Except the second quote you provided, has two problem, both of which were pointed out by the blog post in the OP. While some families of those killed by the attacks undoubtedly are against the mosque being built, not all are. I have no idea what the percentages are and I don't think it's relevant. Second, the mosque is not going to be at ground zero. It will be near ground zero but two blocks in NYC is a significant distance. It would be nice if Pail made that distinction. So while the posts may be offensive they are certainly not correct.
All them are made because he is black so you have 7 pictures. Out of the thousands of tea party rallies and the millions of people who have attended these events; with every single one being watched by people who would love to show them as racists; you found 7 signs. I would also be curious about how many of those are plants since liberals have been trying to do that for the last few months. I still hold to my previous argument that relative to NOW or Code Pink or the Black Panthers, the Tea Party, which is far larger then all those group combined, is remarkably non-violent and respectful to others.
Fair enough, but the title of the article doesn't say she is wrong it says she is a BIGOT. If the author of the article truly understood that word he would not be so flippant in its use.
You've only added her clarifications and none of her earlier statements on the issue. Her exact statement: “Ground Zero Mosque supporters: doesn’t it stab you in the heart, as it does ours throughout the heartland? Peaceful Muslims, pls refudiate,” Convenient how she makes herself the spokesperson for everyone throughout the heartland, isnt it? Her mentality is indicative of the fact that she doesnt assume Muslims to belong to the 'heartland', nor to true America. She doesnt view Muslims as equal citizens, thats the sad reality of it, and if that isnt bigotry, then I'm not sure how you want to define it. This speaks nothing to her usage of refudiate, which as we all know, is not a real word. And its not just Palin. Gingrich said he'd bar a mosque "near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia" Compare that statement to the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000: "No government shall impose or implement a land use regulation that discriminates against any assembly or institution on the basis of religion or religious denomination."
That's awesome. The tea party finally got a spokesperson and it's you. I'm not sure congratulations are in order but, hey, congratulations! Link?
Let's break down the uninformed TeaParty stances (and show how they are actually big business's objectives and they are slipping the tea baggers a fast one) What would happen if insurance companies could sell across state lines...well, we know each state sets it's own health care policies - so the policies in South Dakota are very different than the ones say in California. The regulations are in place so buyers in california don't end up with South Dakato's regulations and get surprised. But let's say we allow it to happen. Well, it would just be like the credit card industry - which is allowed to sell across state lines. What happened? well, South Dakota, which was economically depressed, said, hey Citibank, if you head quater your business here, we'll let you write all our banking laws. And so Citibank did, they wrote ridiculously pro-Citibank laws that were very unfriendly to consumers...but then sold all those accounts across the country. Problem was, it didn't matter if it violated California state credit laws to a Californian consumer...because it only has to abide by South Dakota's laws. In other words, power was taken away from the states and given to not the feds but instead Citibank. So should we do the same for health care? No thanks. Actually the most effective method is to audit the companies that hire Illegal immigrants...it's shown to be more effective than troops on borders, raids, and harassing anyone hispanic looking. guess what, Bush didn't do it, and Obama is doing it. Obama has been harder on illegal immigrants than his previous 4 or 5 predecessors. The tea party should be rejoicing about this one...instead, they rather enact failed policies. That's 0 for 2 for the Tea Morons. The irony of this is so funny it almost makes one want to cry. The hardest hit by a sales tax of this type would actually be the Tea Party demo. Because if you have a sales tax, it would mean the tax money from the rich would have to be taken more from the middle and lower class. The next result would be a sales tax of around 30% on top of everything else. I wonder how popular that would be. That's 0 for 3. There is no historical data or evidence for this. It's mere speculation. The fact is that even CONSERVATIVE economists have come out and said the stimulus and gov't spending is key to preventing a depression / recession. And the CBO credits much of the current uptick in employment to the stimulus efforts. Gov't debt hasn't reduced private sector because cits know taxation is coming - that's the most hilarious piece of logic i ever heard. People based their budgets on the federal deficit? Are you serious? If you believe that I have some rocks I'd like to sell you. 0 for 4. I'd like to know the Tea Party stance on education - as in, perhaps they should learn something before they create myopically and reckless policy.
Good post otherwise, but I don't know why you'd concede the point that the tea party HAS stances. That's news to me and I'm still waiting for a link.
Tea partiers have brought up the Tea party platform and issues before, the Contract from America, and we have debated them extensively before. Opposition to the Tea Party isn't mostly about looking for a bad guy but is about positions.
Yes, Washington is finally getting serious, so they can soften opposition to immigration reform. It's a pretty transparent strategy. Will the enforcement continue after reform is passed? I remain skeptical. And one could argue that we wouldn't even be seeing this slight uptick in enforcement if not for statewide initiatives responding to the unofficial policy of looking the other way. In any case, anger over illegal immigration has transcended political affiliation. If it were only right wingers opposed to amnesty (or whatever it's being called these days) it would have already passed. The trouble for supporters is that too many voters (not just on the right) feel that any talk of amnesty is going to increase the volume of border jumpers and make matters worse. This is why you hear people talk about securing the border before, not after. Show the public that the flood can be reduced to a trickle, and then immigration reform has a chance of passing. Sadly, politicians don't seem interested in that approach so nothing is getting done at the Federal level. For what's it worth, I lean to the left, and am no fan of the GOP.
I don't disagree with too much of what you said -- only the bit about the unofficial policy being to avoid reform. You're badly mistaken there. Obama and the Democrats are serious about reform but, as with every other issue, they face strict opposition from a party that believes the smartest thing they can do politically is to stringently oppose literally everything to deny the Democrats in power any accomplishments. To his credit, Obama has managed to pass MAJOR legislation despite this strategy, not once but three times, but it's unprecedentedly difficult each time. Everybody wants to secure the borders. There's no disagreement there. The problem is what to do with the 12 million or however many illegals who are already over here. McCain was for a path to citizenship before he was against it, as were other GOP'ers. Now the GOP basically refuses to negotiate on this, presenting no ideas of their own either by the way, because they think a story of "nothing's happening on immigration" is better for them at the ballot box. See Palin's hilariously clueless performance on Bill O'Reilly recently for a perfect example of where the GOP stands lately on immigration, which is nowhere. Question to the GOP: What do you do with the 12 million who are here? Answer from the GOP: Obama won't do anything! We're mad! Even McCain, formerly an outspoken advocate of reform has been forced to backpedal on things he was for as recently as two years ago, in order to line up with the stalwart opposition to all things Obama and save himself from a challenge from the nutbar radical right. It's health care all over again, with the GOP rejecting even their own ideas because they prefer nothing to anything. It is a cheap, cynical, political strategy, the likes of which this country has literally never seen before. So, while I understand the frustration, it's not like the Democrats are blocking Republican ideas on this (there aren't any). It's exactly the other way around. In fact, it's R's blocking not only D ideas but R ones as well. I'm interested to hear from you though, Raven. If not amnesty of some sort, whatever you want to call it (a path to citizenship is what I'd call it) then what? Deport 12 million people? Is that what you're for? In the end, it doesn't matter of course, unless the Ben Nelson's stay on board and Reid manages to pick off a Brown or a Snowe or a Collins, but I'm interested in what you think the best solution is.
If I were Obama, I'd divide the immigration reform into two pieces of legislation. First would come securing the border. This would be a good faith measure. I would then propose some sort of pathway to citizenship once the American people saw that border security was working, a pathway to citizenship that liberals would feel is too restrictive and conservatives would feel is too easy, and moderates and independents would accept as fair and practical. If Obama were really bold, he would propose a shipping canal be built that would stretch from the Gulf to the Pacific. That would secure the border, create hundreds of thousands of jobs, stimulate the economy, open up new opportunities for green energy, and allow us to possibly terraform entire swaths of the South and Southwest into a watery paradise. Just a wild thought.
Do you really think thats possible? chances are that whatever he presents will get mass opposition from the fringes of both parties, and its going to rile discontent amongst the masses no matter what he tries to put together.
I agree that securing the borders should come first and I don't see any reason not to try to do that first. There might be a political one of which I'm unaware but if there is, well, I'm not aware of it. Regarding your "wild thought," do you think that Mexicans can't swim? Where do you think the most common slur against them came from? Regarding the strange notion that liberals and conservatives would both have to be unhappy about the way the path to citizenship should work... or the rather naive idea that that would translate into independent/moderate support - a thing which has never, to my knowledge, happened, and certainly wouldn't given the current political climate. In a two-party system, particularly one in which there is such division, people break one way or the other; they don't break a third way because there isn't a third way. As soon as one of the parties starts to support ANY proposal (however "moderate" - look how watered down health care had to be to pass, for example), it becomes that party's proposal. In the current climate, the other party opposes it. And we're back to two ways. In fact, health care is a perfect example. Neither party was happy with the solution that was reached. The Democrats started out talking about real national health care, first with a single-payer system and then with a public option, and then they compromised and compromised and compromised again, trying to pry loose a single Republican vote, adopting many Republican ideas along the way, and what finally passed was something that neither party wanted. This seems to be the method you're proposing for the path to citizenship. Well, that worked out great on health care reform. And financial reform. In both cases, we got major legislation which neither party was particularly happy with in in neither case did moderates/independents embrace it based on that fact. Now on to the idea of how tough it should be to obtain citizenship for those who are already here illegally. I am genuinely interested in how that would manifest in your perfect world. What are your proposed steps on the path to citizenship? I am also interested to know what you would do with those who weren't in compliance (and the more difficult you make the path, the less will be able to comply). How many are you willing to deport? A million? 2? 10? 12? And what do you propose doing with their children, many of whom were born here and are citizens. I'm not pitching for an easy path. I don't really have a position on this. It's too complicated and too difficult a problem for me to believe I'm smart enough to answer the question. But you seem to think it's fairly simple so I am interested in your proposals.
The American people are up to the task. All it takes is a leader who believes in them, and anything is possible.
The swimming stereotype never entered my mind, but it wouldn't matter, because I'm talking about a shipping canal, a full blown shipping canal. Too deep, wide, and busy to cross, and almost impossible to dig under undetected. I think this is an idea worth the American people having a conversation about, for a number of reasons, restricting illegal immigration being pretty low on that list.
A few things on the canal. Projects like that have historically been built by the same people you want to keep out: immigrants (if you don't agree, show me counter examples). People who own property on the border are not going to give it up for anything, especially Texans (they've even kicked out Minute Men). It would have to be an international project shared and approved by Mexico. And you can't stop the movement of people from poor countries to rich, if Mexicans and Latin Americans can't cross the border, they'll just get here by boat or plane (how do you think Africans get into European countries?). If you really want to kill immigration, help make the countries from which immigrants come from viable places to live.
I don't want to keep out immigrants. Nothing I've said even hints at such a thing. Quit trying to frame my argument. I also said (in bold) that reducing illegal immigration isn't high on my list of reasons to build a canal, but that it would be one of the positive outcomes. And while you can never stop illegal immigration, you can reduce it to a trickle. Good grief. And a canal could be built on our side of the border, so we'd have complete control over security. Mexico wouldn't like it, but Mexico can't be trusted to share in the responsibility of maintaining a transnational shipping canal. But back to a more practical point. The most likely way to address illegal immigration is through the passage of two separate pieces of legislation, one enforcement, and the other some sort of pathway, with reasonable restrictions, such as no convicted felons, etc.
