An answer to the right-wing pundits and tea-baggers:

Since reading the news about the Occupy Wall Street protests I noticed a few common themes in the comments from tea-bagger types. I'd like to take this time to refute the corporate shills' tea-baggers' ideas (which are absolute nonsense).

Teabagger: Aren't these protesters just a bunch of whiney rich kids with nothing better to do?

Me: Um, no. If they were rich they'd be on a yacht off the coast of Monaco thinking about all the ways they can get out of paying any taxes on their capital gains.

Teabagger: The government would have an easier time of it if they just didn't have to pay everyone their "entitlements" like Social Security.

Me: Last time I checked, Social Security is not an entitlement. The government has been taking money out of my check since I was sixteen years old. When I retire, they give it back plus interest. Maybe the teabaggers should take a simple course in economics before they decide to lecture about it.

Teabagger: These kids took student loans out of their own choice and therefore it's their problem.

Me: No, it's really society's problem. When millions of Americans desire an education and cannot afford it and therefore must go into debt to get it, something is terribly wrong with the system. Australians and Europeans get free higher education if they do well in school, and are not saddled with debt the second they get out. We have twenty-something year olds in debt before they even get started in a career path, and then add to that the massive unemployment and the fact that possibly 50% of recent college graduates are either unemployed or working in jobs that do not require a degree, and we (yes we!) have a huge problem on our hands.

To add to that, we waste human capital (not that that matters to the Corporate elite, although it should). Just because you're born into poverty doesn't mean that you shouldn't have a chance at things. Isn't that what the so-called American Dream was all about? If someone is intelligent, they should be given an education free of charge. The teabaggers are a cabal left over from feudalism, wishing to see us return to a time when (corporate) lords protected people (serfs) from the ravishes of the world in exchange for absolute bondage to them. They stand for something that is the very anti-thesis of a free and democratic society.

What is wrong with these teabaggers and those who share such ideology? I'd start with the fact that besides the psychological problems and ignorance they obviously have (signs held up at their "parties" about government staying out of Medicare say it all), they also have no empathy. Why else would you boo a veteran of our armed forces? Or cheer because someone without insurance dies? Or absolve yourself of all interest in your fellow Americans.

Obama was quoted as saying that's not who "we" are. I want to know who these asshats are. Is it just ignorance? Is it that they can't think for themselves so they just parrot whatever they've been spoon-fed by Faux News? Whatever it is, it's refreshing to see that there are still intelligent people left in this country.

"Because if this is gonna be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we've got to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that he commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition -- and then admit that we just don't want to do it." --Stephen Colbert

It was only a matter of time...

...unfortunately.

I'm sure most of you have heard that Gabrielle Giffords (Democrat Rep from Arizona) was shot at point blank range by some deranged motherfucker at an Arizona Safeway. She was having an open meeting with her constituents and a gunman walked up and shot her in the head, and then open fired on the crowd. According to news reports a 9 year old child and a federal judge, John Roll, are dead, in addition to others. The person arrested for the shooting, (if this had been in Texas, he'd have gotten one shot off before someone in the crowd took him out, just sayin') was Jared Lee Loughner, who it was reported left paranoid rants online about the government, a North American currency (which has been a conspiracy since before I was born probably), and immigrants who don't speak English.

What with the Tea Party crazies and Sarah Palin's ilk inciting violence, is it any wonder? What sort of nation are we when we can't have political discourse without crazy people assassinating (or attempting to) our Representatives? This isn't happening in a vacuum! Giffords had her headquarters vandalized and the federal judge who is dead had received death threats! There are nutcases online everyday ranting about how terrible our government is. So like I said, it was only a matter of time before something like this happened. I hope Glenn Beck is pleased with himself. It's people like him who are responsible for urging on these paranoid people. Maybe he's paranoid himself, I don't know. This is why we need state hospitals. Paranoid, psychotic people should be committed, not left to wander around shooting people because they think Big Brother is out to get them.

BTW, the link to the article about John Roll from Politics Daily, I just want to say that Politics Daily has the right idea about comments, that they can't be personal attacks and they are all read before being published. Too bad Yahoo News won't do that. The comments on their news stories rival youtube for the inanity, insensitivity and overall crassness. I'm all for free speech, but not when it's trollish or inciting violence (we see where that leads don't we?).

Anyway, the most important thing here is this: my condolences go out to all the people affected by this senseless act of violence.


~~~~~~~

This is totally off topic, but Huffington post had a picture of Obama reacting to the shooting and my thought was, 'I want a room like this in my house!' I know, it's like the White House, but it looks so cool...

Tea Party Schizophrenia: A true mental disease

In a recent poll, it was found that supporters of the Tea Party movement were likely to support the Christian Conservative agenda.

"While the loosely organized Tea Party movement has focused largely on shrinking the size of government and other fiscal issues, its backers are more likely to support government restrictions on gay marriage and other social issues, the Public Religion Research Institute found in its American Values Survey."

This is, in a nutshell, just more proof of how bat-shit crazy these people are. It's not that they want less government, it's not that they want their concept of "moral values" forced upon the citizens of these United States, it's that they want both. They want to have their proverbial cake and eat it too. Except, the cake is a lie. It's always a lie.

They want less government interference in regulating things that keep us safe. They want more government meddling into the private lives of homosexuals, wanting the government to pass laws to keep them from being able to marry or share their partner's insurance benefits, some going so far as to say that laws should be passed making homosexual acts/partnerships illegal. They want less government funding of education (wanting to dismantle the Department of Education and quit funding college loans and grants, because ask any slave master from the 19th century about the best way to keep people as chattel). They want more government interference with the bodies of women, to tell them that they must have children, whether they want them or not, whether they are mentally and emotionally fit to have them or not, whether they've been raped and abused or not.

It's really a complete schizophrenia, to sit there and say that the government should have no influence in the corporate lives of businesses but at the same time that same government should be in our bedrooms telling us what to do, who to be with and forcing women to carry a pregnancy they don't want, or is dangerous to their health, to term. I'll call it for what it is. It's goddamned fascism, pure and bleeding simple. It's so Orwellian, it's almost un-fucking-believable, for these ass-hats to sit there and scream that they are the denizens of freedom and democracy, and at the same time wanting to put their jackboots at the throats of their fellow Americans to make them follow their own twisted version of "morality".

A Terrorist by Any Other Name

They say that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. And apparently that is the truth since some right-wing wackos are lauding Joe Stack as a hero. Joe decided that he was mad at the government and the IRS and flew a plane into a building housing the IRS in Austin.

You see, all terrorists are pretty much the same. They are mad at "the man" (the government, or other power) and want to strike out at it. Except that usually they never hurt what it is they're mad at. Stack didn't hurt the government at all. Just like the terrorists on 9/11 who flew the planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. They were mad at our government too. But in both instances, neither party hurt the government at all. All they accomplished was hurting innocent people and destroying the lives of those close to them.

Apparently Joe decided that our laws didn't apply to him at some point about thirty years ago and tried to get out of paying taxes. And you know what they say about fighting the law. It wins. The thing that really gets me, is that he was complaining about the government taking everything, but if he had just been a law abiding citizen and paid his taxes, he probably would have done well for himself. How many people can afford to own planes? And he owned a house too, in Austin, in a fairly nice neighborhood. I mean, seriously. He obviously wasn't poor, but by breaking the law and trying to avoid paying taxes, he lost, and in more ways than one.

People who think that by perpetrating violence on innocent people, that it will accomplish something, are seriously fucked up in the head. And those who think that this idiot is a hero, are as fucked up as he was. I suggest if they don't like living in a free and democratic society, where taxes pay for services like the fire department and the police, they should scurry off somewhere, perhaps to a deserted island and form their own country and leave mine the hell alone.

Those Who Forget American History...

I finally got around to watching the rest of that Daily Show episode that I posted the first part of on Friday night. I'm glad I did, because the part right after is hysterical. These people are fucking nuts. Yes, we have yet another teabagging pun.

At any rate, I learned a lot from watching this. I learned that "overnight" and "going on for a long time" are not mutually exclusive. Why, I had no idea! Who knew?

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Tea Party Tyranny
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

Teabagging: MSNBC has Become Comedy Central

I got nothing. I nearly choked to death at the end of this. It's absolutely hysterical!

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Nationwide Tax Protests
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

A Tea Party with the Mad Hatter

Yeah. I don't even know where to begin...

at 2:00 minutes.





I suppose I'll start with, so this is what happened to Rusty Shackleford! LOLz

WTF is that guy smoking? A communist plot? For fifty years?

Ah, I see, he's been watching Faux News. That explains a lot. But not all. Somebody needs his medication...

Brainwashing unit? Digital television is brainwashing? Wow. I can't believe the crowd didn't boo him out of there. Oh, but that would require they weren't all crazy too.

Quick! Somebody call the IRS on this lawbreaking, asshole bastard who isn't paying his taxes. I had to dish out $400 because I obey the law, whether I agree with it or not. Everyone else pays their taxes. I don't know why this idiot thinks he's above the law. Must have been taking a page out of G. Dubya Bush's book.

Yes, don't educate your children. Education is the most horrible thing ever, because then your children might think for themselves and might realize what a bunch of bullshit their parents are throwing around.

As for the woman who screamed "burn the books," it makes me realize that Nazism is alive and well right here in the United States. Oh, they may not call themselves Nazis. But the ideology is the same. So, does this mean that I've resorted to Godwin's Law? You better believe it, because in this case, it's appropriate. People screaming about burning books and about scary black presidents who are communists in hiding. This is the exact same rhetoric the Nazi party spewed.

What Has the Government Ever Done for Us?

You know, besides the roads, the schools, the scholarships, the public grants to fund students, health care research, promote the arts (as any reasonable society should), the sanitation, the (horribly underfunded) public transportation. You know, what have they ever done for us?

And why are the right wing, racist fanatics the ones who are raving about this? Could it be because they feel disenfranchised because a black kid gets to go to college with public money? That must really be a kick in the balls to them. Stupid fuckers. That's the problem with this world. No matter what happens, what cruel lessons are played out and suffered by humanity, nothing changes. We don't learn a damned thing.

"Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most times he will pick himself up and carry on."--Winston Churchill

We have to pay taxes. It's part of being in an advanced and democratic civilization. Nothing would get done if we didn't. Indeed, we probably don't spend enough money funding the stuff that should be funded, like our crumbling infrastructures, and our schools that date from the turn of the century before last where students use books from before I was born.

And yes, a lot of money gets wasted, some of it on atrocity. But where the hell were these tax protesters when G. Dubya Bush was throwing billions of our money down a fox hole in Iraq? Where were they then? Oh, I know, we blow up brown people, and that's just fine and dandy. That doesn't fucking matter, because they ain't white and they ain't Christian, so why should we give a damn? Excuse the sarcasm. I've had just about enough stupidity for all my lifetimes, thank you.

I'll Drink My Tea, Thanks.

For all these morons who are holding "teabagging" parties tomorrow, I think it will blow up in their faces, pun intended. I don't know what they're smoking, but I make above the median income for the United States, and I got a tax cut. I am paying less in taxes right now with Obama than I was under G. Dubya Bush. Republicans don't cut taxes, unless you're rich. So, why am I paying less taxes now? Could it be because the Republican party is comprised of a bunch of lying bastards? Nah, couldn't be.

They want to complain about our government spending money? I'm glad the government spends money. *I* am the face of government spending. I am a private contractor on a research project that is being funded by our government. If the government stops spending money, I lose my job. And the thought of that pisses me off. What do these idiots think the government spends money on? Yes, I'm sure some of it is wasteful, but not all of it. They spend money on road work, building projects, and on research projects that are working to better everyone's lives. They spend money giving grants so students, who otherwise wouldn't be able to, can go to college.

You know the one thing I wish. I wish I made more money so that I would have the priveledge of paying more taxes. Pay me $300k a year, I'll pay the taxes on it! I wouldn't know what to do with that kind of income, but I'm sure I could think of a few things.

These sheeple can take their tea bags and shove them where the sun don't shine. As for me, I'll take my tea black, with sugar.