Tea Party/Libertarian/Republican question

Post Reply New Topic

the "wrong" thing here is the use of the term "trite," in cruelly dismissing the concerns of vulnerable people who depend on government services that the private sector consistently fails to deliver in an affordable manner. "privately capitalized organizations" have totally failed to provide affordable quality healthcare to tens of millions of american citizens, for decades.

Then you obviously conflate rhetoric with policy.



I sorta think incidents like this may be to blame:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S38VioxnBaI[/youtube]

And you really would have to be ignorant as hell of the past 50 years of US history to think the claim of racism is out of the blue. The GOP's Southern Strategy relied on racism and much of Ronald Reagan's (public consultant's) rhetoric relied on code words racists would salivate to ("Welfare Queens" or "State's Rights" in a place where Civil Rights activists had been shot down by the original states' rights activists).

Yeah, 'cause all the New Age vegans are just bending over backwards to appeal to Neo-Nazis.

You've once again completely missed my point; whether that's a deliberate strategy or not is still up in the air. What I was referring to was the common crude debating tactic of dismissing something by attributing it to someone odious rather than actually addressing it, Hitler being the most common example of an odious person. My point was that Hitler was also a vegetarian, into weird spiritual things, and a gun control supporter yet people who also support those things are not called Nazis.

Deleted double post.

Last edited by Dox47 on 10 Oct 2010, 9:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

That's like saying it's a failure of the private sector when rent-controlled apartments are falling apart.

There are many reasons health care in the US is so expensive, and they are mostly government imposed. Mainly, the tax exemption of employer provided health care has encouraged third party payment of all medical care, even routine medical care that wouldn't fall under the traditional meaning of 'insurance' (your auto insurance doesn't pay for your oil changes (and notice how cheaply you can get your oil changed compared to body work, which your insurance does cover (just look at the labor prices))).

Check out this article (by Nobel prize winning economist Milton Friedman): http://www.hoover.org/publications/hoov ... ticle/7298

And the main reason people who support those things are not called Nazis is because they don't go out of their way to appeal to Nazis. The main reason why the poor little GOP is called racist is because it's entire electoral strategy was based on chipping the New Deal Coalition apart on the basis of race. The reason Tea Partisans are called racist is because there's quite a few vocal, active racists in the Tea Party whose racially charged rhetoric is accepted.

On a side note, if I believed in Karma the fact that the GOP is imploding over its own wedge issues now would be the finest illustration of it.

as a member of the meadow party, i view human politics with a curious eye. one thing i find interesting is that a republican candidate for the u. s. house is a tea party guy who until recently was a ww2 war re-inactor. he and his pals were recreating a nazi ss unit. the photos are just too much. he says he did it because he admires the nazi war machine as it took over europe, etc.

hope he wasn't counting heavily on the jewish vote.

bill the cat and opus in 2012. they drink tea, not run on it.

There's a sentiment I can get behind!

a writer on wp recently trashed me for reporting ss stuff. that's what i've come to expect from political type hacks....they never say what you write/say is incorrect, they just attack the messenger. maybe it's shawn hannity in cognito. i think america deserves......i'm not a witch, or maybe sharron angle, or trade a chicken for health care lady. remember the saying....you have to destroy the village to save the village. usa may have reached that point.

Yea. And people don't realize there's a problem until they are personally affected by it. That's what's so maddening about it. People just don't seem to care if they're not personally affected. It makes me sick.

My main hope is that wedge issues reveal the internal contradictions of the two major political parties to such an extent whereas the Two-Party system becomes unworkable and IRV is instated, allowing multi-party competition.

The problem with lighting that particular fire is the uncertainty of how far it would spread.

I agree with some other posters - its a convenience factor, that and sadly there is a significant enough percentage of the population who's hair might catch fire if the news media forced them to process a deeper thought.

I think personally though they came along at a good time. We're in a position where we're really thinking about shifting the balance of government and private sector spending considerably, whether or not that's a good idea is a debate that needs to be out there.

The problem, namely speaking, is:

A) The Tea Parties are very incoherent and the rank and file are rather misinformed about the actual state of government.
B) The Tea Parties are funded extensively by corporate outlets that are less interested in having a serious discussion about reducing government across the board (i.e. corporate welfare as well as social welfare) as they are about red baiting potential regulators.
C) There still is ample evidence that many Tea Party activists are motivated by a racial factor and that'll obscure any serious debate.
D) The Tea Party message isn't that deep and the "most trusted name in cable news" is promoting them.

The validity of the message is independent of who is sponsoring it. Hanging an albatross around the neck of the sponsor or promoter is a form of agrumentum ad homonum.

The main complaint of the Tea Party folk is that the U.S. government is acting in an unconstitutional manner which may be true or false. That is the "hot" issue. The U.S. government has been playing hob with the Constitution at least since the time of FDR. The particular offense is the perverse interpretation of the Interstate Commerce Clause which under current interpretation and usage gives Congress control over the minutest portion of our lives. I seriously doubt this is what the Founders had in mind in 1787. If the people of this country want the government to regulate every last aspect of their lives, they should seriously consider rewriting the constitution instead of distorting it.

ruveyn