Stigma of the Tea Party?

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Yes, a lot of this does sound ridiculous, and not particularly libertarian on social issues or foreign policy either. Whenever conservatives preach about the "sanctity of human life," apparently that only applies while you're still in the womb, but doesn't matter anymore afterwards. Calling the GOP the "party of life" is probably the biggest lie about their party ever told. And gay marriage should be a states' rights issue; the federal government should not be defining marriage as only between a man and a woman.

I do agree with the platform on political correctness, but I'm not sure what that has to do with war. I don't like political correctness and I'll leave it at that for now.

I don't really agree with the health care reform bill, but I don't see why we have such an obsessive love affair with the constitution in this country. I agree, it's an important document, but by treating it with such religious fervor, we've gotten to the point where we don't even believe in certain rights because they weren't specifically laid out in the constitution. Abortion doesn't have to be outlined in the constitution for us to know it's an important right. There are enough reasons to oppose the health care reform bill without saying it's wrong because it's unconstitutional. But whatever.

About this "one-world government" stuff: Is this just a conspiracy theory, or is it somehow related to the common Christian beliefs in a one-world government being ruled by the antichrist and the "end times?" Because it sounds suspiciously similar to that. If the tea party is being hijacked by social conservatives, this really wouldn't be surprising.

The whole point of the 10th amendment is that whatever powers not specifically given to the federal government in the constitution do not exist and are the states responsibility. I don't think it's obsession or "religious fervor" to interpret the constitution this way, it's pretty dang clear I think.

Mudboy-
for the record, I was quoting from the link; most of that was not my own words. A few things come to mind, however: first, the constitution as originally written had some serious flaws. Most importantly, it considered black people 3/5 of a person, allowed slavery, and prevented women from voting. Secondarily, the authors were simply unable to predict some of the developments of the modern world: for example, does the prohibition against search and seizure without a warrant cover electronic correspondence? Does it cover electronic correspondence during times of war? How far does 'the right to bear arms' go - should people be allowed to purchase surface-to-air missiles and targeting systems? What about biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons? They're all 'arms,' and should technically be legal according to the constitution. If not those things, how about mortars capable of piercing armored vehicles? How about guns and ammunition capable of piercing bullet-proof vests? How about guns that can fire hundreds of rounds in a few minutes?
As far as the 10th amendment goes, it's about states rights - how far should that go? Should states once again gain the 'right' to allow the ownership of other human beings? Should they have the right to strip citizenship from accused criminals? Should they have the right to exile criminals to other states? Should states have the right to impose restrictions on voter registration that are specifically designed to exclude certain demographic groups or races? Should states have the right to enact laws that are specifically designed to criminalize non-harmful behaviors (such as walking to and from work, vs. taking a bus) that are used almost exclusively by certain demographic groups?
Should states have the right to not recognize marriages that are legal in other states (look at the 'Loving vs. Virgina' SCOTUS case if you don't know what I'm talking about)? Should elected state officials have the right to direct medical care - not just abortion, but (for example) birth control, vaccination, involuntary sterilization of 'undesirables,' etc?

And while we're talking about 'jihad,' why does stripping citizenship only come up when a pakistani immigrant builds a ridiculous bomb, but not when a dozen christian 'hutaree' militiamen actively plot to murder policemen? Why is the latter called a terrorist, but not the former? How about all of those guys who murder abortion doctors and exploded bombs at clinics with the stated purpose of frightening (aka terrorizing) doctors and other workers out of the legal practice of providing abortions?

as far as global warming money, I don't know who you've been listening to but it hasn't been the scientists. Atmospheric scientists don't get driven around in limos like oil company execs do. They don't make tons of money. They are generally not involved deeply in politics. There may be go-betweens who interpret the scientific data for the public that do make money, but the scientists themselves (and I DO pay attention to the scientists themselves) are in a frothing panic about changes in the atmosphere and oceans.

As far as the Austrian school, I think that the current economic crisis speaks for itself on that one. We had cyclic booms and busts every other decade in the last century and the early part of this one, and only when some controls were instituted did we have a few decades of peace and prosperity. The dismantling of laws like the separation of deposit and investment banks led directly to the current crash, in an near-exact duplication of half a dozen other major crashes of the last two centuries. This one was based on housing instead of tulips, but the basics are the same.

As far as the 'one world government...'
You remind me of the woman I met who thought that the swine flu vaccine was a Hillary Clinton plot in order to inject us all with microchips. You've got progressivism absolutely backwards: progressives, aka liberals, are the ones that are fighting for the communistic labor unions *against* the fascist corporations.

LKL, - it seems most of your answers don't address the issues stated. Most of your answers are designed to bring up other arguments outside of the issues listed by the tea parties.
* State vs federal government power was defined by the tenth amendment and the federal government is overstepping it's authority in many areas. The amendment should be supported or be annulled. The tea party says support it.
* You can say jihad. The current administration can't bring itself to say jihad, so they are unable to define the enemy that declared war on us. How can you stop a war you don't like? Don't name the enemy, and they magically disappear? Political correctness is being used to stifle freedom of speech. In this case, the speech used for average people to identify our enemy. BTW- Terrorism is terrorism regardless of the religion that the deranged use to justify it.
* Global warming - I did not accept or deny the premise. I want to know why the money is going the circular direction it is, with the government solutions being directed. towards the corporate political donors instead of other directions, And the scientists who are frothing, they are getting grant money from the government, Scientists that don't get grant money have other opinions. Does the grant money influence the results of their studies? The money trails needs investigated.
* As far as government staying out of private business with the Austrian school of thought, the primary word is private business, The government has no place taking my tax money and giving it to a billionaires to help them make even more money, BTW - I disagree with the cause of the current crisis. I think too much government regulation of private business caused it.
* One world government - I gave logic and history as to how I can see the fascist corporations working towards this. It seems that you lack valid logic to back up your beliefs because you attack on my character instead of the issue. BTW - I don't see progressive politics or communism as good systems to fight the corporations, The countries where it has been done end up with the two classes, the ruling party, and the workers. The ruling party is rich and harsh towards the workers, and the workers are poor and hopeless,
Read history - It is repeating itself and I don't want to go down the road I see people planning for us.

Not at all; I'm just bringing the dog-whistle tea-party-talk down into a human frequency.



It's not a black or white issue. It's perfectly legitimate to say that state's rights are a good idea but should not be absolutely limitless. We went thorough a civil war to prove that they are not limitless; the fact that we only amended the constitution to make slavery illegal afterwards in no way negates the fact that states were shown not to have the right to secede during that war. Yelling about 'states rights' tends to accompany talk of secession - and that's not hyperbole, btw, the governor of Texas was talking secession pretty recently.



Ok, whose speech is being stifled? You can say it, I can say it, politicians can say it all they want. What you don't seem to recognize is that the freedom to say what you want is not the same as being free from the human consequences of what you say. A lot of 'political correctness' is basically 'not being an a**hole' and not tarring all people with a given condition - blackness, brownness, minority religions, fatness, whatever - with the brush of what some of them are doing. I taught Aikido to some muslim kids, and they and their family were some of the nicest people I've ever met. To them, 'jihad' (which is literally translated as 'struggle') meant working hard and doing their best and being good people even when they wanted to be lazy or rude. So when someone says, 'jihadis are trying to kill Americans,' they have a right to say it - and I have a right to call them an ignorant a**hole who doesn't know what 'jihad' means.



Thank you for that.



Firstly, many or most of those scientists work at private institutions like universities, not for the government. Secondly, the fact that corporations are getting most of the money (and the idiotic 'cap and trade' scam being pushed in the senate right now) does not mean that the science is wrong; it means that the argument has been hijacked by the corporations. Likewise, the fact that 'weight loss' panaceas, from 'Alli' to acai berries to Jenny Craig, is a multi-billion dollar industry in the U.S. does not mean that there is no problem with weight in the U.S. Furthermore, the Bush administration was in total denial about global warming; if government funds determined a scientists' outcomes, wouldn't all of those scientists who *were* getting government grants during that administration have been saying that global warming wasn't happening?

as far as bias, I invite you to look at the funding of the *thousands* of individual atmospheric scientists publishing work that supports the theory of global warming, and compare the strings attached to their funding to the strings attached to the *dozens* of scientists in denial of global warming, most of whom are tied directly to fossil fuel extraction industries.



Given that we were doing great until the deregulation started during the Clinton years, I fail to see how you can justify that stance about the origin of the crisis- but I'm a biologist rather than an economist, so I don't have the expertise to argue the point further. I do think it was obscene that profits are privatized while loss is public, and that the bail-outs should have come with collars and leashes attached; however, I've heard lots of economists who *do* know what they're talking about say that we would have been far worse off if the government had done nothing.



Uh, no, you didn't give logic and history. You claimed that the progressives were in league with the corporations, and inflated the abuses of *individual* corporations into a corporate conspiracy to take over the entire world. Yes, corporations have too much power; yes, the trajectory of corporate power has been consistently upwards in the last 200 years or so; no, that does not mean that they're in collusion or have plans to rule everything. What you gave was, in effect, a conspiracy theory along the lines of the theory that Bush II caused 9/11 or that Obama was born in Kenya.



I didn't mean to imply that they are. I meant to correct your conflation of progressivism with corporate rule.



I read a hell of a lot of history, and I listen to a hell of a lot of news - but to practically no rage talk-shows, which is where most of the theories you're espousing are coming from.

The "liberal media" is nothing more than a myth promulgated by conservatives with a persecution complex.

I'm pretty sure this supposed "persecution complex" is shared by both ends of the political spectrum

Except in Canada.

But dont worry, cause the tax funded CBC is doing a study on themselves to see if they really are biased as the public thinks they are. They are going to use tax funds to do it.

Do you think ANY answer they come up with will be meaningful?

Talk about not seeing the irony.

Again the personal attack on me instead of arguing the issue with facts. Try to read this history and logic again with simplified sentences:
* America was founded as the exception to the rest of the world that had a ruling class and a working class.
* The government is passing laws, and treaties, that make globalized trade easier for the corporations, instead of protecting American workers.
* Corporations are sending American jobs overseas.
* I see wages in India, Mexico Korea, and China being much lower than those in the US.
* Global free trade will cause a leveling of average worker income across the world.
* This will not affect the income levels or lifestyles of the corporate elite.
Where do you see these policies heading for average Americans?
If corporate funded government parties are not backing the progressive movement, who is?
I want our government to implement policies that bring our jobs back, reduce our deficit, and put the interest of the average American above those of the corporations.
BTW - The political rage shows are a tool of the corporate backed republican party.
If you insult me again, I will have to assume you are simply unable to debate the issues because you don't really understand them. The ideas you present on most of the issues show are quotes from liberal organizations and are only half truths. You should investigate the issues yourself to learn the liberal spin and the conservative spin. Neither side is telling the complete truth.

Mudboy-
yes, I was insulting. Deliberately so. However, you have chosen to focus soley on the insults, ignore my points (or claim outright that I have made no points, or that I'm parroting liberal talking points, all ways of dismissing without answering), and insult me in turn. Turn-about is fair play, but turn-about while claiming to hold the high road is hypocracy.

Adress the points I have made, or stop pretending.

The major media outlets and its hacks and flacks promulgate the notion that the government is the driving force of our society. It is not. At best it is a regulating force to keep things from getting out of hand. Inventors, workers, enterprisers, discoverers, and adventurers are the driving force of our society. Most of our politicians are ignorant with regard to science, technology and the know-how to get things made properly. The media promote the view of these vile creatures (most of the time) and oppose it little of the time.

ruveyn

Yes, it certainly is. I always laugh at liberals who think there is some vast Right-Wing Conspiracy to silence them. The reason I focus more on the right-wings persecution complex is because they have banged on about it constantly for my entire life and made their delusional perceptions go mainstream. Even some liberals buy into the nonsense and think there is a "liberal media" that somehow silences conservatives.

Very little history, and no logic.


The fact that we institutionalized slavery, barred women from voting, and even among white men disenfranchised all but the wealthy makes us some kind of classless exception to the rest of the world? You do realize that we were the last Western nation to abolish slavery? Only Russia was slower in getting rid of serfdom, but serfs had more legal rights than slaves.


Go read a first-year economics textbook. Bigger markets (AKA global trade) make us better off as a whole. Even if the corporations snatch most of the benefits, some of it should get through to the rest of us.


Outsourcing is a fake issue. There is no long-term structural unemployment.


Depends on how broadly you define the progressive movement.


What do you mean "our jobs?" "Your job" is any job which you are qualified and willing to perform for a wage someone else is willing to pay you. A job is not a possession. Deficit reduction I agree with, but how to go about it? The right wing likes to talk about cutting taxes and lowering the deficit, apparently ignorant of the fact that those are opposing goals unless you are willing to make some extremely severe cuts. The last part of your sentence there is just meaningless buzzwords, there is no substance.

Your points are mostly red herrings that have nothing to do with the actual issues. You are ignorant and rude. PLONK

America was not and still is not perfect. A Democratic Republic is just a much better system than communism, theocracy, monarchy, or other forms of oligarchy. Please explain how this is not true. I agree that if you are looking on global scale, this is true. However, as a part of this process wages for Americans will drop to the level of third world countries. Eventually the world overall may have a higher standard of living, but how long will it take for that to happen? If it were only a couple of years, that would not be a problem. I think it will take several generations. What direction do you see American wages moving? Outsourcing and free trade policies are why there is no long term job stability like our parents and grandparents had. Our standard of living can be kept higher if we implement tariff policies like Japan and China do. That is how we keep our wealth in our own country. Please explain how outsourcing to other countries does not move our wealth. Also, explain how our standard of living will not lower to the standards of less wealthy countries. The substance I tried to communicate is: I feel current government policies of both parties, increases the wealth of corporate leaders in a manner detrimental to the American middle class. I also see the policies increasing the probability of a corporate oligarchy emerging. I don't see it as a conspiracy, I see it resulting from increased collusion between corporations and the democrat and republican parties.
We should try to improve the lives of people in other countries, but not injure ourselves in the process.

Well, I disagree that a democratic republic is necessarily the best form of government, but that is another (long) debate. I was taking issue with your claim that America was somehow an exception to previous societies. We still had sharp class divides, just as old Europe did.


I don't know of any credible economist who expects that to happen.


More or less stagnant, with occasional fluctuations in either direction. But standard of living has still been rising.


That's more because of the dynamics of the modern economy; things change, and you can't just keep doing the same thing for half a century. In the good old days, you not only had job security, you also knew that your great-grandchildren would spend their entire lives doing the exact same thing your great-grandparents did for their entire lives—namely, trying to eke a pathetic living out of subsistence farming.


No, protectionism will only hurt us. It becomes more difficult for us to purchase things, resulting in a higher cost of living and a lower standard of living for American workers, and we miss out on all the benefits of trade. The Founders worked within the framework of an obsolete understanding of economics. We don't need to follow every single policy idea they had.


I suggest that you read up on comparative advantage. You might want to look up David Ricardo.


This is true, actually. What possible solutions do you have to resolve it?