I wrote a (typically) long response to this message yesterday, and when I selected "post comment" button, this stinking message board told me I wasn't registered and refused to post it.  Bah.  I'll make this one short, since I just wrote a fairly lengthy response to your Masonic source (at the top of the current thread).  Your "freepers" are targeting the wrong audience ... here's what they should be doing instead of protesting a tax increase on the wealthy and the corporate lot (actually, not an "increase" at all, but simply letting a big present given to them in the last administration to lapse), which in turn effectively amounts to a protest against a tax cut for 95% of the population:

(1) Use the Sherman Anti-Trust Law to break up any corporation "too big too fail".  

(2) Any corporation or financial institution that comes to the Fed for assistance must be restructured; current management shown the door; the various divisions broken up into independent and unrelated companies under NEW management made up of entrepreneurs and businessmen willing to show integrity and honesty to run a new company efficiently and legally.

(3) Reassert the regulatory power of government to license and monitor private business.  It has been done effectively, efficiently and fairly in the past and can be done so again.

(4) Re-instate the Securities Transfer Excise Tax (STET) that effectively worked between 1914 and 1963 (and was used to finance both the Civil War and the Spanish American War) in which a minimal tax (e.g., .25% or so) is assessed on every stock transaction; the money goes to a separate fund maintained by the Treasury that can be loaned to businesses in distress at reasonable interest rates; because it is repaid when (or if) companies reestablish security, it is a fund that generally increases rather than decreases ... when it rises above a preset threshhold, money can be used to fund otherwise expensive social welfare programs (e.g., universal health care); the tax takes the "gamble" out of investment and forces investors to return to the so-called good old days when they invested in a company not for speculative reasons of reselling the stock for profit (and all the games and manipulations that this tempts big-time players to engage in) but because they had faith in the long-term security of the product or management of the company.  

(5) End voodoo supply-side economics and return to basic supply-and-demand economics.

(6) Provide relief to honest American citizens who pay their taxes on time, do not over-extend their credit, and who may be struggling in the current economic downturn caused by Bilderbergs and wannabe reckless gamblers.

(7) Support small business creation and even networking (it IS a global economy, after all) through tax incentives, paying the health insurance policies they are strapped with paying, and providing them with the means to meet necessary environmental laws or restrictions rather than punishing them for not being able to.

I am not quite sure how to address your comments.  My understanding is that the tea bag protests are in response to a whole gang of recent events that include (but probably aren't limited to) the bailout of mismanaged financial institutions, the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act, and the so-called "tax increases" proposed by Barack Obama in his budget.  As such, they are organized by people from the right (clearly not the left, though the left also criticizes Obama for not being daring enough) and directed against the President (in particular) and the Democratic Congress (in general).  Of course, these same people did not see fit to protest when the previous administration gave away the horse, the buggy, and even the barn itself to those very same financial managers and wall street speculators, or their most close corporate supporters ranging from Halliburton to the coal-mining industry and power companies on the Klamath River (et. al.) ... which of course undermines their credibility now, as far as I am concerned.  But I suppose it takes some people a bit of time being hit over the head with a corporate club before they decide to protest against it.

It's just that the "tea bag" symbol suggests it has something to do with taxes and/or government support of corporations.  And it smacks me as being a bit disingenuous to protest against allowing certain tax cuts to lapse (as opposed to claim that Barack Obama is "increasing taxes") when those proposals are being made by a man who ran on a campaign of allowing those tax cuts to lapse and won the right to enact his campaign promises by a sizable majority.  Again, the original Boston Tea Party was organized in protest against significant tax cuts awarded to a wealthy and powerful corporation (and which, when enacted, threatened to drive thriving competition within the Colonies out of business) by a ruling body over which the colonists had no control.  Today's "tea baggers" are protesting against a tax increase assessed on the wealthy and powerful who have run our economy into the ground, and who influence legislation and political control in ways denied to the very people protesting in their support.  At least, as you point out, we can (theoretically) still recall our elected leaders (in the next election) ... try "recalling" the CEO of AIG or Merrill-Lynch or Bank of America (or whatever), or influencing policy decisions of the Halliburton board of directors that seems to so deeply rely upon the American Treasury Department for its profits.

So I am suggesting that those seeking to protest in demonstration of their anger and frustration over government actions are either misled or woefully undereducated.  The target of their anger is misplaced ... it should not be directed at an administration forced to address a failing economy and trying to prevent its collapse, but instead should be targeted at the financial managers and corporations who have become "too big to fail", and whose unrestricted and unregulated behavior is the primary cause for our current financial distress.  Who was it that deregulated the financial industry (and the energy futures industry) that created the "Enronization" of corporate America?  How have these global corporations become so large?  Who enabled and/or empowered them to combine and consolidate and merge (whether in a friendly or hostile manner) to the point that when their arrogant belief that corporate expansion was never-ending caught up to them, that their failure in judgment threatened to bring down the entire United States of America?

A responsive government would reign in the power and behavior of corporate leaders.  It might even break up the corporations into truly independent (not cross-managed) business entities.  For example, instead of GM scaling back and manufacturing four or five "models", the Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick (etc.) divisions should become independent companies operating out of scores of old factories that have been closed so that "successful" manufacturing operations could be shipped overseas (how are GMs partnerships in Asia, Europe and Latin America holding up, by the way?) ... then those new companies, under new management and obviously smaller than the parent monopolies from whence they were created, would manufacture on a much smaller scale and sell what they make, rather than making however many they want to manufacture and then doing whatever is necessary in order to sell them (including expensive advertising campaigns, extending excessive credit, or pulling marketing stunts that hide the real cost of the final product).

AFrank, I often find your arguments compelling. Can you be more specific regarding what it is you disagree with in what you unfortunately call Obomonomics? Of course you are referring to the realignment of our economic policies recommended by the bi-partisan conservative and liberal advisors to President Obama.

The taxation without representation statement does not have any weight because we just had a an election that had one of the largest voter turnouts in history. So it is impossible to claim any taxation without representation.

Is it the Keynesian nature of these corrections and the taxation of the wealthy that irritates you so much? I am curious to know.

You might try attending the TEA Party rally in Justin Herman Plaza on Apr. 14th. from 1 to 4.

Special guest appearances by Melanie Morgan, Diana Nagy, The Young American Patriots Fife and Drum Corp, and Celestial City!

There should be representatives from local Bay Area TEA Party groups if you want to find someone local.

RealAmerica

Cutting and pasting a patriotic myth from someone named "Bro Edward Cair" of "Southern California Research Lodge" makes for fine reading, and even smacks of authenticity.  But "Bro Edward Cair" omits a few details from his account that otherwise is fairly accurate.  It is in those omissions, however, that we learn "the rest of the story" (to quote a deceased but beloved seeker of truth).

I will begin by repeating my claim that the protest in Boston that we now call the Boston Tea Party was organized and carried out as a direct protest against a tax BREAK given to a multinational corporation that would enable it to exert unregulated monopoly of commerce in the American Colonies.

The Tea Act of 1773 was not designed to raise revenue in the American colonies, and in fact imposed no new taxes.  It was designed as a bailout of the British East India Company, which teetered on the edge of bankruptcy and was burdened with 18,000,000 pounds of unsold tea stored in London warehouses.  While the history of the East India multinational corporation is interesting, in and of itself, let's just agree that financial collapse was imminent unless the conservative politicians of Parliament and/or King George -- all major stockholders in the company (a clear conflict of interest, of course) -- did something to save it.

In case you have forgotten, in mercantilist England all imports and exports had to pass through London (or properly licensed English ports) on their way to or from the various colonies, which in turn acted to supply raw materials for manufacture or as markets for manufactured goods.  The duty on tea in the mid-eighteenth century was about two and half shillings per pound.  The Tea Act ("an Act to allow the drawback of the duties of customs on the exportation of tea to any of his Majesty's colonies or plantations in America") allowed the East India Company … and the East India Company ALONE … to export its tea directly to the colonies without having to pay that tax, and only pay the Townshend Act import duty of three pence a pound (the duty ALL importers of tea had to pay ... if you are interested, I can teach you about the history of the Townshend Act, too). 

The tea may have been "moldy" as the account you cite reports (then again, since the Indian tea of the East India Company was far superior to the teas American merchants imported, it stands to reason that being businessmen, the Americans might have labeled that tea as "moldy" as much for propaganda purposes as for "truth in advertising"), but it was definitely cheaper than any other tea available to colonists.  In fact, members of Parliament were truthfully confused by why the colonists would object to cheaper tea.  What they failed to take into account was that colonial merchants already openly competed with the British East India Company (while others operated a lucrative black market import business, whose very existence was based on not paying any duties, whatsoever).  Those operating legitimate businesses were forced to continue paying the Townshend duties (like the East India Company was) AND the duty paid in London (the tax break given to the East India Company to stimulate business).  This threatened to give the East India Company a virtual monopoly on legal tea sales in America, and essentially seemed like a method for driving American merchants out of business.

As stated in your embellished account, East India Company ships were denied entry to the ports of New York and Philadelphia.  Cargo was offloaded in Charleston, but left to rot.  In contrast, the Royal Governor of the Massachusetts colony stubbornly held the ships in port (in part because of his clear conflict of interest, similar to that of members of Parliament and the Crown).  Meanwhile, the colonists refused to offload it.  The duties referred to in Bro Cair's account may or may not have been at issue, but they were the Townshend Duties that everyone had to pay (including the East India Company), and were not what this dispute was about, at all.

The colonists were fully aware of the behaviors of the East India Company around the world.  You might wish to look up a person writing under the pen-name of "Rusticus", who published a widely circulated pamphlet called The Alarm during this period.   He clearly warned Americans of the power of the East India company to wage war, stir up rebellion, unthrone kings, operate as a monarchy, and to create such social upheaval that hundreds of thousands of people died from resulting famine.   

An eyewitness in Boston had his memoirs published in 1834 (participants swore themselves to secrecy for fifty years).  His name was George R.T. Hewes, and his memoir (I have a second-edition copy, which I have held since my post-graduate days in college) is entitled, Retrospect of the Boston Tea Party with a Memoir of George R.T. Hewes, a Survivor of the Little Band of Patriots Who Drowned the Tea in Boston Harbor in 1773.  Thom Hartmann, a progressive talk show host here in Portland, was speaking about this very book the other day, so I got it out and checked his reference.  He got it right.  Hewes wrote, "The East India Company received permission to transport tea, free of all duty, from Great Britain to America …" and "it was no longer the small vessels of private merchants, who went to vend tea for their own account in the ports of the colonies, but, on the contrary, ships of an enormous burthen, that transported immense quantities of this commodity … the colonies were now arrived at the decisive moment when they must cast the dye, and determine their course …"  

And it wasn't as if the Founding Fathers forgot about the dangerous nature of corporations being too closely connected to politicians when they finally got around to writing laws regarding their incorporation and regulation.  They of course put nothing in the Constitution regarding incorporation, instead leaving that matter to the states.  This is because the states ALL had draconian laws regarding corporations ... their size, their function, their life-span, their inability to participate in politics, and so on.  Check out the history of incorporation in this country, and note the tight controls placed on what they could (or could not) do prior to the rise of post-Civil War graft and corruption which opened the door for their re-emergence as a bane on capitalism.

For corporations ARE a bane on capitalism.  They destroy "free markets" by controlling or monopolizing them.  They stifle competition in many ways (legal and otherwise).  And, in stifling competition, they also stifle creativity, industriousness, and entrepreneurship (unless they control it, themselves).  They apply inordinate amounts of pressure on elected officials (again, in a number of ways), and have a distinctly unfair influence over them.  

I wonder if the Tea Partyers plan on taking their protest to the tent city in Fresno?

I keep telling you that your tea-party partiers are either disingenuous or are flat out aiming their anger and frustration at the wrong targets.  Increasingly, as Timothy Geithner keeps parading out old-fashioned solutions to keep the old-fashioned Robber Barons well-heeled and solvent (even though by now most of us know those Emperors are not wearing any clothes except the ones they have taken off our backs), I find myself writing letters in protest of his efforts to prop up Wall Street ... and the scary implications they carry of some type of a merger between High Finance and Government into a Corporatist State that combines the worst elements of both socialism and capitalism.  If all the money of the Treasury (as far into the future as you want to project) is ultimately going to be used for nothing more than to bail out speculators and gamblers, then I will join you.  I see two distinct lines of spending, and some of it is ... contrary to point raised by TeaBaggers ... quite good.  That spending must be supported.  Pretending that "tax increases" on the wealthy are going to bankrupt us is, to put it mildly, delusional.  

Part 2:  Tom Paine

Thomas Paine, along with Samuel Adams, was probably the most radical (and liberal) of the American Revolutionaries.  Typically, Glen Beck (ignorant crybaby that he is) misrepresents Tom Paine as a Revolutionary "pamphleteer", dismissing him and the things he actually stood for.  This makes sense, because Thomas Paine would have made mincemeat of Glen Beck and the things he advocates.

Thomas Paine is considered by many to be the father of American liberalism.  He was skeptical of the power of any institution.  Wealth and concentrated power were anathema to Paine.  It didn't matter if the power was corporate (as pointed out, the Boston Tea Party was a protest against a transnational corporate power and its umbilical connection to government), religious (The Age of Reason is a scathing attack on organized religion), or governmental (especially "kingly oppressions" of an unfettered and unchecked government).

Paine proposed and promoted countless liberal ideas generally credited to his successors.  Teddy Roosevelt is usually given credit for being a "trust-buster", but it was Tom Paine who first suggested that government should not allow corporations to become entrenched and to monopolize business (he also first proposed a "minimum" or "living" wage!).  Woodrow Wilson's inheritance tax, designed to prevent wealthy family empires from consuming the nation, was first proposed by Paine.  FDR institutionalized the progressive income tax, but it was Thomas Paine who first described it and its fairness.  He thought the best way to build a strong democracy was to tax the wealthy, providing bootstraps to the poor and a means to pull themselves up.  He also suggested that money be collected and set aside to offer pensions to citizens in old age as part of a social safety net.  Thomas Paine proposed international disarmament and participated in a series of international congresses to achieve it.  Specifically, he said that all nations should reduce their armaments by 90% to ensure world peace.  He also proposed government-supported medical assistance for the poor (Medicare), financial assistance to the poor so they could obtain minimal food (food stamps), and public assistance to help the poor obtain housing (CRA).

Most importantly, and perhaps most relevant to this discussion, Paine was an Anti-Federalist.  He despised John Adams and his efforts to quash freedom of speech (Alien and Sedition Act).  Thomas Paine favored decentralized government ... a strong federal government with authority in limited areas, but an even stronger local government.  To this end, he would see that in today's crisis, unless we break the power of the financial oligarchy over our government, any effort to get out of the mess we are in or to make real reform will be impossible.  

In the two videos we are asked to watch, the "Thomas Paine" character distracts us with populist sentiments that do not truly get at the matter of what the real Thomas Paine would see as the source of our problems.  Some do.  Sort of.  As I said in part 1, it is a grab-bag of populist sentiments.

In the first part of this response, I suggested that some of the "Video Paine" (VP) criticisms of Congress were reasonable, but did not really get at the heart of the problem.  He proposed several populist solutions (remove privileges, repeal the right to vote on their own salaries, force them to balance the budget, force them to purchase their own 401(k) and to pay into Social Security, enact term limits, and vote them all out of office if they don't even read the bills they vote on).  Though all are given the same weight and sense of importance, each of these proposals is vastly different in scope and scale.  The real Thomas Paine actually proposed term limits when he helped Pennsylvania draft its state constitution, so might find some value in that one.  I think it is a no-brainer that our Representatives should have no more special privileges than the rest of us, but in some cases -- especially the bit about health reform -- we would all be better served if we received the same health care plan they do, rather than forcing them to accept less.

"Don't start a war you can't win" can be taken to have several meanings.  "Abolish the Electoral College" is clearly a sentiment advocated by the real Thomas Paine, but the VP misstates the situation when he demands that the power to directly elect the President be put back in the hands of the People (it never was ... this was a protection inserted by the anti-democratic Federalists to make sure the "rabble" -- code in Federalistese for "people" -- did not have too much power).  "Universal Service" is actually a fairly Progressive slogan, and stands out from most of the others.  "English Only" is, at the other end of the spectrum, about as anti-Tom Paine a proposal as one could find ... as was the entire anti-immigrant, anti-diversity (diversity does NOT mean "disunity", as the fake VP proclaims) portions of the presentation.  The real Thomas Paine would seek to protect the right of citizens to work, and to be paid a living wage, rather than have those jobs taken by workers living in the country illegally.  He would support strong laws prohibiting businesses from hiring those workers, and aggressively seeking out and punishing those that did.  He would argue that here again is an example of where concentrated wealth and power creates policies that allow the practice to flourish, even when it is detrimental to society as a whole.

Incidentally, the real Tom Paine would be a strong advocate of the Employee Free Choice Act, and would demand that when the illegal workers were removed from the workplace, that workers taking their place be given the right to decide whether or not they wanted to organize a union, and to decide how they wanted to do it; he would not agree that it is the employer's right to make such decisions, or to have any voice in the matter, whatsoever.

Look, fakeamericazoid ... I have been a participant on this Bulletin Board in its various guises since about 2003 or 2004 and I have had "conversations" with folks like you (heck, given the way the righties in Contra Costa County have so many identity problems ... switching monikers at the drop of a hat ... maybe I have had conversations with you) for a really long time.  I know, for a fact, that not a one of you witless sheople ever once said a disparaging word about the monstrous deficits that George Walker Bush imposed on the people of this country.  For eight long years the wages and income of fully 95% of the American population stagnated or declined, because all the wealth they generated through their labor was being GIVEN to the wealthiest and most powerful top 5% in the form of massive tax breaks, tax incentives, tax dodges, off-shore hideouts for their cash, etc. etc. etc., given to them in 2001 and 2003.  The system that you helped prop up during those eight long years ... a system that brought us perilously close to the "political tyranny" you now claim we are succumbing too ... was a plutocracy; a government of the rich, for the rich and by the rich.  It was EVERYTHING you now whine and moan about, and brought to us courtesy of 30 years of neo-conservative Republican rule.  Our Treasury ... allowed to be led by the nose by the moguls of Wall Street and their 12 Regional Federal Reserve Bank Chairmen (Hank Paulson and Tim Geithner among them) ... is empty.  It has been pilfered by an unfunded war which raked in trillions of dollars of profits to the well-connected, no-bid buddies of the Republican Party; by unfettered and unregulated lending policies made possible by a series of laws enacted from Reagan to Phil Gramm; and by a wave of speculation and intensive gambling at the highest levels unrivaled in the history of the planet (we study the "Teapot Dome" Scandal in American history class, theoretically as a precautionary tale of what happens when unchecked political bosses reward their buddies and cronies with public largesse ... but the last eight years make Teapot Dome look like sandlot play) ... all conducted knowingly and in full-consciousness by those we entrusted to run the country.

You ... and your so-called "patriotic" type ... sat by and watched it all happening, cheering from the sidelines while howling for the heads of people like myself who dared suggest that maybe something was rotten on Pennsylvania Avenue.  You were either a complicit participant or a witless fool (that's for you to know in this magical world of assumed identities and instant authority).  The goal, most undoubtedly, of George W Bush and Dick "Darth Vader" Cheney was to totally bankrupt government, fulfilling Grover Norquist's proposal that it be made so small it could be drowned in the bathtub; to break it ... totally and irreparably ... so they could stand alongside the statue of Ronald Reagan in the Republican Pantheon of Democracy Busters.  

They don't trust "The People" ... remember, Ronald Reagan came to power and capitalized on reaction to the phrase "Power to the People" ... the wealthy and the powerful don't want schmucks like me making decisions about how or where they can run their stinking businesses ... they know, in their elitist hearts, that NO ONE can tell them what to do.  Why?  Because they are ABOVE the rest of us ... they operate by a special set of rules, the fabled "rules of the market place" ... you know, the New God of the corporate state, with those magical fingers that somehow operate free of government interference (if you don't count as "interference" the manipulation of interest rates, the setting of tax policies, large armies to secure your incursions into foreign countries, a court system that has this incredibly consistent pattern of incarcerating and even executing poor people while always leaving the rich and wealthy immune from such cr*p)

As I have been pointing out, all this stinking noise about Tea Parties and the "agony" of "Thomas Paine" is nothing more than an effort to attach phony symbology like a Halloween costume over more of the same old Republican lies.  Either you have been horribly misled because you do not really know squat about American history (just the fluffy cotton candy your handlers feed you), or you are a cynical manipulative liar.  The American Revolutionaries were, indeed, fighting against a tyrannical government; that government had all the trapping of a democracy, but true power lay in the hands of a landed aristocracy and a growing corporate class and was expressed through the unchecked power of a single executive.  Part of that power hit Americans over the head in the form of corporations ... more than half of the colonies WERE corporations (begun originally as granted charters or proprietorships) ... and they had long struggled to wrest control from the privileged hands of their corporate bosses.  A tax BREAK on the wealthy and powerful East India Tea Company ... a multinational corporation with powers today's CEOs can only dream about ... designed to provide it with a trading monopoly in the New World, was the cause of the Boston Tea Party.  As pointed out in a different message, Thomas Paine was everything EXCEPT a toady to the ruling class.

So here's why I think you guys have your underwear all knotted up.  George W robbed the Treasury to the tune of at least $3 trillion (again ... not a ONE OF YOU said a single word about that behavior) ... much of it still to come due.  That doesn't count God know how many hundreds of billions in tax money that was transferred to the top 2% of the population -- today's aristocracy and ruling class -- who of course, in this age of "What's in it for me?" and "What am I entitled to?", invested it in those grand ponzi schemes called real estate ventures and mortgage-backed securities (etc.).  When he left office, there was to be nothing left ... hence nothing Barack Obama or Democrats could do to "fix" the problem.  

Only one thing changed.  

Democrats been watching the Masters of Deceit and Deficit Spending for over thirty years.  They know how to play the game.  So they have upped the anti.  Instead of pulling a Jimmy Carter or a Bill Clinton and cutting back on whatever social services are still left, balancing the budget and reducing the Republican-induced deficits, they are borrowing from the Republican play-book and borrowing money.  Like crazy.  In a Republican administration, that would be okay (of course), because the borrowed money would be going to the rich folk.  Today, though, it's going to everyone BUT the rich.  It's going to create jobs.  Private companies are not hiring in this country, and haven't been since 2001.  So government is going to create the jobs for a while.  And, since government is doing the hiring or the contracting, government now controls how the jobs are structured ... whether or not there are unions, what the minimum wage should be, how health-care and other benefits will be paid, and so on.  This development, some astute Republicans are starting to notice, will hit them with a double whammy:  Government will now be competing with private companies for work and jobs and income and (as Republicans have oft predicted) government will win most of that competition; workers will have income, will not have to borrow to make ends meet (reducing the credit business to the three balls above the door trade it traditionally occupies), and might actually be able to live a middle-class life without owing their souls to the company store.  Meanwhile, the wealthy will be socked with higher taxes on their income ... forcing them to pay back some of the wealth with which they absconded during the Reagan-Bush years ... OR they will be forced to actually invest it in ventures that will produce more jobs -- you see, if they opt for that choice, their taxes go down.  As they increase their investments, they will discover that government gradually withdraws as a competitor.

This sounds like a democratic republic, to me.  There are still small numbers of wealthy people at one end (just maybe not as wealthy as before) and a similarly small number of poor people at the other (maybe not quite as poor).  There are lots and lots of people in the middle, sort of like there were through the sixties and early seventies.  Businesses will be relatively small and local.  Larger, interstate companies will be incorporated under tight regulations and control, because they exist to serve the people:  that is, to provide the goods and services that a well-regulated society requires.  People who invest in those companies will make handsome profits by following the rules, exercising wise management strategies, and providing valuable and well-produced goods and services.  Profit, of course, remains a goal ... but so does the intrinsic value of making good, reliable, useful merchandise that people value.  Government and business will be separate, by the way ... much as church and state are now separate (and for many of the same reasons).  When we get to this point, there will no longer be a need for a massive central government ... real power actually will be  exercised locally and the national government will merely monitor and regulate commerce, secure the borders, guarantee our security, and protect/defend the Constitution.  

But we temporarily need a strong central government to get us there.  And here's the rub.  Democrats are just as susceptible to greed and avarice and control by the ruling classes as are Republicans ... they just express their subservience in slightly different ways.  They will, for example, possibly try to find a way to make sure that all the executives at all the major Wall Street financial institutions actually recoup their losses.  They could, in fact, merge so thoroughly and completely with the financial institutions as to create a solid corporate state ... one blending the worst elements of both socialism and capitalism into a single tyrannical governing structure.  Here is the golden opportunity for the Republican Party.  Long the champion of Big Business (hidden behind the phony-baloney theories of "trickle-down" wealth to the masses and "supply-side" economics) ... now is a golden opportunity to return to the actual practices of Lincoln and become the true champions of the common man; but only by adopting and promoting policies that will (1) break up and tightly regulate the big corporations (if they're too big to fail, they're too big to save), (2) defend the right of individual workers to organize unions and collectively bargain for better working conditions and possibly co-management rights, (3) reform the electoral process (eliminate the electoral college, for example, reapportion Congressional districts in a more balanced way, take special interests out of elections, etc.), (4) terminate the Federal Reserve ... and the like.

This is where Barack Obama wants to go ... but conditions left him by the departing President, not to mention current Republican resistance ... might make it impossible.  If he withstands that resistance and his policies actually succeed in slowing down and even reversing this recession, the Republican Party is a goner.  If Republicans get there first, however, they might actually salvage the Party.

Oops! You can't map something that does not exist.

I'll Keep My Intellect And Ignore

Ignorance

I have already PRESENTED the reasonable argument associating Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Michelle Malkin with Tory policies!!!  By advocating a cut in the tax rate charged to the wealthy and the corporations they run, they make the same argument King George and Parliament made to protect the health of the British East India Company.  By supporting THAT tax cut, they also oppose cutting the taxes paid by 95% of all other Americans ... another basic Tory policy.  It seems that the actual Patriots ... you know, the folks who called themselves Minutemen (not the righties who have co-opted that name for themselves, today) or Sons of Liberty ... supported representation and the democratic process of selecting the people to serve in their government.  Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Michelle Malkin seem to oppose that value, as well -- we just had an election in which Barack Obama promised to restore taxes on wealthiest Americans to the same level they were in 2000, and to cut taxes on everyone earning less than $250,000 a year.  The People (53%) agreed that they liked that idea, and now, less than 70 days after taking office, the Tea Partiers want to try to reassert their losing demagoguery on the rest of us.

We currently have $1.5 trillion A YEAR in deficits brought to us by policies that included tax cuts for the wealthy and special privileges to the corporate elite.  Tax increases on those who brought us economic catastrophe WHILE THEY PROFITED for eight years will help cut that deficit to $600 billion a year for the next four years.  It's called payback ... when you make a mess of someone's house, you pay to have it fixed.  In my opinion, Barack Obama has not gone far enough.  Every executive at a financial institution that is in trouble right now should be forced to forfeit everything they have earned (or bought with their earnings) over the past eight years to the US Treasury.  We cannot reclaim the money from the wealthy that they were not taxed, because they were just obeying the law ... but we can start now.

Wow!   I dare anyone in this country to have complete responsibility and/or control over their own lives!

    There once was a dream of home ownership for everyone.  Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac tried to make that dream come true by guaranteeing loans to anyone and everyone that applied.  With or without jobs, documentation, stability of residence, proof of ability to pay, legal or illegal, english speaking or non-english speaking, etc...  All one had to do was sign on the line and the loan and house would be theirs.  This policy of course totally supplanted supply and demand economics in the housing market, which led to artificially inflated housing values, which led to the housing bubble, which eventually burst.  Which was a major cause of  the recession, which caused banks and other corporations to start failing, which caused the government to start bailing.

There once was a dream of affordable healthcare for everyone.  Which caused Congress to pass a bill (in the 1950's) allowing corporations/businesses to deduct healthcare costs on their taxes (not individuals).  Which caused corporations to purchase and provide healthcare for their employees,  which caused millions of insured individuals to think that it was their employers (or government MediCaid, MediCal, MediCare) obligation to provide healthcare for them, instead of them being able to purchase healthcare on the OPEN market, which caused the cost of healthcare to rise so that individuals were priced out of the market, which caused millions of uninsured individuals.

There once was a dream of luxury retirement for all our elderly people in America.  So along with Social Security, Congress passed laws allowing corporations/businesses to deduct from their taxes, the costs associated with providing retirement plans for their employees.  Individuals could only deduct $2,000 a year on their taxes in the beginning and only if they didn't earn too much.  Now I think it's up somewhere around $5,000.  Which created a situation where individuals looked to their employer to provide retirement (instead of saving for themselves), which created large sums of money (401K's) being invested that individuals had little or no control over, which created large sums of money being lost when the recession hit, which has created hardship for millions of our retired citizens.

There once was a dream of helping and feeding all our poor people in need.  So our Congress passed laws providing Welfare, Food Stamps, Section 8 Housing, etc... programs, which caused some people to abuse these programs by having child after child without being married or having a way to support these children, in order receive more handouts and stay on the programs longer (instead of having time limitations and education/training requirements tied to receiving government money).  Which caused some of the children in these households to grow up thinking that living off of the government is a "way of life."  Which caused some of them to have children without being married, that they couldn't afford, which caused them to apply for government handouts.  Which has caused a lot of kids to grow up in one parent households on government assistance, which has caused a growing population of takers not producers.

I get it, if you supported Texan Ron Paul, another one of the many radical wingnuts who does not support regulation of the banks, you will go to disreputable internet sources and the already discredited Faux Not News and pretend that you have found the culprits causing the current crisis. And who are your culprits? Well of course as insane as it is, you and your Mad Hatter's Tea Party buddies think it is the current eleven week old administration. To boost your Mad Hatter's Tea Party, you will quote sources like Malkin who does not know her backside from her elbow. Very credible research you have done here. Real serious sources....NOT.

Well, I have to admit that I have not heard very many anti-tax people demand that we not pay ANY taxes.  That's a new one to me.  If we paid no taxes, who would invade Iraq?  If we paid no taxes, how would we defend ourselves from the next 9/11 gang?  Or if Mexico decided to invade, would we just mobilize citizens to fight them off as a militia?

See, I have no problem paying taxes to support the need of government to defend us from foreign aggression (although I am not so keen to pay taxes that go to unnecessary aggression on our part) ... which just goes to show that being a liberal is a bit complex.

But if we didn't pay taxes, who do you suggest build the highways that permit interstate commerce?  Does each airport get to broadcast air traffic control information on its own wavelength?  Do private broadcasters get to broadcast on top of other broadcasters and jam their signals because there is no oversight?  Is a peanut company free to follow whatever practices it wants in the processing of its commodity simply because it sells the peanuts in a different state?  Do you ever visit and enjoy a National Park?  How would it be different if operated by Disney, or if each Park had its own admission standards?

Enough ... your suggestion is ridiculous and shows just how immature tax protesters have become.

I disagree that most tea party goers are opposed to taxation, or opposed to tax rates.  They are opposed to Barack Obama, and are upset that they lost the last election.  Period.  There were several people on this message board (some still writing, even under different names) who said, before the election, that if Barack Obama won, there would be non-stop efforts to make it impossible for him to do anything.  Now, those type of people are acting out their fantasy ... and the fantasy is just this:  my way or the highway.  Copying the last executive, of course ... a person that very few of them criticized, ever!

I have a suggestion, which I lift liberally and modify from the words of Atticus Finch ... why don't you just try changing your perspective a wee bit and see how it fits.  Instead of thinking that government "takes our money by force", why don't you think about it in terms of we give money to government to do the things a majority of us want it to do.

This even goes to waging war and getting people killed.  I objected to the invasion of Iraq from the moment it was first proposed.  I worked hard to do everything I could legally do to have my voice heard.  Still, the majority of people allowed themselves to be tricked into supporting that invasion, and into believing the bull-puckey that they were presented to talk them into it.  You certainly have a right to protest and speak out against tax policies or anything else about which you are upset ... but maybe you better get used to not getting what you want.  With the assassination of Robert F Kennedy, I stopped getting much of anything I wanted from my government and have found myself in the minority most of the time.