When is the first attempt on Obama's life? - Page 5

So, where were all these people (and you for that matter) when the previous administration grossly misused their taxes?

Tzu, your post illustrates exactly the vibe the "tea parties" gave off: there were no cohesive ideas. The corporate organizers like FreedomWorks had their point--that Obama's health reform effort had to be silenced. The various fringe groups that latched onto the "movement" had their points--that Obama was a nazi evildoer socialist satan, or [fill in the blank]. There were the straight up racists who were offended that they were supposed to show respect to the leader of the free world who happened to be a man of color.

The thing that strikes me is that this idea of high taxes is interesting--because Obama didn't raise their taxes. The fact that "conservatives" sat smiling while Bush ballooned the deficit also cuts away at the credibility of this point. And you also have the fact that this component has been thoroughly drowned out by the others.

But here's the thing though: I haven't had a chance to see Capitalism: A Love Story yet, but I've been watching every Michael Moore interview I can find on youtube, and he makes a really interesting point. When people try to get him to make a rude comment about the "tea parties," he says he thinks it's a positive thing. He thinks that the "tea partiers" have the right idea. Of course, he's ignoring the fact that they're bankrolled, organized and bussed in by private PR firms working for corporations with a vested interest in seeing Obama shut down. But he thinks that Obama's problem is that he doesn't have an army of angry people behind him demanding things like health insurance and an end to the mollycoddling on wall street. His point is that Obama needs our back up, and while the media refuses to cover anything but right wing demonstrations, I think he has a point.

People have a right to be angry--1% of the population has more money than the other 95% of us combined. Have you seen the poverty/unemployment/bankruptcy/foreclosure statistics? That's not an accident, btw. When jobs are slashed the Dow goes up. The problem, imho, with the "tea partiers" is that they do not understand how our political system works enough to know whose heads they should be demanding--the corporate culture and pliant, sellout politicians. The reason they don't know is that civics have been slashed from education, education has been destroyed, and most of them get their news from non-news sources, i.e. Fox "News," right wing blogs and listservs, right wing radio, etc.

They have the two-way mirror syndrome: they can only find blame in what they see in the room with them--minorities, "illegals," Obama. They don't see behind the two-way glass, where the people who really control the levers of government, the people who have paid for laws that favor their interest over the people's, are laughing their asses off.

ps. You get a gold star if you can accurately tell me why the Boston Tea Party happened. What were they protesting?

So true. This is just another example of party blindness. We should be looking at the issue objectively, and not through red or blue tinted glasses. We miss so much of the substantive argument and the merits of what an individual has to say because they are immediately dismissed for being a liberal or conservative.

I find Michael Moore's docs to be somewhat disingenuous a lot of the time, but the interviews he has given lately have been pretty insightful. It's a shame that most of those who are lamenting high taxation and "big government" will dismiss everything he says out of hand.

Maybe it was the Tea Act, the associated tea tax, and the fact that they couldn't get smuggled tea on the cheap anymore. I'd imagine some of them were a little pissed that they would in effect be paying tax twice on East India tea after the EIC passed what they were paying to the British government on to buyers.

But I don't know, yt. What were they really protesting?

It was that they were being FORCED to buy tea and pay taxes on it, whether or not they wanted it.

This was their way of saying "F you and your tea, not only do we not want it, we'll throw it in the harbor"


On that note, why do the modern day tea baggers (I'd never call someone from the first Massachusetts tea party that, since they were smart enough not to self label with sexual inuendo) dress like colonials? Do they not have enough sense to dress like indians? Of course not..

The same thing we're facing today: corporate/government collusion to screw the people. Not higher taxes or spending. England levied steep taxes on imported tea from any other source than the East India Trading Co. The Crown meanwhile dropped the tax on East India tea, essentially forcing the colonists to buy tea from them. I think it's ironic how analogous it is to the health care crisis in this country, but I don't think the "tea partiers" or Glenn Beck or any of the other organizers understood this when they appropriated the concept of the "tea party" for themselves.

Tzu, your post was in bad faith, and I responded appropriately. Ten seconds of research would have confirmed what I said, and did. (Or, alternately, having a memory.) Instead you leapt in with a post that is pretty clearly accusing me of being wrong--not innocently requesting my sources--and which goes on to create a revisionist history of the last couple of months, ending with a fist shake at the media for being so mean to the teabaggers. In short, it's a capsule summary of the kind of crap the right has been pulling for the last decade, and it's the kind of thing I don't have any patience for anymore. Instead of lecturing me on my manners, how about arming yourself with actual facts before wading into the debate?

Ten years ago I was a centrist guy. I was pretty devoted to the idea that there should be a reasonable dialogue between the right and the left. Fuck, I used to be the guy in here telling everyone to take it easy on conservative posters, because we need to have a productive conversation. But the last ten years have made it clear over and over again that there are an awful lot of people on the right who will abuse whatever trust you give them, and that if the left is polite and deferential they will exploit it as a weakness. During the previous administration, the right spent a lot of time keeping up a mask of civility while saying monstrous, barbaric things, and pushing ideology detached form real-world consequences. But it doesn't matter how politely you try to suggest that liberals hate America or that all Muslims should be rounded up, you're still saying something horrible. And then you're surprised when people snap at you?

In your recent posts on this forum, you've engaged in this kind of behaviour repeatedly, such as your lies about Canadian health care. For this reason, I don't accord you a ton of respect. If you want respect, afford it to other people, and argue like an adult. Until then, I don't care how harmless and innocent you seem to think your posts are, they're going to continue to be met with derision.

Prankster,
Tzu was very rude to me on another thread. I am of the opinion he likes causing trouble.

When someone on TV starts spouting off about how pissed off they are about taxes my mind immediately translates it to "I don't want to help anyone but myself" and I have very little respect for that kind of thinking.

I honestly don't care how rude Tzu is, if he engages in actual debate and employs facts and logic and shit. Conversely, he can be as polite as he wants, but if his arguments continue to be on the level of "all I'm saying is that when we die, there's gonna be a planet for the Italians, a planet for the Chinese, and we're all going to be a lot happier" I'm going to continue to get pissed off at him.

Bingo. No wonder his whore of an ex wife left him.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/0..._n_302713.html

Seriously, they WANT him to be killed.

I'm still trying to figure out if he's a chiropractor or a teacher or both.

On the other hand those guys were perfectly okay sending money over to the Middle East to kill already born children.

Exactly these people really need to reevaluate what upsets them if they're so nonchalant about actual independent living human beings can be murdered, tortured and abused but foetuses/babies without a clear concept of pain/death make them freak the hell out.

It's simple: those heathen fucking sand-worshipers HAD their chance to move on over here, and peacefully accept Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior and start paying American taxes like a reasonable human being. They missed the boat, willingly, so fuck 'em.

Babies and fetuses haven't been able to reject the 'ol universal excuse on a t-shaped popsicle stick yet.

Hmmmm...what if immigrants started protesting how much money they pay in taxes? Would that be okay by the Tea Partiers? Is it all right that illegal immigrants don't pay taxes because that's essentially what the far right wants as well?

I also love how no one thinks about the fact that, say, some immigrant with a fake visa/green card works for a watermelon farmer. They have taxes taken out of their check, but then NONE of them get any returns because they're shit-scared of getting caught! That's free money for the government, essentially. AND they're still paying sales taxes when they buy stuff.

I have never given Bush a pass on one iota of his domestic policy except for tax cuts. His inability to stop signing every piece of legislation that came down the pike was horrible for this nation and spending. Conservative circles at the grassroots level have never been too friendly to Bush on his domestic policy but the problem here isn't who is president it is the Congress. The American people turned things over in midterm elections under Bush and saw no difference in either party and things began to come to a head during the presidential elections and they see that the lock on power the Democrat party has isn't something they wish to stand for anymore.

Obama and the current Democrat controlled Congress are well on their way to raising taxes quite a bit. The legislation they are proposing from health care to cap and trade are poised to cripple this economy completely.

I don't know that the "tea partiers" are bussed in by private PR firms. Ginned up by them? Most certainly. Are you equally indignant about the money George Soros poured into creating MoveOn.org and the other organizations that ginned up and bussed in anti-war protestors all over the nation for the past eight years? Or were those just plain old Americans fed up with something and they did everything on their own?

I also find it odd that these corporations that you speak of stand to benefit by and are coalesced behind the current legislation. Anywhere between 10 and 50 million new clients? What logic causes them to become statists all of a sudden?

I was beaten to the punch on my gold star. Busy week for me. Sorry.

I cannot speak for the organizers of the Tea Party's as to understanding the straight line from Boston to the appropriation of its ideals during the healthcare debate but it is a fairly obvious one. The EITC was indeed set up as a monopoly by government through levies and tax refunds. In Boston their was what could be called a "mandate" as the tea that was dumped was partially done so because the colonial governor refused to send it back as had been done other time. The current situation is nearly identical in that the legislation being proposed would set up a EITC of insurance that would operate at the same unfair advantage as the tea company of old. Through the implicit notion that it could not fail(Fannie & Freddie?) because of taxpayer backing the government option would never have to turn a profit much less be solvent. All this while the people being told they have no option but to purchase some form of insurance.

yt, I admit that I cringe at your seeming one trick pony "corporate greed" idealism because while I don't have a problem with corporations in and of themselves I do wholeheartedly agree with you that their influence in our halls of legislation is way over due for a "turning over of the moneychangers tables." One way I believe that could be accomplished would be the FairTax which would all but eliminate K Street's sway.

My post was not in bad faith. I genuinely thought what I posted. I don't have cable and by the time the Tea Parties were news online the teabagger label was being used very derisively by the media. As I mentioned in my reply to yt I was putting in the exact research I asked of you. My search skillz were less than yours as you actually knew what you were looking for with respect to usage by Tea Party participants. I was wrong and apologized for it.

I'm not certain where you have seen a pattern of similar behavior and I am unaware of any lies I have told about the Canadian health care system.

I respect all but two of the board members that I am conversing with here. I, much the same as you and they probably do, find most of the beliefs of the people I am in opposition with to be surreal but such is the nature of political debate.

That would be both. I've mentioned several times elsewhere that I teach part time.

Kate, I was rude to you in this thread too. Look, twice now: Go fuck yourself.

You forgot alcoholic.

Jesus fucking Christ.

Well if I owned a Stinger missile I could have made an attempt today. I saw him today and also filmed his little plane when it took off.

Sort of says it all right there, doesn't it? He claims he's not arguing in bad faith, then feigns ignorance about an earlier conversation that he's perfectly damn well aware was loaded with falsehoods and distortions on his end. (It's in the last couple of pages of the "Obama's address to the nation 9/9/09" thread. The one where he claims every health care system in the western world except America's is on its last legs.)

Tzu, if I saw a Wikipedia entry claiming that 90% of all chiropractors were pedophiles, and I posted a link to it saying "Ha ha! You're probably a pedophile! Case closed!" that would be a bad faith argument, because I would be immediately swallowing an incredibly dubious bit of information simply because it catered to what I want to hear. If you had spend ten seconds in the midst of your supposedly in-depth research (which I don't believe for a second you actually did) entertaining the notion that maybe my claim was correct, you would have found evidence to support it. This is what you've done, over and over again--trotted out "facts" and arguments of dubious argument that you've apparently swallowed just because they fit with your worldview. When someone shows themselves to be that devoid of critical thinking skills, you stop thinking that they're stupid and start believing that they're being willful, and thus, arguing in bad faith. It becomes impossible to have a reasonable conversation with them.

I love how all these people have come to think that somehow they are 'entitled' to the government, and that the loss of the election was somehow unfair to them, and that Obama has changed things just so damn much that they feel the need for violent uprisisng.

I'd love to ask any one of these wingnuts "Just what are these dramatic changes that have occurred in your life since Obama took office? What exactly has he done that warrants this kind of reaction? Other than, you know, being black and smart and freely elected by the American public?".

You have the Tea Baggers screaming about how Obama has ruined this country. On the other hand, they're pointing to the SNL sketch as proof that Obama's done nothing. So which one is it? If he's "done nothing", how exactly has he ruined things?

Its not about democracy, its religious zeal translated into your political system. They are "right", and they "know" it, so everything else must be wrong, and of course those who are right have the right to rule. Simple as that, look no further than your friendly neighbourhood jihadi.

This is spot on.

Secret Service is overwhelmed by death threats made against the president:

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/wa...hreats/?page=1

I just read this. HOLY SHIT! Couldn't the caller in the video be arrested just for saying this?

Only if he'd been talking about Bush apparently. Or you know, wearing an inflamatory tshirt or something. When right wingers do it they're just exercising their patriotic right to free speech dontcha know.

It was deplorable to cart people away for it then, and it'd be just as deplorable to start doing it now.

For wearing a shirt, deplorable, yeah. This guy is actually verbally threatening the government and the president. I thought that was an actual crime. Or did In the Line of Fire lie to me?

Again, it has to be a genuine, tangible threat. They investigate shit like this, but they don't arrest you for it unless there's more than just words.

Ah, thanks for the clarification. I don't know if I'd prefer them investigating and finding this is just hot air from a buffoon, or if I'd prefer them finding something and locking this nut away for a long time.

Secret Service strained as leaders face more threats.

Sounds familiar.

Welp, shit. My bad. Even worse seeing as how I'm usually that guy when it comes to "MOFG SOMEONE POSTED THIS ALREADY RETARD LOLEOL".

It probably deserved being reposted after my late-to-the-party derail. It is pretty unbelievable, despite being utterly predictable. What makes this even worse is that the Department of Homeland Security called it, and the right wingers got all affronted at being labeled "terrorists". Well, guess what you call someone who's plotting to assassinate the president and overthrow the government? That's right, it's "terrorist".