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Media Exaggerate Tea Party's Sway

In my opinion, it demonstrates contempt for a movement I consider deeply laughable. And, I'm not left of center. ;)

Right because lower taxes, smaller government, and accountable representatives is so "laughable". :roll:


And you are center left imo. :shrug:
 
I see the teabagee movement is strong in this thread. I think its the mouth foaming you all do that fosters intelligent discourse. Kudos to you the balls in the mouth types. :thumbs:
 
Right because lower taxes, smaller government, and accountable representatives is so "laughable". :roll:

It's not. The fact you all waited until 2009 is. That's why it's impossible to take you seriously (on that, anyway, not in general).
 
True. Because Stekim is not a hypocrite or a teabagger come lately. That's why I cannot take them seriously. Shit, the vast majority of tea baggers voted for W. You can't make this stuff up. They vote for W and I'M the liberal? Again, you can't make this stuff up.


Who called you a liberal? I dont know you. What i do know is most libertarians would respect any movement like this that promotes several libertarian ideals.


Perhaps if you concentrated on discourse instead of vulgar "balls in ones mouth" mouth foaming you would see that. :shrug:
 
Right because lower taxes, smaller government, and accountable representatives is so "laughable". :roll:

So, where were the teabaggers in 2002, BEFORE we spent several trillion dollars on a questionable war? And prescription drug coverage for seniors that was a bonus to big pharma? And a dozen other questionable but expensive decisions made by George W. Bush? Why weren't the teabaggers protesting then?

I know...because they are, by and large, a bunch of sore-loser butt-hurt Republicans who are completely hypocritical about big government, corporate welfare, and the rest of it.
 
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It's not. The fact you all waited until 2009 is. That's why it's impossible to take you seriously (on that, anyway, not in general).

Some did. But know actually it started right after the bush bailout.
 
So, where were the teabaggers in 2002, BEFORE we spent several trillion dollars on a questionable war? And prescription drug coverage for seniors that was a bonus to big pharma? And a dozen other questionable but expensive decisions made by George W. Bush? Why weren't the teabaggers protesting then?

I know...because they are, by and large, a bunch of sore-loser butt-hurt Republicans who are completely hypocritical about big government, corporate welfare, and the rest of it.


You forgot "racist" and "homophibic" :ssst:
 
Again if you want to miss facts with "balls in ones mouth" rhetoric you would realize by listening to us we were upset with bush's stimulous as well.


And obamas gov is bigger than bush's by a lot.

Obama's government may be bigger than Bush's, but let us not forget that many of those who supported Bush when he was spending like a drunken sailor are the ones complaining now that a Democrat is doing the same. I think Stekim has a valid point here.
 
Obama's government may be bigger than Bush's, but let us not forget that many of those who supported Bush when he was spending like a drunken sailor are the ones complaining now that a Democrat is doing the same. I think Stekim has a valid point here.



He might. However if your going to act vulgar. Intellectual discourse might just not happen.


An as one who has railed against spending long before obama. Ill take any new help we libertarians can get.
 
So from this story it seems....

A large majority of the Tea Party population vote republican (Note, not necessarily are registered republicans but tend to vote republican).

Some random opinion columnist thinks it has "less influence" then others suggest, which is a completely ambiguous comment as there is nothing concrete there. How much are the "others" suggesting? Is "less" still a decent bit if the "suggested" is huge? Who made the original suggestion. It was an attempt to get an opinion piece portrayed as a news piece by quoting a guy giving an opinion.

Some other random person thinks those that think it can become a national "party" are deluding themselves. Which, ironically, seems to be geared to be a shot at Tea Partiers based on the implications and the tenor or the story however its primarily NON-Tea Partiers who are most commonly propogating the notion of some kind of national "Tea Party Party".

So,

Tea Partiers are a republican leaning group spread over the country whose amount of influence is unknown at this point and likely can't become a national party even though there's no major legitimate attempts by the movement to become such.

Can I become a Blog writer by saying Water is Wet and George Carlin is Funny, because it seems like stating the obvious and what's pretty much already known is all it takes based on this "news" item.

Not good enough....... now if you state that George is funny when he's wet, well, then you can be a blog writer.
 
He might. However if your going to act vulgar. Intellectual discourse might just not happen.


An as one who has railed against spending long before obama. Ill take any new help we libertarians can get.

I railed against Bush's spending too, and I got called a Liberal for it. Get ready for the name calling, my Liberal friend - LOL. :mrgreen:
 
"homophibic" :ssst:

If I were going to use that term, I'd spell it correctly. Also, I said exactly what I wanted to say. I consider the overwhelming majority of teapartiers to be butt-hurt hypocrites. Are there some that also called out Bush? Perhaps. But they definitely aren't the majority of the movement. They're statistical anomalies. If you're one of them, go you.

Hope that helps.
 
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Who called you a liberal? I dont know you. What i do know is most libertarians would respect any movement like this that promotes several libertarian ideals.

I would, too. Unless it screams hypocrisy. We started running huge deficits in the 1980's. It then continued unabated through Bush Sr. and then really kicked up a few notches under Dubya. FOR EIGHT DAMN YEARS. But apparently it was all OK then because I don't recall any tea parties or unified whining from the right. Which is why I cannot respect the "movement". The people are either just stupid for not noticing for 30 years or they are hypocrites.

That's not to say any of this applies to you personally, of course, but it sure as hell applies to the "movement".
 
Obama's government may be bigger than Bush's, but let us not forget that many of those who supported Bush when he was spending like a drunken sailor are the ones complaining now that a Democrat is doing the same. I think Stekim has a valid point here.

What did Bush spend it on?

SCHIP and Medicaid. Comon now... that would make any Obamite proud as punch - sure fiscal conservatives wanted him to cut and he didn't. That's when Republicans went little "r" and large "C" Conservative. What ticks people off is hearing "hope and change" but it's really just "status quo" and the constant claim status quo IS hope and change. To quote Obama, "They must think your stupid" - and he does.

As with everything, there's a catalyst that needed to start the fire. Doubling down seems to have been that catalyst, but the anger at spending has been there since the 2002.
 
What did Bush spend it on?

SCHIP and Medicaid. .

Have you forgotten the multitrillion dollar war?

As with everything, there's a catalyst that needed to start the fire.

Give me a freaking break. The catalyst was that Obama has a D behind his name. When Bush was spending into the red in record amounts, the teapartiers loved him.
 
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What "multi-trillion dollar war"?

Got something to back that figure?....

Wait until the final bill comes in. It will easily hit that.
 
Obama's government may be bigger than Bush's, but let us not forget that many of those who supported Bush when he was spending like a drunken sailor are the ones complaining now that a Democrat is doing the same. I think Stekim has a valid point here.

I'm not so sure he does.

Bush (Dubyer, that is) truly was the subject of an astoundingly unprecedented hate-and-smear campaign, like nothing I'd ever seen to that point. The vilification of Dubya went far beyond anything I'd seen aimed at Clinton by the Right, an order of magnitude beyond. Possibly half of the vilification hinged on some of the most outrageous black-helo/tinfoil-hat conspiracy crap I've ever heard in forty years.

In reaction, most Republicans closed ranks and defended Bush, in public. However, among fellow Repubs and/or Conservatives, most were saying "WTF is he doing?" on many issues, especially domestic issues and spending. Many conservatives howled when Bush did the 08 bailout, and criticized him vehemently.

Many of us who are part of the Tea movement, or sympathetic to it, have been raising hell about taxes, spending, waste and the expansion of gov't for a long time... just because some of you failed to notice until we got organized and the "TEA" label was used doesn't mean this is a new thing, or a strictly partisan thing.
 
Give me a freaking break. The catalyst was that Obama has a D behind his name. When Bush was spending into the red in record amounts, the teapartiers loved him.

And BINGO was her name-o. The catalyst cannot be "big government" or "spending" because none of that is new. Or even close to new. So must be something else. Something that is far newer. Hmmmmmm.......
 
I would, too. Unless it screams hypocrisy. We started running huge deficits in the 1980's. It then continued unabated through Bush Sr. and then really kicked up a few notches under Dubya. FOR EIGHT DAMN YEARS. But apparently it was all OK then because I don't recall any tea parties or unified whining from the right. Which is why I cannot respect the "movement". The people are either just stupid for not noticing for 30 years or they are hypocrites.

That's not to say any of this applies to you personally, of course, but it sure as hell applies to the "movement".

Actually, I would give Reagan a pass, since his spending, mostly on the military, was designed to bankrupt the Soviet economy, since, in theory, they would be unable to keep up. The theory held, and the USSR collapsed, thus making the world a little safer.
 
Give me a freaking break. The catalyst was that Obama has a D behind his name. When Bush was spending into the red in record amounts, the teapartiers loved him.

A Delayed Bush Backlash

I attended the Cincinnati Tax Day tea-party rally as a speaker. But it was more interesting to be an observer.

First, here’s what I didn’t see. I didn’t see a single racist or bigoted sign or hear a single such comment. Nor did I see any evidence of “homegrown fascism.” Though in fairness, such things are often in the eye of the beholder, now that dissent has gone from being the highest form of patriotism under George W. Bush to the most common form of racism under Barack Obama.

But I did see something a lot of people, on both the left and the right, seem to have missed: a delayed Bush backlash.

One of the more widespread anti-tea-party arguments goes like this: Republicans didn’t protest very much when Bush ran up deficits and expanded government, so when Obama does the same thing (albeit on a far grander scale), Republican complaints can’t be sincere.
...
No doubt partisanship plays a role. But partisanship only explains so much given that the tea partiers are clearly sincere about limited government and often quite fond of Republican-bashing. So here’s an alternative explanation: Conservatives don’t want to be fooled again.

Recall that Bush came into office promising to be a “different kind of conservative,” and one of his first legislative victories was the No Child Left Behind Act, sponsored by Teddy Kennedy.

Throughout his presidency, Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” surrendered — either rhetorically or substantively — to the assumptions of welfare-state liberalism, i.e. that your decency was best measured by your commitment to large, inefficient government programs. “When somebody hurts,” Bush insisted, “government has got to move.”
...
Many conservatives muted their objections, in part because they actually liked the man personally or because they approved of his stances on tax cuts, judges, abortion, and, most important, the war on terror (we can see a similar dynamic with so many antiwar liberals who still support Obama).

Conservatives didn’t necessarily bite their tongues (remember the Harriet Miers and immigration fiascoes), but they did prioritize supporting Bush — often in the face of far nastier attacks than Obama has received — over ideological purity.
...
Then, as a lame duck, Bush laid down the predicates for much of Obama’s first 100 days, supporting both a stimulus and Wall Street bailouts. As one participant of the D.C. tea-party rally told the Washington Examiner’s Byron York, “George Bush opened the door for Barack Obama and the Democrats to walk in.”
...
57 percent have a favorable view of Bush, but that hardly captures the nuance of tea-party feelings. For instance, when Bush’s face appeared on the Jumbotron in the arena, the Cincinnati audience applauded. When speakers criticized Bush and the GOP for “losing their way,” the audience applauded even louder.

Going by what I saw in Cincinnati, second to a profound desire to rein in government, the chief attitude driving the 39 percent of tea partiers who describe themselves as “very conservative” isn’t partisanship, racism, or seizing the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia. It’s “We won’t be fooled again.” In the near term, that spells trouble for Obama and Democrats. In the long term, that lays down a serious gauntlet for Republicans.
 
Actually, I would give Reagan a pass, since his spending, mostly on the military, was designed to bankrupt the Soviet economy, since, in theory, they would be unable to keep up. The theory held, and the USSR collapsed, thus making the world a little safer.

Nope. No pass. Communism is unsustainable and will always collapse. We did not need to borrow trillions to help it along. If you want to spend far more than is needed on one thing you need to pay for it by spending less on something else. I liked Reagan, but that was a flat out screw up. I acknowledge that his policies hastened the collapse. I just don't think the cost-benefit worked in our favor.
 
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