Submitted by Lawrence Rafferty(rafflaw), Guest Blogger
We have seen and heard on many occasions the Tea Party claim that it desires Congress and the Federal Government to follow the letter of the Constitution instead of reaching beyond the four corners of the document. With that thought in mind, I was intrigued by a recent article on the Think Progress site that reviewed the You Tube video claims made by U.S. Senator Mike Lee of Utah, that Congress’ passage of laws outlawing and restricting Child Labor, was unconstitutional. http://thinkprogress.org/2011/01/14/lee-child-labor/?wpmp_switcher=desktop
Now, I know that the Tea Party has sometimes gotten a bad reputation for making silly claims under the Tenth Amendment. Those claims actually spurred a new term or title, “Tenther”. But, I have to admit that Senator Lee has really gone way beyond the Tenther label with this false claim about the constitutionality of the child labor laws within the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. Here is a link to a brief description of how the FLSA deals with child labor and the act itself: http://www.stopchildlabor.org/USchildlabor/fact1.htm & http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/statutes/FairLaborStandAct.pdf
Senator Lee discusses his outrageous claim in a YouTube presentation that attempts to use the 1918 Supreme Court case of Hammer v. Dagenhart as his evidence that Congress has gone too far. Unfortunately for Senator Lee, the Hammer case was specifically overruled in 1941 by a unanimous Supreme Court in 1941 in U.S. v. Darby. http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=1183543472021488573&hl=en&as_sdt=2&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr I guess Senator Lee didn’t want to let minor details get in the way of “proving” his claim. The part that I just don’t understand about Senator Lee is why does he want to return to the day when children were forced to work at too early of an age and under horrible conditions? From what I can tell from his video lectures which are found in the aforementioned Think Progress link, he claims that the State should be making those decisions and not the Federal Government or Judiciary. Why would he make those claims and not tell the listener that the case he is citing was overruled over 60 years ago? What other laws would be unconstitutional in his world?
Lawrence Rafferty, (rafflaw) Guest Blogger.
BBB,
By the way Googling Kyle Mortenson brings up a link to Huffington post (filed under comedy) and the social network sites for a guy named Kyle Mortenson.
When are you going to learn people check your rhetoric here?
BBB,
The Onions been a main stay of U.S. pop culture since the 1990s. It’s not particularly ideological, unless you consider consistently funny “ideological.”
http://www.theonion.com/search/?submit.x=0&submit.y=0&submit=Search&q=Obama
http://www.theonion.com/search/?q=Clinton&submit=Try+Again
Gyges,
I’m not “hip” enough to stay up with The Onion. The problem with places like The Onion is that liberals take the satire and run with it as though it is a real story. Google “Kyle Mortensen” and you’ll see what I am talking about.
For your benefit, I’ll repeat this.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gsJrgwxQDo&w=480&h=390]
rafflaw,
“I only asked for the member list of the Tea Party because of your claim or comment that not everyone is a real Tea Party member.”
Where did I claim that not everyone is a real Tea Party member? That doesn’t even make sense.
“I think it is time for you to realize that the Tea Party, however righteous their original goals might have been, are just an arm of the corporations that bought them.”
Why? Because a liberal hit piece makes the claim? How many of those involved in the Tea Party movement have you talked to? I really would like a number. If you have concluded that their goals have changed, you must have talked to a large number of the rank and file, other than what the liberal pundits are presenting to you. If not, you’re letting others tell you how to think. How does that feel?
“Why else would alleged Tea Party members actually vote or argue against their own best economic interests?”
I’m going to assume that you’re talking about income taxes. Do you think people are naive? Do you think they can’t see the writing on the wall? Do you think the government can continue to spend without eventually raising taxes? You might be living in the moment, but most people are intelligent enough to see that the government will have to pay for what they buy, and raising corporate taxes will result in higher cost for goods and services, and that will more than offset any temporary decreased tax burden on the average American. Playing with the numbers like a used car salesman is going to win you any points. Lowering the monthly payment doesn’t decrease the total cost when you extend the term. It might make it seem more affordable, but in the end, you pay more.
BBB and Ekerya,
Really? I mean, REALLY? You don’t know what “The Onion” is? That’s just… wow. Let me help.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/ceiling-fans-one-burning-ambition-to-come-loose-an,18806/
BBB,
I’m sorry I’m still laughing that you took the Onion seriously. O.k. Game face.
I used the term tea-bagger because I happen to not rewrite history to suit my political agenda. I remember that the movement’s name started from the idea that people should mail teabags to various government officials. There was even that lady that made a hat covered with Tea-bags and then the day of the rally it rained, or the old lady with a sign “Tea Bagging For Jesus.” Then someone finally linked enough people to the Urban dictionary, and It got changed to TEA party (Taxed Enough Already).
Look I’m not saying that there wasn’t Cross over between Ron Paul’s 2007 fund raisers and the modern day Tea Party. I’m just saying that it’s more than a bit disingenuous to say that they’re the same thing.
BIL,
Two links to the same article?
Rich = Corporation = Bad. Rich helps Tea Party, therefore Tea Party bad.
What about George Soros? Why not clean your own house first?
Gyges,
“Did this Tea Party have anything to do with the new one?”
How would I know any better than you? Even if it was, is the reason you have a problem with it because they also support the 9/11 “Truther” movement?
What results do you expect to find when you search for “Tea Bagger”? You’ve gotta be smarter than the tool you’re using!
The basic tenets of Tea Party have not changed. What has happened is that the liberals, who see them as a serious threat to their agenda, (willing to admit it or not) decided to focus on the fringe of that movement and sell that as being the movement itself.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvGS12EoZUE&w=480&h=390]
Did you bother to look into article from “The Onion” that you linked yesterday? Who penned it? Who is Kyle Mortensen? Is he even a real person?
BBB,
I only asked for the member list of the Tea Party because of your claim or comment that not everyone is a real Tea Party member. I think it is time for you to realize that the Tea Party, however righteous their original goals might have been, are just an arm of the corporations that bought them. Why else would alleged Tea Party members actually vote or argue against their own best economic interests?
Gyges, Good catch on the google searches.
Buddha, as usual, you hit the Koch nail on the head.
BBB,
Did this Tea Party have anything to do with the new one? http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/12/14/18466933.php
Honestly, when I do a goggle news search for “Tea Party” and limit it to 2007, on the first 3 pages I got 2 mentions of Ron Paul, and the 9/11 Tea party 4 or 5 pages in.
You’re ignoring the fact that the Tea Party Movement actually came from the Teabagger movement (once they figured out what they were calling themselves). Which is why when you do the same google news search in 2008 you get a few article about how polite the Clinton\Obama debates were, but when you do Tea Bagger, you get tons of hits about the movement.
So, when are you going to learn that people actually check the accuracy of rhetoric here?
It is one thing to force a child into an unsafe situation the child can neither understand nor escape. It is another to rule out a child developing occupational skills which will serve the child and society well, doing so without regard for the individual child’s needs and abilities.
I began studying engineering, using college-level resources, during the first week after finishing fourth grade, and began the business I still have early in sixth grade, in 1950, repairing radios and then television sets and then more complex items originally owned by people who simply could not afford to pay anyone else for the work they needed done.
My business has always had, as its sole purpose, being helpful to other people in need, and has never, never, never had as its purpose, “making money” or making a financial profit. Of course, sufficient business income is required in order to stay in business for over sixty years. A business started by a ten-year-old child may be thought uncommon in these days, yet there is an abundant history of people, before the structure of law became a an crushing burden for people similar to me, starting in business much as I did.
My parents did not push me into starting a business nor did they do anything to impede my doing so, they did not guide me in how I established the business or its business policies or procedures. I did my own research, observing other businesses as I could, reading books on business, business methods, accounting principles, and such as I found necessary and useful.
Both of my parents, as individuals and as a couple, were as resoundingly authoritative-reciprocal with themselves, with each other, with their children, and with everyone else as anyone I have ever met, heard of, read of, or who have otherwise entered my awareness.
As I increasingly experienced communication with my age cohorts becoming a mutual tragedy, it was through my business activities that I maintained any ability to relate to others outside my immediate family.
My work has come to encompass the study of the nature of autism as a process of garnering self-understanding through intensively extensive study of self and self-constructs within the contemporary social milieu.
Psychologist John Beahrs, and many other folks, psychologists or otherwise have suggested a useful way to deal with difficulties encountered in the form of symptoms is to transform the symptoms into assets. This I was doing long before I read his writing.
In my sense of vocabulary, to be contentious is to be divisive, and to be divisive, methinks aspects of divisiveness have to already have been internalized, and the internalizing of divisiveness divides the person who internalizes divisiveness, else divisiveness is not internalized.
As I never internalized divisiveness, I never became divided, as I never became divided, I never became contentious. Yet contention has a vicious cycle trap nature; once divisiveness has become well internalized, contention becomes the first interpretation a person may likely make in an unfamiliar situation may be a contention presenting itself. If, in sharing thoughts with other people, another person interprets what I share as contentious, and I find such interpretation incorrect, if I offer a non-contentious alternative interpretation, the usual result is my non-contentious alternative and my offering it are both deemed contentious. Even now, the best I can do when such happens is to employ some aspect of selective mutism, and my doing that is often also interpreted as of contention.
My most successful response to that trap is to pretend I am like a turtle with a very strong, resilient shell, and I dig down into the sand at the bottom of the ocean wherein I live, and pull head, legs, and tail deep within my shell and wait for a long time after I have detected the slightest vibrations from what may be a voracious predator intent on devouring me alive, then I gingerly extend head, legs, and tail and tunnel to the surface with great care and with as little movement as will work, and, when I can stick my head out from the sand, look carefully for voracious predators. None seen, I resume my life above the bottom. Yes, I am one of those bottom feeders.
When the law defies my life, my life takes precedence over the law. Else, the law murders me.
I despise murder. I despise murdering. I despise being murdered.
As I am to love my enemies (whatever enemies are), how do I properly love that which I despise?
So, child labor laws, as I can read them (obviously very incorrectly) appear to me to make the life I lived illegal for someone much like me to usefully emulate.
In any political party, he who controls the purse strings controls the agenda. That’s the primary reason for needing to instigate campaign finance reform – to remove the interests of profit seekers from the decision making processes around the topic of what is best for all citizens. The Koch Bros. are simply attempting a more sophisticated version of the attempted Business Plot of 1933. Their actions in fermenting their agenda of asserting corporate interests over citizen interests traces as far back as 1980. That they took advantage of existing dissatisfaction with Bush to further their fascist agenda when previous efforts failed is irrelevant.
http://theweek.com/article/index/206405/the-billionaire-koch-brothers-tea-party-puppetmasters
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer?printable=true
rafflaw,
“Give me a member list and I will keep them straight in the future.”
Pleading ignorance as justification for your propaganda? Assume some personal responsibility.
“Noone has mentioned why these monumental concerns did not come up or arise during the Bush era.”
Do some research. The Tea Party Movement started because people were outraged by the policies of the Bush Administration. STOP TRYING TO REWRITE HISTORY TO SUIT YOUR POLITICAL NEEDS. Sure, the Koch Brothers decided to back the movement, but they didn’t start it.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKZmIzEMUN8&fs=1&hl=en_US]
That video is from November 2007.
Tucson shooting survivor arrested after threatening Tea Party member.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/17/tucson-shooting-survivor-arrested-threat
Raff and james,
Candidate To Accuse Opponent Of Racism Just To See What Happens
“NEW YORK—With polls showing him trailing in New York’s Republican primary race for U.S. Senate, candidate David Malpass told reporters Friday he planned to accuse his opponent Bruce Blakeman of racism just to see if it caught on with anybody. “It couldn’t hurt, so I might as well give it a shot,” said Malpass, explaining that his campaign had whipped up an ad accusing Blakeman of making disparaging remarks about Hispanic-Americans. “I’ll just kind of float the idea and see if it gets any traction. If it does, fantastic; if not, well, I wasn’t really married to it anyway.” According to sources, Malpass then shrugged.”
http://www.theonion.com/articles/candidate-to-accuse-opponent-of-racism-just-to-see,17913/
Its so much easier to just throw everyone into a racist net and not have to worry that they may oppose obama on actual philosophical and idealogical grounds isnt it? Then you dont have to even have to think about what they have to say, just wave your hand and cry racist and be done with it. Even giving your line of reason some credibility, that the tea party showed up during a black presidents term, where did the anti-war protestor from the left go? Did america’s war on brown people suddenly become sanctified because a democrat is pulling the trigger? Because thats how its looking from over here.
BBB,
One of the thoughts that I forgot to mention to you earlier in response to your posting where you listed the main planks of the Tea Party. You mentioned lower taxes. If most of the tea party regulars are not in the upper 1% of income earners, they were paying lower taxes than during the Bush years. The idea of lower taxes only makes sense to the upper 1%. The idea that the bulk of Americans are paying higher Federal taxes is an easily debunked myth. I think it goes back to the comment I just made to James about the tea party members voting or arguing against their own best interests.
James,
I hate to say it, but you may be correct that race may have alot to do with the tea party foot soldiers and their hatred of Obama. They even seem to vote or argue against their own best economic and social interests when his name is involved.
I should have begun the second paragraph with “Another large part of it . . .”
rafflaw,
I think an uncomfortable degree of it is down to President Obama’s race, particularly among the older members of the tea party. Among the older generation of my own family, nearly everyone is conservative, but I’ve never seen such widespread vehemence for less cause than that directed at Pres. Obama.
A large part of it is due to fear mongering. I think what you’re seeing today is a continuation of the wild accusations laid against President Clinton, but this time focused more on fear than on corruption (they learned the lesson that, gee, you have to actually prove corruption — no one has to prove that the President is a Marxist).
The last part of it is due to the migration of talk radio to Fox News. During the Clinton era, you had to listen to the radio during the day to get your ideological fix. Today, you get it during the evening news. It’s served to radicalize people who weren’t listening to talk radio every day, even if they sort-of agreed with talk radio when they did tune in.
BBB,
The Tea is represented by those politicians who claim to be part of their “club”. Give me a member list and I will keep them straight in the future. Noone has mentioned why these monumental concerns did not come up or arise during the Bush era. I think Buddha hinted at it with the fact that the Tea Party is bankrolled by the Koch brothers to promote and protect corporatism in this country.
Black Redneck….
I will give you the others and throw in Commodore Vanderbilt…as a true American Icon….Ford not so…he was from a family that owned lots of farm land in Michigan….specifically Fordson….which was the Ford family estate…as well as Fordson Island….was a separate city from Dearborn…Fordson was then incorporated as Springwell…..then Dearborn took it over and owns it all….including a camp in Milford, MI and a Condo Apartment Building in I believe Clearwater, FL….
Ford was of modest means but the family was land rich….what property that is not built upon, vacant or a city park is owned by the Ford family…..
Also, Henry was integral to the development of the first Cadillac….he owned a minority share got screwed and basically tossed out….he then started Ford Motor Company which used the assembly line…I wonder where he got the money to finance that? Oh yeah….the family….paid them back and vowed to never have interferences again and issued two classes of stock…A, which is Common and B, which is preferred and the only class of stock having voting rights…..in 1918 a shareholder derivative suit forced Henry to distribute 225 million of retained earning….it get more complicated after that…