Submitted By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
The wrath from the right has been scortching ever since VP Joe Biden commented that certain freshman tea party congressmen were acting “like terrorists” in negotiations to raise the debt ceiling. There was equally no love lost when John McClain commented that the tea party freshman were acting as “deceivers” and their ideas were “bizarro.”
Now Tea Party freshman Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) (No, not the one with the Maserati that goes 185) has produced his own video decrying the incivility and telling us that “Vice President Biden, I’m not a terrorist. Terrorists target and kill people.” You can watch the lament here.
While the language employed by the VP was quite over the top, and especially so given Biden’s challenge to introduce more civility into public discourse, our freshman congressman fails to see the irony of his words. No one suggests the Tea Partiers are calling for mass extinction of liberals or undocumented aliens, or gays or the poor. But what do they want?
Here’s Nevada GOP Senate Tea Party candidate Sharon Angle on the frustration of her comrades:
“I hope that’s not where we’re going, but you know if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying my goodness what can we do to turn this country around? I’ll tell you the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out.”
Some Tea Party candidates are a tad less discrete in their call for violence. Here’s Texas Tea Party candidate Stephen Broden, “Our nation was founded on violence. The option is on the table. I don’t think that we should ever remove anything from the table as it relates to our liberties and our freedoms.”
Alaska Tea Party candidate Joe Miller found a lot to like in East Germany’s “checkpoint Charlie” system of stemming the tide of freedom-seekers “immigrating” to West Berlin during the Cold War:
“The first thing that has to be done is secure the border … East Germany was very, very able to reduce the flow. Now, obviously, other things were involved. We have the capacity to, as a great nation, secure the border. If East Germany could, we could.”
And the Tea Party has a thing or two to say to liberals about the notion of any separation between church and state:
“Do you know, where does this phrase ‘separation of church and state’ come from? It was not in Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists. … The exact phrase ‘separation of Church and State’ came out of Adolph Hitler’s mouth, that’s where it comes from. So the next time your liberal friends talk about the separation of Church and State, ask them why they’re Nazis.” —Glen Urquhart, the Tea Party-backed Republican nominee for the Delaware House seat. You can even watch him here.
And then there’s that “witchy woman,” Delaware’s own Christine O’Donnell, who, when questioned about whether the Constitution calls for separation of church and state during a debate before an audience of legal scholars and law students at Widener University Law School delightfully noted, “You’re telling me that’s in the First Amendment?” Ahems were heard around the world on that one.
New York Tea Party darling Carl Paladino had this suggestion for the poor:
“Instead of handing out the welfare checks, we’ll teach people how to earn their check. We’ll teach them personal hygiene … the personal things they don’t get when they come from dysfunctional homes. These (prisons) are beautiful properties with basketball courts, bathroom facilities, toilet facilities. Many young people would love to get the hell out of cities. You have to teach them basic things — taking care of themselves, physical fitness. In their dysfunctional environment, they never learned these things.”
Then there’s the First Lady of the Tea Party, Michele Bachmann, sharing all the inside dope on what it really means to be gay (no husband jokes, please):
“If you’re involved in the gay and lesbian lifestyle, it’s bondage. It is personal bondage, personal despair and personal enslavement.” — then Minn. state senator Michele Bachmann
There’s scores more and they deal with all manner of insensitivity to the poor, immigrants, the 45000 Americans who die every year from inadequate health care, and just about everyone else the right likes to pillory.
Now most of these quotes were from losers in their electoral races and maybe they represent only the most extreme dunces the Tea Party has produced, but that’s not really the point is it? The point is that while the far-out Right might be justly indignant for the rhetorical excesses of the Left, they can’t seem to find the words to decry the excesses of their own camp.
There’s a word for that.
Source: Huffington Post
~Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
http://www.brothersgibb.com/archives/Jan2004-March2004/arc50000000262.txt
lottakatz,
Your civics class taught you the same as mine … it’s fun to watch the teabaggers squirm but not at all fun to suffer the results of their stupidity.
‘The President hasn’t proposed a budget’ is something I am hearing regularly from talking heads and Republicans. So, I may have missed something in my civics class or my reading of the Constitution but, as I recall that is the job of the Congress. Is that not correct? If it is correct why isn’t anyone making that point on the T&V? Welfare queens thy name is Congress- get a job!
That was funny. “Your middle name is ‘wanken'”. lol
Mike Spindell:
“Said organization is opposed to giving up oil and farm subsidies.”
are you 100% sure about that? Because if they are not then they are just as full of shit as everyone else.
I now present kderosa as Obiwan Kenobi and Gene H as Darth Vader in a Scottish Sock Puppet Theatre Presentation:
They didn’t even try.
No budget from the Democrats? Lets get real. The President could have proposed a budget to cut spending to zero and refund all taxes for the past four years. There would have still been people like Rand Paul, John of Orange and other Republicans on Faux News ranting and spewing about how terrible it was and not enough. What would have been the point? For one thing, all spending bills have to originate in the House of Representatives. Now let’s see–who is in charge of the House of Representatives? Wait a minute….it is coming to me….
Wouldn’t this not have been a problem if the democrats had even tried to come up with a budget for the first two years of this administration? They are as much the ‘terrorists’ as the republicans.
If you didn’t see Rubio’s speech, it was a good one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fsG4jLBmrs
“christmas eve of year 2009 they were allowed to pass a healthcare bill- very controversial – because they had 60 votes of the president’s party. But for two years, no budget. In fact you know how long it’s been since this chamber has proposed a budget? forget passed a budget, proposed a budget? 822 days, that’s a long time.”
“So how is an organization dedicated to reducing government and getting government and business out of the same bed a terrorist organization?’
Roco,
Said organization is opposed to giving up oil and farm subsidies. their government shrinkage is only on the programs that benefit the middle class and the poor. Michelle Bachman both receives farm subsidies and federal money through her husband. she is their poster child. BTW, the terrorism is in being willing to bring this country to the verge of financial collapse, if they yet haven’t done so.
Same here!!
Well, if I ever make more than that, I’ll be happy to pay my share (even a little more than my share).
Slarts,
Noone earning less than $250,000 should disagree!
raff,
According to all of the conservatives, the theory is sound – tax the hell out of the rich and let those taxes trickle down. Can anyone disagree without incurring the wrath of Saint Ronnie? (or the conservative thought police who enforce their skewed version of his ideology…)
I like Slarts idea. Let’s bring back the Reagan tax increases!
Mike Spindell,
Thanks for the mis-post … I always read Tony C but missed that one. It’s probably over on the “Good Law” thread so off I go to wade through that ocean.
I didn’t come on this blog to pontificate … I came on this blog to be tested, criticized, grow.
I’ve lived and aged in my home community for over 30 years. I’ve been active politically and culturally. Nobody challenges me anymore. Part of it is respect for my age, part fear of my caustic nature and part recognition of my contributions. That’s dangerous to one’s continued growth. I needed this blog to tell me … “you’re full of poop and here’s why”.
Think, rethink, learn, and grow.
Mike Spindell:
“Their
plan is to shrink the government and eliminate as many taxes as possible, while also eliminating safeguards against corporate excesses.”
this is something I dont understand, if we shrink government we are going to have to give up corporate and farm subsidies. And if we deregulate companies are going to have a harder time than they do now. They wont have government protection.
And if government is no longer a “partner” with business arent we talking about ending Fascism rather than perpetuating it as is being done under the Obama administration and as was done under the GW Bush administration with TARP?
So how is an organization dedicated to reducing government and getting government and business out of the same bed a terrorist organization?
“Probably why those terrorists are continually attacking public education…”
Slarti,
Bingo! I’ve long thought that.
Oopsie! I posted the above on the wrong thread, too many windows open.
Never mind.