The Smearing of the Tea Party

[88Mariner]

Re: The Smearing of the Tea Party

National Health is a public good. People looking after its own citizens. It’s like this whole patriot nonsense. We wave the patriotic flag, but really we couldn't give a fuck about each other. The army is not public when most of the country oppose an invasion but the government still sends them to war anyway.

governments don't exist to make sure you don't eat too many twinkies. governments exist to protect men from criminals via policing, to settle disputes among men via the court system that it maintains, and to protect men from foreign invasion or threats.

transportation isn't a right. food isn't a right. you have no right to property unless you purchase it. and so on...

the army IS public. no way around that. You want to end the wars? me too. I've been waiting for years. Too bad the lame-ass liberals stopped shouting when Obama was elected. Good, pacifistic sheep.


Being patriotic and 'giving a fuck about each other' are two distinct things. One is about taking pride in one's country. The other is a complaint that we don't exist like ants in a hive.

[88Mariner]

Re: The Smearing of the Tea Party

Let me preface this by reaffirming that Jared Lee Loughner is a Grade A, first class, USDA Prime nutball. I have no idea if he was a teapartier, a republican, a democrat, a communist, whatever, and I don't think it really matters. The suggestion that he tried to assassinate Giffords because Sarah Palin put a gun sight on her district is ridiculous.

Equally ridiculous, however, is the suggestion that none of the violent language and imagery used by the talking heads on the right contributes to an environment where this sort of thing can happen. It takes absolutely zero effort to find numerous recent examples of right wingers invoking violence in political rhetoric, whether it's references to armed revolution, taking people "out," or "Second Amendment remedies." The list goes on and on, and even if there are examples of this same sort of rhetoric coming out of the loonies on the left, they are certainly far fewer than what we see on the right. That should be beyond serious dispute.

The world is a big and varied place, and when you pump this sort of vitriol into the popular consciousness, it goes to everyone, not just the people that understand that you're speaking metaphorically and can practice self-control. Back at the time of the gun-sight-map thing, Giffords herself noted: "For example, we’re on Sarah Palin’s targeted list, but the way she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gunsight over our district. And when people do that, they’ve gotta realize that there’s consequences to that action."

Would this have happened were it not for Palin putting a gunsight on Gifford's district? Probably. Would it have happened in the absence of all of this imagery and verbiage being used over the past couple of years? Who knows, but I think it's tough to say that none of it matters, that it has no impact upon society as a whole. There were a number of police officers that were shot by right wingers shortly after Obama got elected, and their stated reason for shooting them was that they were concerned that the government was coming to take their guns. Does that sort of thing happen in the absence of the BS coming from the far right suggestion that Obama is going to take away your guns? Uh, I doubt it.

I guess the point of it all is that while I'm not blaming those on the far right for this incident, I don't think they can wash their hands of the fact that they've contributed to creating an environment where the possibility that some whackjob is going to lose it and take it out on someone in a position of authority is higher, either. There are consequences to these words that people throw out there...

"contributes to an environment where this sort of thing can happen"

ergo, there is no causation. no conection between Loughner and any words uttered from the right.

can we also blame violent rap lyrics on inner city crime rates? perhaps we could also blame violent video games, too. the very fact that you say 'who knows' to the querry "would this have happened in absence of all of this imagery' tells me you should DEFINITELY hold video games violent. Afterall, wasn't this kid posting on a gaming forum? I'm not sure why you still see a connection where none factually exists. "I don't blame them...i just think they contributed...." meaning.....what exactly? It's nebulous at best.

The call for 'civility' is merely a call to chill speech. This shit has been going on in the seventies. eighties. nineties...etc...

I wasn't alive when kennedy was shot, but I have read that liberals tried to pin the murder on anyone but the commie asshole who pulled the trigger. The more things change, the more things stay the same.

[chunky]

Re: The Smearing of the Tea Party

governments don't exist to make sure you don't eat too many twinkies. governments exist to protect men from criminals via policing, to settle disputes among men via the court system that it maintains, and to protect men from foreign invasion or threats

transportation isn't a right. food isn't a right. you have no right to property unless you purchase it. and so on...

Governments exist to protect men from criminals, many people in government are criminals who exploit the court system that they maintain. And when was the last time the US suffered an invasion.

Food isn't a right but killing people in foreign country's to steal resources is. And how can you take pride in your country if you don't give a fuck about the people in it?

[trick12]

Re: The Smearing of the Tea Party

When was the last time the US or the UK attacked a county that attacked the country back? Not in my life time.

i was saying "if a country..?" as in general, not really specifying the US or UK...

[chunky]

Re: The Smearing of the Tea Party

Plenty of people didn't have a problem with slavery years ago. Most of them because they where brought up in an environment where that was considered normal. No different than people religious beliefs, people believe in the religion they are brought up in. In the US you don't want to pay for society’s healthcare because that is the environment you where brought up in. In the UK & Australia no one cares about paying for a healthcare system. I recon this healthcare debate is more about greed than anything else.

[DIDI]

Re: The Smearing of the Tea Party

Let me preface this by reaffirming that Jared Lee Loughner is a Grade A, first class, USDA Prime nutball. I have no idea if he was a teapartier, a republican, a democrat, a communist, whatever, and I don't think it really matters. The suggestion that he tried to assassinate Giffords because Sarah Palin put a gun sight on her district is ridiculous.

Equally ridiculous, however, is the suggestion that none of the violent language and imagery used by the talking heads on the right contributes to an environment where this sort of thing can happen. It takes absolutely zero effort to find numerous recent examples of right wingers invoking violence in political rhetoric, whether it's references to armed revolution, taking people "out," or "Second Amendment remedies." The list goes on and on, and even if there are examples of this same sort of rhetoric coming out of the loonies on the left, they are certainly far fewer than what we see on the right. That should be beyond serious dispute.

The world is a big and varied place, and when you pump this sort of vitriol into the popular consciousness, it goes to everyone, not just the people that understand that you're speaking metaphorically and can practice self-control. Back at the time of the gun-sight-map thing, Giffords herself noted: "For example, we’re on Sarah Palin’s targeted list, but the way she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gunsight over our district. And when people do that, they’ve gotta realize that there’s consequences to that action."

Would this have happened were it not for Palin putting a gunsight on Gifford's district? Probably. Would it have happened in the absence of all of this imagery and verbiage being used over the past couple of years? Who knows, but I think it's tough to say that none of it matters, that it has no impact upon society as a whole. There were a number of police officers that were shot by right wingers shortly after Obama got elected, and their stated reason for shooting them was that they were concerned that the government was coming to take their guns. Does that sort of thing happen in the absence of the BS coming from the far right suggestion that Obama is going to take away your guns? Uh, I doubt it.

I guess the point of it all is that while I'm not blaming those on the far right for this incident, I don't think they can wash their hands of the fact that they've contributed to creating an environment where the possibility that some whackjob is going to lose it and take it out on someone in a position of authority is higher, either. There are consequences to these words that people throw out there...

YES!!! Beautifully said. . Reason and logic !

Re health care. A healthy population is good economically . Our health care dollar goes an awful lot further than America's. This subject deserves it's own thread. Some really good points have been made by various posters.

[DIDI]

Re: The Smearing of the Tea Party

[DIDI]

Re: The Smearing of the Tea Party

USA bankruptcies for Medical bills http://articles.cnn.com/2009-06-05/h...e?_s=PM:HEALTH 60% of bankruptcies.

Australia ?? Doesn't seem to happen.

[dig72]

Re: The Smearing of the Tea Party

^ Weird that.

[dig72]

Re: The Smearing of the Tea Party

Nobody has a right to private goods or services.

Of COURSE nobody in australia wishes it to be gone. They're having access to a private good paid for by the hard work of other people. If you rob peter to pay paul, you can always expect the support of paul.

As the old saying goes, " A society is measured by how it treats the weak and vulnerable".

And it's all payed for by taxes.

Robbing on the other hand is what the US is doing in Iraq and Afghanistan, robbing is what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians.

Don't confuse the two.

[dig72]

Re: The Smearing of the Tea Party

In the UK & Australia no one cares about paying for a healthcare system. I recon this healthcare debate is more about greed than anything else.

It's the one thing alot Aussies are proud of.

Well over a trillion dollars has been wasted on the Iraq and Afghan "wars" and with no end in sight. And yet you have morons debating about where the money will come from and who will pay for it.

[runningman]

Re: The Smearing of the Tea Party

thank you for proving my point florida. I don't really feel that way I just wanted a third party to point out that generalizations are ridiculous! Tea partiers aren't bad people just like most repubs and dems aren't.

Jedi trick worked.


Oh ya and Toasty what did you think was going to happen with drugged up people not working and guns and ammo at their disposal?

[DIDI]

Re: The Smearing of the Tea Party

Plenty of people didn't have a problem with slavery years ago. Most of them because they where brought up in an environment where that was considered normal. No different than people religious beliefs, people believe in the religion they are brought up in. In the US you don't want to pay for society’s healthcare because that is the environment you where brought up in. In the UK & Australia no one cares about paying for a healthcare system. I recon this healthcare debate is more about greed than anything else.

That theory doesn't work for us. Our Health care system isn't all that old. Plus we realise we are actually better off financially on every level. We actually got it twice. The Whitlam government gave it to us and then the Liberal party, by liberal they don't actually mean liberal , took it away. We had to get another Labor Government before we got it back, and it has been damaged quite a bit by the last Liberal Government. But the population were always on side .

Even with it's faults it's great !! If you go into any public hospital you are treated exactly the same regardless of your insurance status. We do have a thriving private health industry as well . Although they are actually subsidised out of our taxes!! So it not strictly speaking socialised medicine. Our public hospitals are where all the major stuff happens . Even if you have private health insurance if you have a serious problem you will end up in one of our big public hospitals simply because that is what they do best. We go in cycles, Liberals [Conservatives] tear it down. Labor builds it up again. But no government would dare to remove our Medicare now.

One way or the other it is so far in front of America's health system it's like another world. It costs far less to everyone , we have world class public hospitals, we have private and public working together. Best of all if something happens to us we know we will be looked after and not have to mortgage our home. As I said, not perfect, and most of the not perfect was keeping private industry happy, But so glad we have it. So yes, proud !!

You are absolutely right about the greed !!

[vinnie97]

Re: The Smearing of the Tea Party

The govt. is inefficient (not to mention corrupt) at everything it does, and adding the responsibility of insuring everyone or sticking them with a penalty for breathing when the US is insolvent is asking for trouble. I have no idea how the govt. can even continue to function without cuts in Medicare and Social Security and others. The fact that 222 companies received waivers to opt out of some of the new law's requirements shows that it's flawed legislation. The new paperwork requirements alone add more administrative costs that could be better spent elsewhere. Speaking of greed, ambulance chasers and tort reform in general, as previously mentioned, need to be seriously addressed. I'm not about to make a comparison to the quality of insurance available in Australia, but everything comes at a cost. Oh yea, defense spending in 2010 was just 20% of the budget but I am in agreement with everybody else about the fruitlessness and waste spent on the war in Afghanistan that seems to accomplish nothing of any value.

On the Loughner topic, I'm also amazed at how a few of you are somehow blaming the right yet completely ignoring the vitriol instigated by the left as already revealed in riveting and extensive detail. Michelle Malkin is again dead-on in reminding us how the mainstream media and govt. leadership tries to paint almost every violent act as the fault of some right-wing radical, yet those are clearly in the minority: http://townhall.com/columnists/Miche...ory/page/full/

In April 2009, a disgruntled, unemployed loser shot and killed three Pittsburgh police officers in a horrifying bloodbath. The gunman, Richard Poplawski, was a dropout from the Marines who threw a food tray at a drill sergeant and had beaten his girlfriend. Was this deranged shooter who pulled the trigger to blame? Nope. Despite evidence that Poplawski's homicidal, racist tendencies manifested themselves years before Obama took office, lefty publications asserted that the real culprit of the spree was the "heated, apocalyptic rhetoric of the anti-Obama forces" (according to mainstream liberal Atlantic Monthly pundit Andrew Sullivan), along with Fox News and Glenn Beck (according to mainstream liberal journalist Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly online).

That same month, a sick, evil man named Jiverly Voong ambushed an immigration center in Binghamton, N.Y. Recently fired from his job, Voong murdered 13 people, critically wounded four others and then committed suicide. The instant psychologists of the left knew nothing about the disgruntled man of Vietnamese descent and undetermined political affiliation. But within hours of the shooting, liberal mega-website Huffington Post commenters had overwhelmingly convicted GOP Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, the National Rifle Association, Fox News, Lou Dobbs and yours truly. Liberal radio host Alan Colmes pointed his finger at the "huge anti-immigrant backlash in this country" -- never mind that tens of millions of legal immigrants and naturalized citizens have coped with hardship, overcome racism and embraced assimilation without going bloody bonkers.

In June 2009, a depraved, elderly anti-Semite named James von Brunn gunned down a security guard at the Holocaust Museum in D.C. Washington Post blogger Greg Sargent and lefty Center for American Progress think-tank fellow Matthew Yglesias immediately invoked the Obama administration's report on right-wing extremism, leading to a wider chorus of condemnations against the tea party, talk radio and the entire GOP. The truth? Von Brunn was an unstable, equal-opportunity hater and 9/11 Truther conspiracy loon who bashed Jews and Christians, George W. Bush and Fox News, and had also threatened the conservative Weekly Standard magazine.

In late August 2009, as lawmakers faced citizen revolts at health care town halls nationwide, the Colorado Democratic Party decried a window-smashing vandalism attack at its Denver headquarters. State Democratic Party Chair Pat Waak singled out tea party activists and blamed "people opposed to health care" for the attack. The perpetrator, Maurice Schwenkler, turned out to be a far-left transgender activist/single-payer anarchist who had worked for a labor union-tied political committee and canvassed for a Democratic candidate.

In September 2009, Bill Sparkman, a federal U.S. Census worker, was found dead in a secluded rural Kentucky cemetery with the word "Fed" scrawled on his chest with a rope around his neck. The Atlantic Monthly's Andrew Sullivan rushed to indict "Southern populist terrorism, whipped up by the GOP and its Fox and talk radio cohorts" in an online magazine post titled "No Suicide," which decried the "Kentucky lynching." Liberal author Richard Benjamin blamed "anti-government" bile. New York magazine fingered conservative talk radio giant Rush Limbaugh, "conservative media personalities, websites and even members of Congress." So, who killed Bill Sparkman? Bill Sparkman. He killed himself and deliberately manufactured a hate crime hoax as part of an insurance scam to benefit his surviving son.

In February 2010, ticking time-bomb professor Amy Bishop gunned down three of her colleagues at University of Alabama-Huntsville, and suicide pilot Joseph Andrew Stack flew a stolen small plane into an Austin, Texas, office complex that contained an Internal Revenue Service office. Mainstream journalists from Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart to Time magazine reporter Hilary Hylton leaped forward to tie the crimes to tea party rhetoric. Never mind that Bishop was an Obama-worshiping academic with a lifelong history of violence or that Stack was another Bush-hater outraged about everything from George W. Bush to the American medical system to the evils of capitalism to the city of Austin, the Catholic Church and airlines.

In May 2010, liberal New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg tried to preemptively pin the Times Square bombing attempt on "someone with a political agenda that doesn't like the health care bill or something." The culprit was unrepentant Muslim jihadist Faisal Shahzad.

In August 2010, Democratic supporters of Missouri Rep. Russ Carnahan blamed a "firebombing" at the congressman's St. Louis office on tea party suspects. The real perpetrator? Disgruntled progressive activist Chris Powers, who was enraged over a paycheck dispute.

Her "9/11 truther conspiracy loon" comment notwithstanding, I'll give her some credit. ;-)

She didn't even mention the dude who shot up a school board (but missed fortunately) because his wife was fired. Again, not remotely tea party members.

[chunky]

Re: The Smearing of the Tea Party

i was saying "if a country..?" as in general, not really specifying the US or UK...

If any country is attacked it has the right to retaliate, but why where they attacked in the first place. If both country's have the same military might they will very rarely attack each other. Attacks usually happen when the odds are stacked in favor of one country.