A brilliantly-written, and too true, post at Letters to the Earth puts Teabagger nuttery in a nutshell:
You claim to be stalwart patriots defending the Constitution, fighting government tyranny with its insidious plan to take away your freedoms. Yet because you stood conspicuously silent while the Bush administration curtailed your freedom of speech, spied on you, invaded your privacy, eviscerated the principle of habeas corpus and fundamentally emasculated the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th ammendments of the Bill of Rights, you have no credibility.
You claim to oppose health care reform because it will increase the deficit and burden your children with higher taxes. But the only nonpartisan (read: unbiased) organization capable of making a reasonable analysis of the budget consequences of the reform bill states that it will actually reduce the deficit somewhat over the first 10 years and significantly over the following 10 years. Meanwhile, you stood silent while the Bush administration cut taxes for the wealthy, mired us in two costly foreign wars with attendant nation building, and turned a budget surplus into the largest deficit in the nation’s history. (You also persist in idolizing Ronald Reagan, who tripled the national debt during his Presidency.) You have no credibility.
And when you then shout absolute bunk about imaginary “death panels” and the horror of “socialism,” or you rail against the terrifying notion that a government worker might “ration” your health care while you meekly acquiesce to a mid-level insurance employee doing precisely that, a person whose job requires that he maximize company profits by minimizing your health care, then you lack credibility.
There’s much more, even better. You have to read the whole thing.
leanleft
Kevin
tgirsch
Kevin T. Keith
Judd
This letter brings up some aspects within the tea party that are worth criticizing, however, characterizing all members as supporting the views listed above is inaccurate.
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/polls/90541-survey-four-in-10-tea-party-members-dem-or-indie
It is undeniable that the overall flavor of the party is what you would call “winger”-like, but that doesn’t describe everyone in the party – only a subset. 4 our of 10 members self-identifying as non-republicans or non-conservatives should convince you that this is not a one-flavor party, and that a significant portion of these tea partiers probably didn’t support the Bush admins wars or policies the way many GOPers in the party do. Anyone who affiliates with a political party should know that it’s difficult to embrace everything that your party stands for; you pick the party that is most agreeable to you.
I see this going in one of two ways: e
1) The leftists continue to flame with letters like the one you posted, characterizing the entire party as Bush-loving racists in hopes to win over the a-typical teapartiers e.g. black conservatives and non-whites and independents/democrats by way of frustrating them with how they are portrayed as members of this party…and this turns the tea party movement back into a GOP arm and it is then absorbed back into the GOP
2) The tea party fractures and the “wingers” within the movement head back to the GOP, which gives the movement broader appeal to independents and undecideds.
Barbie:
I don’t think that survey means what you think it means. Only 13% of tea partiers self-identify as Democrats, and they’re almost certainly “blue dogs.” Those that self-identify as independent are likely libertarians or similar. And no matter what their self-identification, it still doesn’t excuse remaining silent for the Bush offenses but suddenly getting all worked up when a Democrat decides to tackle health care reform.
That said, I see your option 2 as being the likely outcome. I don’t see #1 happening, because I don’t think “leftists” even want to win over the tea partiers. Liberals tend to view them as irrational nuts, so reasoning with them or trying to win them over seems both futile and counter-productive.
Who says they’ve all remained silent on the Bush offenses? Prove to me that the Dems and indeps who self-identify as Teabaggers supported Bush’s policies and actions, otherwise this is an empty accusation. Having Bush supporters in it is a character of the Tea Party, for sure, but it’s not a qualifying condition.
Barbie:
You’re missing the point. The point is that they apparently felt no need to angrily take to the streets when those other, arguably far worse infractions occurred.
which “they” are you talking about, and besides, says who? The point I’m making is that you can’t say that “no one in the tea party protested Bush wars or Bush policy back in the day”. Though only a small percentage claim to be democrats or independents, it doesn’t stand to reason that *those* democrats didn’t also rally against Bush, which is the point you’re pushing. Some of the Democrats in the movement were staunchly pro-Obama and anti-Bush and identified as life-long knee jerk bleeding heart liberal Dems.
I get your thinking, but what you’re saying boils down to “if they really were anti-Bush, they’d be on team Obama and not defecting towards the Tea Party movement.”
You don’t have much of a case for saying that, and even so, Bush is gone, move on, people change their minds. Even if someone who is or was pro-Bush, they’re entitled to not like the Obama adminstration policies, and arguing that they didn’t mind when Bush did x-and-such holds very little water. Different times, different situations, different actions. You’re trying to compare apples to oranges.
you know…never mind. I’m not going to base judgments on whether a person, or a group, rallied against Bush back in the day because doing so is stupid. If a person or group thought Bush was making sound moves back then, who’s to say their dislike for Obama’s policies and proposals are ridiculous? These are different presidents pushing different agendas and different issues entirely. I’m sick of hearing people talk about Bush, and things being blamed on the Bush admin. It’s a waste of time to focus on who should be blamed, rather on what the solution should be.
Well, as long as we’re in Iraq, people will continue saying how much Bush sucked.
In particular, as long as we’re spending money in Iraq, anyone who supported starting the war should and will be ridiculed when they complain about national debt.
And unless you have a way of getting us out of the royal clusterfuck Bush put us in, you’re gonna hear about how bad Bush was, and you can just suck it up.
Barbie:
Well done. I can’t think of anything to add to that.
Dan:
Who said Bush wasn’t bad? I admit I voted for him in 2000; I was very young and hadn’t yet learned the lesser of two evils is still evil. When 2004 rolled around and I’d had a four year taste of “big government conservatism” I did not support him because he’d wasted a whole bunch of money on stupid crap. So I’ll keep my soapbox, thank you very much.
*plants soapbox and climbs atop*
I will continue to complain about the national debt. Sure Iraq has added to it; wars tend to do that. World War II was expensive. The Cold War was expensive. Both times though we were confronted with evil people who wanted to do us great harm. I don’t like spending a bunch of money we don’t have but if it comes down to a choice between that or living under Commies or the Nazis domination then, well, here’s my credit card. I supported the invasion in 2003 because I believed what we were being told at the time; with the benefit of hindsight I might stake out a different position but since I’ve already been lumped in with the teabaggers for an opinion I held seven years ago….
Just as a general note, this specious argument I keep hearing from the left about how “Bush wasted a bunch of money needlessly on Iraq so what does it matter if Obama is spending money now?” needs to end. If I were a parent and one of my children claimed he ought not to get in trouble for wrapping the car around a tree because one of his siblings smashed the TV last week then Junior would be on the bad end of an asskicking.
I’m sick of hearing people talk about Bush, and things being blamed on the Bush admin. It’s a waste of time to focus on who should be blamed, rather on what the solution should be.
Yeah, fuck accountability, right? I mean, talk about wanting to have your cake and eat it too. So, the public (and Bush’s opponents) aren’t allowed to question him when he’s in the process of fucking things up, because if we do, we’re Commies and traitors. And, then, when it becomes undeniably apparent how much he fucked things up (as if it wasn’t glaringly obvious to anybody with a cursory understanding of our foreign policy history and the well-entrenched history and character of the players invovled – sorry, Judd), then we’re still not allowed to point anything like that out because we’re harping on the past and being counterproductive, instead of being solution-oriented. That’s some classic, limited edition bullshit right there.
Oh, and bonus props for the implicit suggestion that we need not consider the cause of one’s initial failure/problem in order to inform the solution.
Barbie:
Well done. I can’t think of anything to add to that.
Really? You fight TG tooth and nail, playing the contrarian in the face of patently obvious truisms, but just indiscriminately co-sign Barb’s bullshit like a Citi Exec when passed a bundle of C-grade sub-prime mortgage backed securities?
If I were a parent and one of my children claimed he ought not to get in trouble for wrapping the car around a tree because one of his siblings smashed the TV last week then Junior would be on the bad end of an asskicking.
Analogy fail. Car-crashing kid doesn’t think he should get in trouble not because TV-smash smashed the TV, but because he didn’t get in trouble for smashing the TV, deceptively and disingenuously, mind you. Oh, and back in the day, when sibling three smashed a TV, set the kitchen on fire, and stole money from your drawer, you bought him a brand new convertible.
Or… maybe it’s just that a kid sees a bit of hypocrisy in his parents when the castigate him for smoking a little pot, while both the parents have fierce meth addiction.
Barbie:
The “they” I’m talking about is the tea party movement as a whole. They claim that this isn’t about partisan politics, but if they were taking to the streets or organizing big rallies at the mall in Washington while W was wiping his ass with the constitution, I sure as hell don’t know about it.
I get your thinking, but what you’re saying boils down to “if they really were anti-Bush, they’d be on team Obama and not defecting towards the Tea Party movement.”
I call bullshit. That’s not at all what I’m saying.
So what’s the point of all this, then? The point is that I and others are calling bullshit on the stated motivation of the tea party movement as a whole. They’re not pissed off about “government spending,” they’re pissed off that government is spending money in ways they don’t approve of. Most of these fuckwits still idolize Reagan, who fucking tripled the national debt, and who raised taxes something like six times. [And for most of Reagan's presidency, the top tax bracket was 50%, well above today's paltry 35%.] The group is made up overwhelmingly of people who masturbate to Falling Down.
You think these fuckers would be taking to the streets, demanding to see birth certificates, and making Hitler comparisons with more frequency than digg makes oblique hip-hop references if we had McCain/Palin in office, even if they passed a stimulus bill and health care reform? Hell, no.
Whatever they may say about being “independent” or non-partisan, the overwhelming majority of them would never vote for a Democrat in their lives. And, as I said, they don’t seem to have a problem with massive government spending when it’s used for internment camps or blowing up brown people in remote lands. (Or, for that matter, for their Medicare and social security benefits.)
Even if someone who is or was pro-Bush, they’re entitled to not like the Obama adminstration [sic] policies
Who the fuck said they weren’t entitled to not like them? All we’re saying is that they have no credibility in their sudden outrage, ostensibly because of “runaway spending” and “constitutional violations,” because those things have been going on for a long time, and it only became a problem for them when it was a Democrat (and a “furriner” Democrat at that) doing it.
I’m sick of hearing people talk about Bush, and things being blamed on the Bush admin.
Fuck Bush. I blame Reagan!
It’s a waste of time to focus on who should be blamed, rather on what the solution should be.
I actually agree with you here. But that’s hard to do when all the coverage is of clueless white geezers screaming about “death panels” and keeping the government’s hands off their Medicare. Say what you will about the “tea party” movement, but I don’t see how any rational, thinking person can argue with a straight face that they’ve done anything at all to foment informed debate, never mind actually offering any solutions. In fact, I don’t see how anyone can argue that they did anything besides make informed debate considerably more difficult. That’s why Barney Frank’s response to that teabag bimbo last summer was so brilliant: it gave her (and the tea party movement at large) exactly as much respect and legitimacy as she/they deserved.
Now I suspect part of this is a matter of one’s perception of the tea party movement. I suspect you and Judd see that broad as the exception, whereas I see her as perfectly representative of the majority of that movement.
Judd:
Both times though we were confronted with evil people who wanted to do us great harm.
Did you actually just draw a parallel between WWII and Iraq? *sigh* That’s got to go down as the single most dumb-assed thing I’ve heard you say. Germany was actively at war with several allies, and one of their allies, Japan, had just launched a devastating surprise attack against us on our soil. Iraq had done what, exactly, that even comes close to comparing to this? Jesus Christ man, I know you’re not that stupid or clueless. So I’m tempted to give you a mulligan on that one.
this specious argument I keep hearing from the left about how “Bush wasted a bunch of money needlessly on Iraq so what does it matter if Obama is spending money now?” needs to end.
Agreed. Now show me who’s making it. If your goal was to knock down a straw man, then by all means, don the flight suit, land on the carrier, and unfurl the “mission accomplished” banner. What we’re actually saying, as I tried to explain above, is that by their actions (and lack thereof) at various times, it’s clear that despite what they say, it’s not “spending” or “debt” that pisses off the tea party crowd, but who’s doing it, and for what purpose. By all means, bitch about policies you don’t like, but spare us the transparent bullshit about it being some sort of principled stand against spending, debt, and constitutional violations.
Digg:
I’m putting that rant in my hall of fame. Bravo.
Thanks.
I was tempted to unleash a much more offensive on in the Hollywood thread. But, as long as we’re on the subject of hypocrisy, I’ll just let if fly right here instead… How about those highly formally educated, white, libertarian types living the life of relative priviledge and taking off to the gun range every week, arbitrarily deciding Orlando Bloom (for example) is really just a pussy and would come off very unconvincingly busting the Desert Eagle in a controlled setting and fronting like a bad ass.
Holy fucking mother of fuck. If only George Carlin was still alive… I mean, that’s first-ballot Self-delusional irony Hall of Fame material right there.
Sorry for the threadjack, but it’s not like there was meaningful, good faith debate going on here to begin with…
“So, the public (and Bush’s opponents) aren’t allowed to question him when he’s in the process of fucking things up, because if we do, we’re Commies and traitors. ”
Oh my god, Digg, I had no idea that the real point of this issue was that the Tea Party Bunch probably called Bush-opposers names and now it’s time to call them names back because, well, gosh, that would be the fair thing to do, huh? Maybe I missed that memo because I’m NOT IN THE THIRD GRADE. Grow up.
It was objectionable when Bush hijacked the economy, and it is objectionable that Obama is hijacking the economy, too. Say what you want about the spending items being different: unpopular international spending versus unpopular domestic spending. Here’s your invitation to launch into how the moral pretense of Obama’s H.R. act makes some kind of difference when it comes to complaining-rights. Frankly, Bush’s policies and Obama’s policies alike have their own pretenses, and the tune has a similar sound of “we have to do this because it’s for your own good.” People have a right to disagree with that and complain about it when they 1) don’t agree that it is for their own good or the good of the nation/world, and 2) don’t think that we should be spending as much money on it as we are.
It’s hilarious that you’re barking up my tree about accountability. I’m pretty sure I’ve been laughed at before, probably on this site, or by T on my site, for griping about politicians not being held accountable. I don’t understand you deduced ‘not holding Bush/Bushies accountable for the results of their actions’ from my statement that ‘it’s pointless to attack the constituents of a movement for what they supported 7 years ago.’ Are you gonna tell me that you support everything that the Democrats have done for all time past and are currently doing now? If not, then shut the f*** up. If you want to talk about why we need to make sure we don’t get a return to Bush-style politics, I’m in. But it seems pretty clear to me that y’all are more interested in talking about he-said-she-said bullsh*t that isn’t even about moving away from Bush-style politics, but about the people who are in the Tea Party movement who supported Bush, and what names they called you, and why they were wrong 7 years ago, and why that makes them jerks today. Now, that’s what I’d call a pissing contest. So, then, you attack me like you did above for thinking that a pissing contest with people who support a movement has very little relevance? Weak sauce.
T- I can’t believe that ranks in your rant hall of fame
Weak sauce, huh.
Keeping it 2005, I see. Um… LOLlerskates.
/Kanye shrug
Anyway, I certainly don’t support everything (anything?) the Dems did over the past seven years. And, why would I? I’m a fucking socialist… you know, a legitimate version of what the teabaggers you defend call this right-leaning, ardently capitalist President of ours.
I didn’t really plan to advance the moral argument for Obama’s alleged stretching of the ecnomoy versus Bush’s, but since you brought it up, I will say two things. While this may admittedly be an overstatement, one could almost claim that we are comparing stealing a loaf of bread to feed a starving family, versus robbing the Wonder factory to further one’s gluttonous addiction to cheap and unhealthy carbs. While that is a heavy handed analogy, what can’t be argued is that Obama’s choice on which to spend a lot of money is something which approaches a goal virtually unilaterally sought after (though not always practically able to be achieved) in the developed world – universal healthcare. Bush (and Obama still) chose to spend a lot MORE money on imperialist wars, which are certainly not considered part and parcel of the developed world, and are in fact actively and fervently denounced by most of our fellow first-worlders.
I mean, if we aren’t going to even consider what people decide to spend money on, but only the amount that they spend, then I don’t really know how to continue this conversation.
…Except to continue in the parlance of the interwebs circa 2005 and say that my response is in TG’s HOF because you got pwned!
Digg, pls. You haven’t pwned anything. The idea behind the Tea Party Movement is to not resemble the GOP. But we haven’t been discussing the actual movement, have we? You all have been clammoring on about certain types of people who self-identify as being part of the Tea Party movement – teabaggers who are probably very misguided and who the leaders of the movement are actually trying to distance themselves from, what they thought 7 years ago, and how much they suck. Well-hey look I forgot to take “give a shit about that” pill today.
You think Obama is a right-leaning, ardently capitalist President? Hahaahah ha haha ahahaaaaaaaaa. ahhhhhhhh.
Barbie, (Well, that’ll be confusing to any new lurkers, assuming we ever get any of those. SecretLife…)
Here’s your invitation to launch into how the moral pretense of Obama’s H.R. act makes some kind of difference when it comes to complaining-rights.
If I’m understanding this comment correctly, you’re suggesting that the respective policy’s on which money was spent doesn’t impact how culpable it is for the policy to cause debt.
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PAYING TO KILL PEOPLE IS WORSE THAN PAYING FOR HEALTH CARE!!!
Holy fucking shit!?!
Digg:
If I didn’t know better I’d almost think you were trying to take a not-so-subtle shot at me with your line How about those highly formally educated, white, libertarian types living the life of relative privilege and taking off to the gun range every week, arbitrarily deciding Orlando Bloom (for example) is really just a pussy and would come off very unconvincingly busting the Desert Eagle in a controlled setting and fronting like a bad ass. Almost. I, however, don’t have any guns, and I could count on one hand the number of occasions I’ve fired anything at all in the last three years or so. Hell, I could count that on one hand and have fingers (plural) to spare, so I know that wasn’t aimed in my general direction.
Despite the fact you clearly can’t mean me your follow up about Self-Delusional Irony does just create this lingering hint of doubt about a subtle (or not-so-subtle) comment you may have been making so I’ll attempt to put that train back on the tracks.
In regards to my comments in the other thread about the lack of younger hero (or antihero) alpha male-types working in Hollywood, the fact I may not be one myself doesn’t mean I can’t say anything about it or judge anyone else as being qualified to do it. I can’t sing worth a shit but that doesn’t mean I’m incapable of listening to Louis Armstrong, Freddie Mercury or Ella Fitzgerald and knowing they’re good at it or to Ashlee Simpson, Eminem or myself and knowing they’re not. Now if I had said “There’s a huge lack of that sort of alpha-male actor so those dumb Hollywood fuckers ought to start sending me scripts because, goddammit, I’ll show those pencil-necked girlie-men how it’s supposed to be done!” then I’d be rightly in line for a heaping helping of sardonic derision. I never said that though. All I did was ask if the problem exists; I got nowhere near proposing any sort of solution, let alone myself as the solution.
Unless of course what you meant was that Hollywood film execs should find highly educated white libertarian types who like to spend their weekends at the gun range and give them leading roles in all sorts of films. If that’s what you were trying to say then, in the words of The Dude, that’s just, like, uh, your opinion, man.
With that puzzling sidebar out of the way……
To bring my petulant child analogy back to real terms, are you suggesting the Republicans weren’t punished for Bush’s bad behavior? The economy was in decent shape going into the 2006 midterms and the Republicans got their asses handed to them thanks to the fact Bush had fucked so many things up. The destruction Bush wrought was such that now, almost four years after suffering that initial defeat the Republican Party is still in tatters. Can you imagine what this year’s midterms would be like if the Democrats had to face an opponent that actually stood for something and had some credibility left with the voters?
T:
Keep your mulligan. I stand by my statement. I was responding directly to Dan’s comment that anyone who supported starting the war should and will be ridiculed when they complain about national debt. Having been a supporter of the initial invasion based on the information available at the time, Dan was saying I have no right to complain about the national debt today. I argued that all wars cost money but the benefits we derive from them can make them worth it; the necessity of the conflict makes the monetary burden bearable. I think (or hope at least) I can say without argument that winning World War II was worth what it added to the national debt. Ditto, the Cold War. If you read my original comment you pulled that quote from, the word “Both” refers to those two conflicts specifically.
That brings me to Iraq. We were fed information indicating there was a serious threat. It might not have been a threat on the scale of Germany in 1941 or the Soviet Union twenty years later but still a threat nonetheless. Based off what we were being told and in spite of the fact I figured it would add to the national debt, I supported the invasion for the same reasons I would have supported us adding to the national debt to fight the Commies or the Nazis. Dan said that gives me no right to complain. I disagree.
You think Obama is a right-leaning, ardently capitalist President? Hahaahah ha haha ahahaaaaaaaaa. ahhhhhhhh.
I think Noam Chomsky is pretty much a centrist. Laugh all you want, but all you’re doing is advertising and celebrating your relative ignorance of the vast spectrum of potential ideologies.
Left ________________Center_____\Obama\_____________Right
______________________
The top depicts what an inclusive spectrum of political ideology may actually look like. The bottom line indicates all that we are really exposed to. So, yes, Obama is a lefty if you only acknowledge the small and right-tilted swath of political spectrum we’ve been conditioned to.
How would you qualify Obama’s political leanings? If you say he’s very left, then how would you then define somebody like Lenin, the Diggers (San Fran late 60′s version, not English Protestant 17th Century version), or Ward Churchill?
Judd,
I was more tempted to respond to the original Hollywood thread with a pedantic post about gender norms, and what being “a man’s man” really is after all, other than being subtly bigoted and lack compassion and intellect.
My point is only that actors act, so I’m not sure you can say Orlando Bloom would be unconvincing as a man’s man character as a statement of fact. I know very well you don’t have to be qualified to perform a task to be a critic… last I checked I’ve never played Major League Baseball, but I’m certainly not shy with my opinions.
My point, which was only obliquely directed at you, but really more so toward libertarians in general, is that it is highly laughable to me when libertarians who often live quite sheltered call out others for being pussies fronting like bad asses.
And, sure the Republicans paid as a party. The orignal analogy was referring the lack of ideological consistency regarding where the Teabaggers project their vitriol.
Digg, try <pre> tags next time.
I also find Barbie’s finding Obama a centrist laughable, well, pretty laughable. Data is on one of our sides, and I’ll point out that Obama is right of Tricky Dick Nixon.
Judd,
[I]n the words of The Dude, that’s just, like, uh, your opinion, man.
Quote fail. In the context of the movie, that was Dude’s response when he realized his opponent was entirely correct.
Anyway, let’s assume for the moment that there was a time that starting a war in Iraq seemed necessary. If you, personally, recognized the vast monetary cost at the time, but want to also object to the cost of improved health care, there’s something you need to do in order to be intellectually honest: Compare the necessity of the two actions to their respective costs. The Iraq war is very expensive, and even under whatever scheme made it seem necessary, this was completely predictable. On the other hand, health care reform is predicted to have a net negative cost, and (and I can’t belief how many times this needs to be pointed out) doesn’t involve killing people.
But aside from all that, it missing TG’s original point, which is that the Teabaggers claim to have formed for the sake of loudly complaining about spending money on something, but they didn’t do so for the much more expensive policy. Regardless of the relative merits of the policies, the claim that the public “anger” of the Teabaggers is over money is bullshit.
Thanks for the tip Dan. I kind of expected that my makeshift chart would get screwed up when I clicked submit. Once back in the day, we had an comment editing feature that would have allowed me to fix it, ‘member that? Just playin’, TG. If I took editing my posts seriously, they wouldn’t be filled with typos and errors. (This happens really b/c I comment mostly from work, and while I figure taking time away from my job to comment is okay, taking time away from my job to proofread a comment kinda crosses the line. If you ever bother to notice, comments I make on the weekends have few errors – excpet when I’m fucked up, which is just barely more often than Tom Sizemore is.)
And, Judd, full disclosure, I don’t even really know who Orlando Bloom is. If somebody told me that Orlando Bloom robbed my house, I couldn’t give a police sketch artist anything to help catch him. Dark hair, I think. Fairly tall, most likely. Hunkish.