With Democrats passing bills that Republicans are not even allowed to read let alone contribute to, some in America feel like the left is out of control. President Obama’s social engineering project disguised as a “stimulus” was the last straw for many. Since then, a budget with a $1,000,000,000,000.00 deficit, bailouts for the automakers, another AIG bailout, 9,000 earmarks, and now Hillary-care.
Conservatives have had enough. After two straight elections of rout in both houses of Congress and now the White House, many conservatives feel their interests are no longer represented in the federal government. Then came Rick Santelli. In a widely publicized rant on the floor of the Chicago Exchange, he jokingly suggested that a “Chicago Tea Party” was in order to protest the inevitable tax increases that will follow President Obama’s careless spending.
The idea quickly took hold. Shortly thereafter, many conservatives began organizing on the internet, a media outlet that has historically been dominated by liberals. Using social sites like Twitter, Facebook, Michelle Malkin, and countless other blogs, they have organized what many claim will be a massive nationwide protest on April 15th.
Let’s look at what some of my friends are saying about the Tea Party on Twitter (#teaparty).
The Tea Parties are a staunch reminder to liberals that despite a rash of election day victories, Conservative ideals are still alive and are not going anywhere. There is a silent majority in this country that does not want to pay for his neighbors mortgage, health care, car loan, groceries, education, electric bill or anything else for that matter. Many still believe that along with the pursuit of happiness, the right to be a failure in life is also protected under the Constitution. It should not be the burden of the intelligent to compensate for the mistakes of the foolhardy.
Tea Party-goers also believe that borrowing trillions(with a T) from hostile countries like China is not a wise decision. Somehow, Liberals are under the impression that insurmountable debt is the way to get out of an economic crisis caused by insurmountable debt. Tea Party-goers do not want future generation to foot the bill for the pet projects and social agenda that Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Dodd, and Frank have forced down the American throat.
Many Tea Parties have already been held in several cities across the country. Up until now, they have been utterly ignored by mainstream media with the exception of Fox News (of course). Organizers claim that this time it will be too big to ignore. Just in case they try, Conservatives have rallied hundreds of independent media outlets, blogs, and community organizations to promote and report on the events.
~ Man Overboard
Images Used in this Post
Boston Tea Party image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons published under the CC license.
Pay Your Own Mortgage and Tea Party images courtesy of Flickr user Brooksbayne published under the CC license.
45 Comments
A tea party to stop the spending would be fantastic. Conservatives as a silent minority…haha, seriously, since when?!
My point was Conservatives combined with moderates form a silent majority when it comes to representation in today’s federal government where liberals are completely unchecked.
Jack , I was just kidding. That sentence stood out and gave me a chuckle.
Your sunglasses conceal your sarcasm.
Future’s so bright… I gotta wear shades.
Jack, is there like a common theme that is going to be present at these localized Tea Party events? What exactly is being done to keep this a focused and therefore effective form of protest? I am certainly impressed by the initiative and effort but it would be all for naught if everyone showed up and then scratched their heads saying, now what. Of course at that point they could all chant, Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Franklin.
To me, the Tea Party represents a message to the federal government: “You have gotten too big. Now you want to get bigger.” I see the role of government as simple: protect me from enemies foreign and domestic. Not to pick out a car, or a healthcare plan, or to take 1/3 of my paycheck.
Although it seems many people have varying reasons for going. Check out Michelle Malkin’s post about the Tea Party.
I see, so it is like the jack-of-all-trades tea party. Come here to complain about anything and everything. It is refreshing though that people can and will still mobilize to a cause, in this case many causes.
I would feel more pity for the conservative side if they hadn’t already had their chance at running the country.
The Republicans never had a filibuster proof Congress. By the way, haven’t you forgotten that it was liberals using racism as a scare tactic to bully banks into making subprime loans that caused this economic crisis? Amazing how liberals act as if they carry no blame.
The best line of the year so far:
Many still believe that along with the pursuit of happiness, the right to be a failure in life is also protected under the Constitution. It should not be the burden of the intelligent to compensate for the mistakes of the foolhardy.
That line is dead on. However, the liberal/conservative divide does not accurately reflect the split between failures and non-failures. I’ve seen plenty of successful liberals and plenty of failures, and the same on the conservative side.
You’re cartainly right there. I would say the middle/lower classes are made up of relatively equal parts liberal/conservative. I do however see a contrast between what the two sides expect the government to do about their situation.
Agreed.
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the most important thing to remember is this: corrupt politicians want to secure their position and authority forever, they need to take our guns away first, don’t be a victim.
So are you going to use your gun against their tanks, unmanned predator drones, jets, and warships? I am a member of the NRA and support the right to bear arms, but let’s not kid ourselves: no one is going to pick up arms against the government and win in a Revolutionary War-style confrontation. If we did, we would be summarily put down and then decried in the media so the rest of the country would be brain-washed against the revolt.
What about our standing army of citizen soldiers?
We’re being hypothetical here, but if there really were a second American Revolution, then I doubt it would be population vs army. More likely the army, like the populace, would be split into factions on opposite sides as was the case with the civil war.
Indeed and that would be one hell of a mess with rival factions fighting over the immense power vacuum that would be left behind.
There is one enormous fundamental difference between our initial revolution and today – autonomy. The colonists were more or less running themselves, their productivity was booming, and the cash crop economy was carrying Great Britain. Once the taxation without representation came the colonials were finally like we no longer need the mothership.
In the context of today, there is zero autonomy among the American people. We are far too specialized, diversified, and compartmentalized and as such we require systems of control to keep us moving forward. In a sense, or modern government has been built to be revolution proof. The founding father’s new this and this is why Thomas Jefferson despised the Federalists so much. Jefferson felt that the people should always be revolting, but he knew that under the Federal(ist) system of nationalized banks, institutionalized schools, and a centralized federal government, that that could never be the case.
The government has to crumble before it can ever be displaced, otherwise a tyrannt would have to achieve power and consolidate it all for his or her control.
Wait… I thought we lived in a Represenative Democrocy where we elected individuals to speek for us in D.C.? This libral majority is our own doing is it not? And these TEA partys… they seem like people are just trying to find something to go crazy about. There was one woman who held a sign that said “no taxation without represantaion”, Is she not represented by her Senator and house Rep? I understand that OUR PRES is doing new things with our buget and what-not but shouldn’t we give it a chance to happen before people go up in arms crazy. I mean Texas is already talking about seceding from the union… I mean c-come on…
Republicans are not even given time to read the legislation that will more or less sell future generations into slavery by debt and the Chinese. The Democrats are forcing their social, economic, and environmental agenda through Congress completely unopposed and unrestrained. That is why people feel they are not being represented. The current Congress and administration has a monopoly on government. Even though they were elected by the majority, now the majority beleives they are not performing the role for which they were elected.
As far as cessasion goes, I remember hearing Democrats talk about moving to Canada when Dubya was reelected. This is nothing new and much as before, those few do not represent the majority opinion of the Tea Party organizers and participants.
As to your comment about “shouldn’t we let it happen.” No we shouldn’t. What sane human being would borrow TRILLIONS of dollars (with a T, that is One with 12 Zeros) at a time like this? What idiot would raise taxes when we are bordering on a depression? What lunatic would run a campaign against earmarks and then sponsor thousands of them? These policies are madness and do not deserve “a chance” much the same way we shouldn’t jump out of an airplane without a parachute just to see what happens.
Last time I checked the Obama administrations approval ratings were at 61%…thats a 2/3 majority mandate to keep doing what he’s doing. Where do you figure that the majority of Americans believe the administration is not fulfilling its elected role?
Now if you think the majority is wrong, then maybe we need to figure out how to amend the election process…
Read between the lines. Obama’s approval rating is 60% but the approval ratings of his policiries (the porkulus, the 9,000 earmark Omnibus bill, the bloated budget, the second AIG bailout, the auto bailout) are all around 30%. Translation: people are still infatuated with him even though they are starting to realize his ideas suck. When he is voted out of office in 2012, his approval rating will be below 40%.
The only way to know whether these new policies are benefiting or damaging America is to wait and see what effect they have over time.
Until there is concrete evidence to prove that Obama’s ideas and policies are worthless, than any opinion is coming straight from the mouth of ideology. But we all knew that anyway, cause liberals suck and conservatives rock my socks off
But what are we going to do to stop it? It seams like it’s already to late. This money is already borrowed and the debt is already there. I mean arn’t all these bailouts anti-american pollicy anyway? How can you have a capitolistic socity and not let bad busness fail? Is there a point where you can become to big to fail? This issue goes far beyond party lines. McBushy set the bar by starting the bailouts and Oh-noboma carried the torch. We’re all to blame. This is greed and coruption at its finest. I feel like our government is like Centura Creations and I’m just a gump with no juice going night merchin. Go crazy motivated me. Buy the way… Instead of having a T.E.A. party yesterday, I went to work so I could pay my bills. I’m just sayin…
You right about that. I originally suported the first bailout (a mere $300,000,000,000.00). But the tidal wave of careless spending that bill set the precedent for has caused me to change my opinion of it. Bush is not innocent in this case. He was absolutely right to cut taxes. He just forgot to cut the spending while he was at it. But Obama has done more than carry the torch. He has dumped a tanker of gasoline on it!
Your right about the going to work thing. That’s why I wasn’t there. That’s also why 200 million other people weren’t there but still agreed with the protesters.
Dude, It’s not a Tidal Wave, It’s a Mega-Tsunami. Nobody should have gottin anything for failing. NOBODY. If we want capitolism we should understand what happens when we put so much faith in buiness and build a currency on it. And when it fails, (Largely cuz we are conditioned to live beyond our means) we should suffer or become socialists. You can have one (Capitalism) or the other (Socialism) but you can’t have both (or so says the sith). But this “wave” of spending just makes me wanna buy a bigger surfboard. As long as it’s American made….
Bravo Jeff. A fine rant indeed.
Thank You. Feels good to get something off my chest other than hair…
The money has not already been borrowed and has not already been spent. You are forgetting that the fiscal year doesn’t end until October 31, 2009. We are only partially there, boys, and much of this ANTICIPATED spending can be stopped. Especially since, as it turns out, the debt issuance by the US government is not being received well internationally or domestically, so technically we CAN”T sell the securities through which to borrow the money for these projects. People confuse forecasted and actual spending all the time, and that is the case here.
First good news I’ve heard all day.
That is interesting news… I just hope they can come up with a workable plan by then. Cuz I’m down for something with less money flyin around. It is forcasted that one day I’ll fully understand this mess, but actually, no… no I won’t…
George Lucas puts one line in a movie and people fall for the “gray area is good” and “black and white is evil” ideology. You know..the Jedi discourage sex as much as dealing in absolutes, just in case anyone here thinks they walk a path such as the Jedi do.
The HTML, XHTML, CSS, and PHP code, MySQL tables, and content that powers this blog site is all ultimately broken down into ones and zeros. Do you consider THAT Sith? A gray area between one and zero would make for an interesting world of machine code. There are 10 kinds of people in this world…those who understand binary and those who do not
I agree. Besides, I think Lucas proved that all he was really doing with the Star Wars revitalization was trying to milk the cash cow some more without actually having to come up with a new idea/storyline. Then, in typical Hollywood style, he had to throw in some personal political commentary by way of his characters.
Good and evil were not mentioned in my comment from before. My Sith refrance was made in jest. Obvoiusly no one (It is I you are referencing) here thinks they walk the path of the Jedi seeing as they are fiction. I know of no other way to run a computer other than bianary, and as far as I know neither does anyone else. There are however many ways to run a government. So your comparison falls on deaf ears. Well my 10 ears…
Jeff, I tried commenting back here twice, but it did not go through. Have I been silenced? lol
Not that I had any part of and not to my knowledge. I was awaiting your reply… I’ll look into it. Comment again though…
I always equate the word Sith with evil and my binary comparison was directed at the same line your Sith reference was…”You can have one (Capitalism) or the other (Socialism) but you can’t have both (or so says the sith).
I know of multiple ways to run a computer, just as there are multiple ways to run a government. Everything is ultimately broken down to a black and white decision. Somthing either is or it isn’t….just as an electrical impulse, register, or signal is either on or off.
You have the dark side and the light side of the force, right (or so says the Jedi and the Sith)?
I see your point about sith=evil but that is not what i was going for. Sorry for the confusion. I was making a joke about the extreams people are going to in there defining of our government. We are going to need a mix of the two. The sith are fiction and the point i was trying to get at was that there is no way we can have a pure capitolistic or socialist government. Those are fiction and they only work on paper not in real applacation. I just wish people could stop trying so hard to define what is going on because I belive we are in a whole new type of world. We must adapt to the constant changes that we are faced with. I don’t agree that something is or isn’t in our government. This is evedent in our case law, each situation breeds a unique outcome. There is no book that says right or wrong. We must develop our rules as we go along. Just like we must develop our financal system as we go. To scream pure capiotalism or pure socialism is irrevelent in my mind. This is proven by the bailouts that were handed out in a capitolistic society. How is it a buisness is rewarded for failing? Or better yet… Prevented from failing? That seams anti-capitolism… and to hear on the news that we are turning into socialists seams a little to extream to me. I could only assume that we need a LITTLE bit of it for our country to work properly. But i’m no expert on this, just a concered tax-paying citizen.
Other that binary, what ways are there to run a computer that ultimatly don’t translate back to the open/close language?
Ill agree with you regarding your views on government. To have a pure form either way is unrealistic. I do believe that there is a right and wrong in this world, not set by religion, but by common sense and moral.
AS far as non-binary computer systems, check out US Patent Application 20030212724:
“Through the grouping of registers to form memory groups, the memory elements may be programmed to store multidigit numbers. Instead of being limited to operations based on a binary or base 2 arithmetic system, the digital multistate characteristic of the phase change material permits the storage and processing of digits associated with any arithmetic base in the registers to achieve non-binary computational capability. Direct storage and processing of numbers in base 10, base 8, or base 16, for example, is possible with the instant invention. Bases of hundreds, thousands or even higher are also compatible with the instant invention. As a result, the instant invention provides an opportunity to achieve massively parallel computation. The parallel computation capability, higher storage densities and non-binary operation possible with multistate memory elements through the instant computing methods provide an opportunity to vastly improve the speed and efficiency of computation relative to conventional computing machines.”
Another concept is the rotating laser, not only capabale of transmitting information with on and off, but also with waves inside the beam creating something that mimics a sin or cos graph when the laser is on.
All these concepts are a long ways away from implementation, but I have been looking into them as a possible base for my doctoral dissertation in parallel computing.
Such breakthroughs in non-binary computing could enhance cryptographic systems like you dont know what…wetter than October..haha
Now that you mention it I do remember hearing about the laser computer. But the other base system computers sound pretty wild. That’s really a good thing to do a doctoral dissertation on. Best of luck with that.
Have we resolved this yet? The spam filter must have picked it up for some reason.
well I just tried for a 3rd time and it didn’t go through so the heck with it.
only happens when I hit reply to Jeff’s comment(April 17, 2009 at 4:33 pm).
Yup, found it in the spam box. Akismet didn’t like something in that comment.
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