characterize it as defining the mainstream but then where have we seen that before. The ironic thing is you yourself used to be the poster child against stereotyping like this. What you say about this perfectly democratic and healthy process of dissent is akin to saying all muslims are terrorists. Or maybe you're just having a bad day.

Willravel

Saying it's nonsense is one thing, demonstrating it is another. Plenty of people seem to disagree with me here, but none of them seem willing to show me why. You're welcome, powerclown, to actually demonstrate the Tea Party isn't a hate group. You can disprove the evidence or arguments I've used or you can introduce new ones. I promise I'll read all of them and do my best to objectively consider them. Until then, though, all you're doing is giving me your conclusions. You're not showing your work.

dogzilla

Federal revenue is in the range of $2.5 trillion. If the federal deficit jumps from $400 billion to over $1 trillion, that's a huge step in the wrong direction.

If we do nothing other than cut spending severely, and bring the deficit down, with the goal within a few years to return to surpluses and stay there, that will help solve the long term debt problem.

If we get a significant percentage of the freeloaders that do not pay income taxes, currently in the range of 46% of the US population, then those of us who do pay taxes can have our taxes reduced since more people are paying their share.

I learned years ago that I cannot continually borrow money and borrow my way to prosperity. Neither can Obama.

Seaver

Again... I hate to point out that I'm a conservative but the Reagan supply-side economics only work in healthy economies. For the last 30 years the middle and lower class have seen 0 sum in income increase... it hasn't even kept up with inflation. The top 10% have seen a 200% increase, the top 1% have seen even more. Why would you try to soak money out of people who have none to spare and not ask for more from whom are simply letting it sit in the bank?

Don't tell me it's about re-investment, every study EVER has shown the reduction in money multiplication the higher up the ladder you go. An extra $2k to those in the lower and middle class are almost immediately spent... where the extra $2k in the upper class simply sits in the bank unused.

__________________
"Smite the rocks with the rod of knowledge, and fountains of unstinted wealth will gush forth." - Ashbel Smith as he laid the first cornerstone of the University of Texas

powerclown

You really think the core principle at work here with this tea party movement (the ideological center that organized it, not the fringe window dressing) is hate?

Not dissatisfaction with Obama's policies, but hate?

Hate?

Hate of what?

Willravel

It's not about how the Tea Party describes itself that matters. I could describe myself as a 9' tall, three-legged albino but that wouldn't make it true. The supposed "principles" of the Tea Party-the bailouts were bad, taxes are bad, socialized medicine is bad-have nothing to do with why they gather and what they actually say at the rallies.

Would you care to post evidence the Tea Party isn't generally a movement based on hatred of minorities, hatred of homosexuals, hatred of abortion, hatred of President Obama, hatred of the poor, etc? Would you care to bring facts to the table?

Baraka_Guru

I don't know. Is it possible that the U.S. is undertaxed? I think many problems would be solved if 1) they brought the tax revenue as a % of GDP up to the OECD average (another 8 or so points), or 2) reduce the military expenditures as a percentage of GDP (2008) (4.3%) to levels of that of, say, Japan (0.9%), Turkey (2.2%), or Mexico (0.5%). But that would mean cutting it in half at least. Or doubling GDP, whatever.... Maybe they could use the military money to develop better efficiencies in the health care system. You know, practical crossovers of technology much like the space program to the military?

It's too bad that the Tea Party seems to want to turn a blind eye to how much the military is costing them. Well, I don't recall them being too concerned anyway. They're more afraid of the "socialist" health care, and not so much concerned about the runaway militarism. How long have the effects of the military industrial complex been in effect now? Are you Americans getting a good bang for your buck?

Of course, you can't put a price on security. It just seems too bad that you have to go broke to pull it off.

Enjoy your $700-billion monster. I hope it doesn't wreck things too much abroad and at home.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Tully Mars

And when was it at 400 billion and when did it jump to 1.3 trillion? Who was in charge when that happened? Fiscal conservatives have become an oxymoron. Every time they've had their hand on the checkbook the debt and deficit has increased. Well I think Bush Sr. made solid efforts to keep that from happening, he might have been more level headed. But basically conservatism has become a huge joke, a con pulled on the US tax payer. It's probably best Goldwater is dead, I have no doubt would have a stroke if he saw what has become of his movement.



Ok I'll listen. Tell me what are you going to cut. Where and how much? How are you going to make up for what's already been spent. Most of the talk I've heard on this has been pure fantasy. Hey we'll cut spending and get rid of the fat and we'll all live happily every after. I have yet to hear/read one of these plans that will actually address the huge problems the US is facing. All have been a kin to having a car with three flat tires and deciding the best way to fix that funny noise it's making is it tear apart the dash. Sorry no easy fixes to this mess. No, dressing up like Ben Franklin ring a bell and yelling "no more taxes" will not fix this problem. Chanting "drill baby, drill" won't help either. It a complicated problem and all the real solutions require difficult decisions. Any real solution is almost undoubtedly, at this point, going hurt everyone some how. The neo-cons and the so called fiscal conservatives have left a great big shit sandwich on the table and I hate to say it but we're all going to have to take a bite.

I refuse to see my fellow Americans as free loaders, sorry. Just doesn't wash with what I know of them. Sure to can find some jack wad working the system. But I think by far most Americans are hard working honest people just trying their best in life. I'm more inclined to believe those not pulling their weight are trust fund baby who've been allowed to inherit fortunes tax free. In 2010 with the debt racing for the toilet the estate tax will be -0-. So if you're going to get 40 billion you'll get the whole thing free and clear. You won't have to worry about only having 20-30 billion. Lucky you.


As Seaver points out above, year after year the upper 10% have managed to get more and more while the rest of the country is struggling to stay above water. The idea that America is half full of free loaders is actually kind of offensive if you ask me.


Sure wish Bush and the neo-cons would have figure this out when you did. Might not be in this huge mess if they had.

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Derwood

Will, I hate to call you out, but asking people to prove a negative is bad debate form

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powerclown

It seems to me what you're describing is a movement along the lines of the KKK or a skinhead white supremacist group. This is a mainstream republican, conservative political movement. Now if your calling conservative republicans in general racists and people filled with hate thats one thing, but I think you're using the fringe of the movement to drive your argument which would therefore render it moot.

So which is it? Are you calling mainstream conservatives and republicans racists and people driven by hate or are you referring to the typically boisterous minority within the movement?

Tully Mars

Yes it is possible. Not only possible but highly likely I'd say. Honest real solutions at this point include massive cuts to spending including the military, upping the retirement age for everyone to 70-72 and increasing taxes rates by 10-20%.


Part of the problem, in my opinion is we're providing security for everyone. Basically started during the cold war and once the ball got rolling no one even tried to stop it. So now we're it. We're the one super power left. Last man standing so to speak and willing to spend billions to maintain that status.

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I used to drink to drown my sorrows, but the damned things have learned how to swim- Frida Kahlo

Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club