LOVE : HATE

is this for real?

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Probably. Which makes it worse.

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Hey night and mat, which of these Tea Party Platform points are you for/against and why? Do you even know this is the platform?

• Limited federal government

• Individual freedoms

• Personal responsibility

• Free markets

• Returning political power to the states and the people

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The Tea Party stands for "preserving our union"? As opposed to what? Withdrawing from the union? Oh, sorry, South Carolina's already done that.

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• Limited federal government - keeping the government out of areas like advocating for education, and keeping our environment clean, and keeping our food and medications safe? No thanks - I don't want that kind of limited government.

• Individual freedoms - the freedom to ride a motorcycle without a helmet, and then have the taxpayers pay tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars for your medical bills because you have the freedom not to buy insurance? No thanks. Your "individual freedoms" are costing me.

• Personal responsibility - I'm willing to take responsibility for myself, because I've got the economic power to do so. Not everyone does. That's just another phrase for "screw those who aren't as well off as I am".

• Free markets - maybe we should eliminate the minimum wage so that large corporations can make several more billions of dollars while so many more employees wouldn't be able to make enough money to feed their families? Don't think so.

• Returning political power to the states and the people - Sure. Why not.

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My question wasn't so much pointed at the political motivation for the post, but the utter disregard for grammar, sentence structure, and punctuation in a widely-read publication. I actually did originally think that it might be a parody or something since it is ostensibly criticizing "educated" people while making some fairly glaring errors. Appropriately, that point leads me to my main criticism of the Tea Party, which is its black-and-white evaluation of our country's problems and its attempt to villainize the "educated" and intellectuals as the enemy. arty's bullet points and the response by PaulW illustrate this point well: our country's problems are much more complex than they were 100, 50, even 25 years ago. I think a Tea Party would have been a pretty appropriate response at that time. Today we are dealing with a financial crisis whose true blame lies in terms like credit default swaps and mortgage backed securities: things that 9 out of 10 Americans can't even define, much less analyze in the context of the Wall Street crisis.

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I think the Tea Party does a terrific job of explaining itself loudly and clearly, though not so well at reasonable volumes. They advocated defaulting on obligations out of "fiscal responsibility." That was their explicit position.

I've paid a lot of attention to the tautological arguments favored by their supporters. They don't want to support lazy, unsuccessful people, and clearly are all about Galtian success through hard work. Of course, if you work hard and are unsuccessful, you get their ire (see the arguments against unemployment insurance and Pell grants) but if one is lazy and successful they (like a lottery winner) float on with assurances of low taxes on their gains, estates, and annuities.

So the ire is saved not for the lazy, but for the unsuccessful. That is at odds with the Christian rhetoric peppered into their messages.

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The author does not understand that the only arguments that liberals have are to point fingers and call the other side stupid, that is why they are all over the Tea Party. The left couldn't even produce a budget for the last two years and have been in complete control! Talk about the party of no ideas.

I remember reading a study about charitable giving and the result was that liberals give less of their money in dollars and percentage of income than conservatives to charitable causes. The reason that conservatives give more is because they feel like they can share and help someone in need. The reason that liberals give less is that they think that the government should be doing that. Liberals love the whole tax the rich more but you never hear of one of them who is doing financially well paying more than what the tax amount is at the bottom of the 1040 on April 15.

Liberals are just pissed off because on a whole slate of issues the Tea Party is right and their guy in the White House has proven (with a $5 trillion blank check) that he still doesn't have a clue as to how to lead or fix anything. Liberals should just stick to making pretty things and stay out of trying to run stuff because they sure as hell have proven they can't do it.

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Arty, you and I seem to be the only logical and realistic people reading this article from a disgustingly prejudiced publication.

As you know, it is of no use to try and outline rational, intelligent arguments for liberals because they just cannot think that way. The liberal agenda has been successful in creating several generations of dependent individuals who expect and want the government to take care of them while they fail to be a productive member of society. These people lack all personal pride and refuse to work for what they get. On top of that, they want those who do work their butts off to pay more taxes so that they can maintain this parasitic existence. It is quite pathetic...

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Hey Native 76,


Do you know the meaning of the word "sterotype"? How about "sanctimonious"?

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It takes a bunch of off-the-wall know-nothings to almost destroy the good faith and credit of the U.S. Government by deciding not to pay our debts. Do members of the Tea Party take the same attitude toward the debts they've run up on their own credit cards?

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I mean how dare the Tea Pary have the audacity to want to put mandatory spending cuts and statutory limits on taxes hikes and controls on future spending increases in place that would drive towards a balanced budget. If the Tea Party had it's way we would have started a plan to try and get to where we would spend within our means in the next ten years. They wanted to have guarantees that there would be future spending cuts before increasing the debt limit, some of them wanted to increase the debt limit and get that out of the discussion of budgets like the one that they helped pass in the House, unlike the non existent budget plan out of the Senate and the White House over the last two+ years. Horrible that they would rather not immorally pile debt on future generations and put this country in a position to where it would never have to worry about it's credit rating again. Bunch of terrorists.

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Stereotype example: when a liberal sees someone with a Tea Party shirt on and assumes that they are white racists that want to starve the poor and close down the government.

Sanctimonious - adjective that describes any words that come out of a liberal's mouth when they are speaking of political beliefs that encourage personal responsibility, rewards for hard work and limiting government to what is needed.

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It's not a stereotype when it's true.

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Me too! They are fabulous!!! Love Chanel:Chanel Coco Bags

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hey garfield read the numbers. All US debts can be paid from current tax revenues. The US Treasury takes in approx $180Billion each month. The monthly debt service is $29Billion a month. Military pay, medicare and social security (which are not social programs by the way) can all be paid with $50Billion a month. That leaves $101Billion per month for DOD and all gov't social programs, and gov't employee payroll. If $101Billion is not enough the gov't MUST cut the size and scope of gov't its programs.

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Hey NOFAITH, thanks! I was trying to figure out the word "sterotype" ;-)

I guess that GATO1952 doesn't know the meaning of the words spelling, grammar, or intelligence.

But isn't that about right for whining liberals who want Uncle Sam to take care of them?

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I thought the intent of the love/hate section was to write in a conversational tone. The people ripping the author didn't write any more intelligent, or in one case not even a complete sentence.

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PaulW,
Your arguments sound like a copy and past debate. Let me counterpoint.
Limited federal government= Yes, like keeping the fed gov't out of public schools and returning that responsibility back to the states. Since the feds took this over it has gone downhill. Also, I don't want the feds teaching my child to go along to get along only to reach college and be told that one must think for one's self.
• Individual freedoms =I love this one! Motorcyclists have to carry insurance just like automobiles. Can you show me where you pay for their injuries for life. Can you show me a biker that is living life as a vegetable that you are supporting? If that is your only argument, then we should kill off any old and terminally ill citizens that are costing the public money. What about smokers, bungee jumpers, bicyclists that ride our highways, policemen and firefighters. All risk their lives so we should not keep them.
• Free markets - "maybe we should eliminate the minimum wage so that large corporations can make several more billions of dollars while so many more employees wouldn't be able to make enough money to feed their families?" This has already been done in the food and beverage market. But back to your point: education helps keep one from making minimum wage, whether it be skilled workers or phd's.

But the helmet issue really irked me as this is put forth by so many who can't stand that they have to wear a seat belt while bikers comtinue to fight for their right to ride helmetless if they are over 21.

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