[thumbs] Take the Teabagger Pledge

Abortion, gun control, the environment, health care, business, trade, nuclear power, middle east wars - to name a few.

I am actually only considered on the left on gay marriage and on some tax issues (i think tax cuts are good, but that bush tax cut went to far and put us into this big deficit). Every other of my positions is moderate. And that's sad that moderate now equal liberal on this board.

 

The Teabagger Socialist-Free Purity Pledge

this is an anarchist pledge, not libertarian.

 

I understand the point but there is a fundamental difference between infrastructure improvement and social welfare. It is actually healthy for the government to spend, and have a healthy deficit, when it adds to the ability for economic growth and expansion (not bailout). Social welfare stagnates productivity because motivation stagnates, free rides at the bottom and high taxes at the top. In the past 12 months:

Almost two $Trillion Deficit

A Healthcare Program that is just an expansion of a bloated medicare system

A Cap and Trade system that will Increase the cost of everything (this one is the most dangerous)

and countless other proposals that will cripple us financially.

I will admit that there are some crazies on the right but if their argument is for a smaller more efficient government, I have a hard time not siding with them.

 

Now I am genuinely amused. The vast majority of this list is as stupid as the religious conservatives who told people that didn't want "In God We Trust" on dollars/coins to send all their money to them.

It is very possible to believe that there should be minimal government intervention in a given service while still using that service if no other options exist. It is even possible to complain about rights being taken away if it means you are left with some rights, rather than no rights.

Now I certainly do not believe that we are losing rights, nor do I believe that (for example) there should be no fire department. But it is not hypocritical, if I did believe that there should be no government-funded fire department, to use one if needed.

If this is considered one of the best posts in D&D, then I weep.

 

Considering the fact that it, constitutionally, isn't supposed to be on there and also wasn't there originally, I'd say these two cases don't exactly shape up the same.

Not to sidebar about separation of church and state, but people legitimizing that stuff irks me.

 

I don't think I explained my self very well, I agree with you 100% on the "In God We Trust" issue. My problem was with the religious opponents whose only response is "well then don't use it and send it to me!" Obviously I am going to continue to use the money, even while I try to get it changed.

The same arguments, however, can apply to most (if not all) of the items on Sullivan's list.

 

I knew what you were saying, and I didn't confuse it with you trying to support IGWT. But I think it is a mistake to say the two things are equal.

So the things in Batman's list are unconstitutional and as abstract/unnecessary as "In God We Trust" on the money? I don't really think so.

 

Ah, I get what you're saying, but I have no issue defending services on a necessary/utilitarian viewpoint. I don't think the absurdity of IGWD matches the absurdity of the socialist fire department. But the absurdity of the responses is equal.

I just take issue with the response of "You use a service so you must support it" logic that Sullivan's list is based on (and one that "crushed the right-wing conservatives on here". To be honest I would have simply dismissed the list as silly and moved on if were not lauded so highly. I think it's a terrible example of debate and discussion.

 

There's a difference these days?

 

Hey it's bigtexxx again offering not one bit of subtance, evidence or support for any of the ideas being discussed.

It's nothing new, he usually goes after the messenger rather than address actual issues.

 

You're missing the point. The OP is a response to the blind attack on everything "socialist", which could easily be applied to things like the fire department, national parks (government owned land), etc. It's a statement on the uninformed message of the teabag protests.

 

I love satire, and I think the OP and following post by Batman really shows how ridiculous the tea-baggers are. I mean, they are trying to invoke revolution clearly by reference to the Boston Tea Party - yet they have no true understanding of our democracy.

Batman's thread here just totally smashes them by pointing out their ignorance, hypocrisy, and just plain stupidity.

These tea-baggers are like Neo-Nazi marches and Iranian lead gov't marches that spew hate against the West. They are like people blaming 9/11 as a conspiracy and all that stupid non-sense. They are really just stupid people. Not because they are conservative, but because they are stupid.

 

you play this card way more than donkeymagic, anyway as been pointed out, the emails are supposed to be "this is real folks", this is a joke no one's pretending that its not

 

[Q

Good point not understood by most conservatives in their kee jerk hatred of goverrnment spending..

Bumper sticker simplistic conservatism. My wife her mother and 5 siblings were rescued from a chicken coop and taken into a housing project, received welfare and all wound up going to college. Without the help we would probably be paying for them in one fashion or another.

Which has been a great thing for seniors.

Well who is against efficient government? Are you for apple pie, too?

As far as "small" at least you have conceeded a role for road building. these tend to be big projects.

 

the statist media would have you believe they're the same. i think most pragmatic libertarians think the government should play a role where as anarchists would probably just dissolve the government entirely.

 

Reading what some of the Texas libertarian candidates for office have said in the past, I disagree that this is the case in the real world. I have yet to see a single libertarian candidate say anything but that he wants to dissolve the office that he is running for.

The difference is primarily that the libertarians believe the government can facilitate the free market into taking over the functions of government institutions. The anarchists, on the other hand, have the same view of corporatism as they do government bureaucracy. They want to create a void and leave it empty. That is the functional difference between an anarchist and a libertarian - libertarians inexplicably place all of the faith that they withold from government into corporations and the free market. Anarchists don't trust anybody.

 

If I don't use the services will I no longer have to pay the taxes?

If so, I will sign. USPS sucks balls.

 

The USPS will eventually be greatly reduced in relevance. FedEx started delivering parcels more efficiently than the Post Office.

At some point, somebody will do the same for letters.

Do not say it can never happen. The guy that started FedEx turned in the business plan in a class at Harvard business school. The professor gave him an "F," stating that nobody could supplant the Post Office for package delivery.

 

FedEx has delivered packages more efficiently than the USPS for as long as I have been alive. The problem is and has always been the price point. This is actually a pretty good analogue for health care.

The guys with no concern for price can pay uncontrolled "market" prices for faster service and nurses in snappy, neat uniforms. And the rest of the nation can get "public option" service since we don't need it tomorrow before 10AM.

Can you imagine if competition between FedEx and UPS was the only and final arbiter for the price of a first class letter? I am positive a single first class letters would be at least $4.99, and probably closer to $9.99. The Post Office is a pretty good tortise/hare allegory for why the free market isn't always best.