Post Tea Chat

I have always been interested in hearing from people with differing perspectives. We have a conservative visitor who seems to believe in civil discourse and has provided us with some post tea time conversation. I think our discussion would make a nice post and I’d like to thank Dan for sharing his views with us.
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Dave,

I find your claim incredulous. Am I supposed to believe “an old-fashioned American citizen who believes in our traditional values of freedom, truth, and justice”, would steadily chip away the podium on which he ‘supposedly’ stands?

I have to give you credit in regards to your subtle (sometimes not) attempts to marginalize the Tea Parties. You stripped a page from Napolitano’s script when she so timely warned us of “radical right-wing extremist” (and Obama claimed to know nothing of the Tea Parties). I find it laughable as well as hypocritical, that hard-core liberals who have made a history of protest can in good conscience cast stones at those protesting. Perhaps just beyond the realm of your comprehension lie those protesting their concerns about trillions of dollars and debt for future generations as well as expressing their frustration as they watch the government bail out large corporate entities. (Only a fool can believe that taxes will not go through the roof once the ‘recovery’ takes place). Many are also fair tax proponents, of course that would be a problem for those forty-fifty percent that don’t currently contribute federal tax dollars, but still receive refunds.

I’ve stayed too long…now back to reality. I trust never-never land will rest in your capable hands.
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Dan,

Thanks for your input. Your podium metaphor isn't quite clear to me.

You said, I "stripped a page from Napolitano’s script when she so timely warned us of “radical right-wing extremist”. No, I didn't.

And besides, I would credit someone for any page I would strip them of. BTW, nice post you got over there.;-)

In fact, violent right wing radicalism has been around for a long time.

US News and World Report: 2005:

"In the 10 years since the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing killed 168 people, roughly 60 right-wing terrorist plots have been uncovered in the United States, according to an upcoming report by the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project. The plots, all foiled by law enforcement, reportedly included violent plans by antigovernment militia groups, racist skinhead organizations, and Ku Klux Klan members to use various types of chemical bombs and other weapons."

And we all know of the recent right wing politically motivated killings of Tennessee Unitarians and Pittsburgh cops.

Face it, Dan. Right wingers are more violent than libs and moderates. It's in their authoritarian nature.

You may be surprised to learn liberals detest the bank bailouts, too.

American corporatism has always been the offspring of Republicans and right leaning, big business Dems.

Remember when the righties called us traitors for protesting Bush's lying us into a war that has cost us the first trillion dollars of the Bush debt?

Where was the outrage from the conservatives when Bush started the TARP corporate welfare program?

And just who are the ones casting stones anyway, those accusing Fox/corporate lobby sponsored shills as dancing puppets of their corporatist masters, or those accusing demonstrators of treason?

Don't get me wrong, I believe you love your country, but you appear to love conservatism more.
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Dave,

I have to admit I’ve bookmarked your site; the entertainment value is priceless.

The podium reference was rather tongue-in-cheek. You claim to support traditional values. As a side note, the Wikipedia entry for right-wing mentions “an adherence and obedience to traditional values”.

I was not suggesting you had plagiarized Mrs. Napolitano’s work, only that you used the same tired scare tactics. All veterans must be ‘right wing’ and since they know how to use weapons, we add one and one and come up with four. (the extra two came from the logical assumption that right wing=angry and deranged). Only by using such poisonous terms as “Reich wing” will the conservative right ever include such hate groups as the skin-heads and KKK. On the lines of hating, I don’t suppose you caught Janeane Garofalo’s interview (a fine representation of a hate-filled lib)

Tarp funds were certainly not a unanimous choice on either side, but it is worth noting the bill carried through the house with a nearly two to one margin Dem/Rep 172/91.

No matter your position on the Iraq war only the ‘Bush-haters” have turned it into a lie. I’m assuming by the “Bush lie” you mean W.M.D.’s (“boo…hiss…dirty words”). It was a very popular lie as it seems Joe Lieberman, Dianne Feinstein, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, Hilary Clinton, Al Gore, John Edwards, Ted Kennedy, and Madeline Albright also told the very same lie back then. Hindsight will always be 20/20 and a short memory serves it well.

It is no secret President Obama believes in a heavily involved government: socialized health care (one look at the mismanagement of the V.A. program should send us running) and the refusal to accept repayment of tarp money (is the president erring on the side of caution or do I smell a big, fat pot of socialism brewing?)

I do love my country, just as our founders intended it to be, with a small, limited role for government.
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Dan,

It’s nice to know you find entertainment value in my anti-authoritarian satire.

Didn’t you know liberals have traditional values, as well as anti-authoritarian values? Along with justice and truth, one of my favorite values is “blessed are the peacemakers”. Is that traditional enough?

You say I used the same tired scare tactics. Do you mean stuff like “mushroom clouds”, “Saddam’s aerial drones that will drop chemicals and anthrax on us”, “nukular aluminum tubes” , “Saddam’s connections to al-Qaeda”, “We know where the WMD’s are”, and “they hate us for our freedom” kind of scare tactics? The Bush cartel spewed lies by the hundreds, and they punished anyone who contradicted them. Ask Joe Wilson and his covert (confirmed by the Director) intelligence operative wife who was treasonously exposed by Rove, Cheney and his thug sidekick Libby. And unlike some Dems who may have thought Saddam had the weapons, but wanted inspectors to do their job, the Bush lies were intended to frighten and anger Americans into supporting his war of aggression directed at a nation that did not harbor al-Qaeda and posed no threat to the US.

Bush’s invasion of Iraq had less to do with protecting US citizens than with consolidating political power and winning re-election, along with transferring, or redistributing, enormous wealth to his and Cheney’s war profiteering friends. He has pretty much admitted his “war president and political capital” idea in his book before he became president. Maybe it even had something to do with oil. It sure looked like the perfect plan to funnel our tax dollars directly into the pockets of mercenaries and other connected business interests. There’s that trickle up economy for you.

This reminds me, what do conservatives think of Eisenhower’s concern over the influence of the military industrial complex? I have always been curious about that. Taxes on the rich were higher during his time than they were under Clinton, you know. Was Ike a Socialist?

I’m glad you’re sensitive to the use of poisonous terms. We heard a lot of them lately. Traitors, America haters, Appeasers of terrorists, Socialist, secret Muslim, Obama pallin’ around with a terrorist, far left wackos, “real Americans” as opposed to moderates and liberals. The list goes on. I have explained my term Reich Wingers to be authoritarian fanatics, hateful, ignorant, violent, racist, bigots, book burning, commie-obsessed holdovers, and other intolerant types. Most conservative folks are not Reich Wingers.

What did I ever say against the vets? And are you advocating shutting down the V.A.?

You need to re-calibrate your negative emotion gauge if you are equating Janeane Garofalos’s anger with the rage and hatred from skin heads and Klansmen.

There are many of us who are neither Obama maniacs nor sufferers of Obama Derangement Syndrome. Yes, Obama is a Democrat who believes government can solve some problems. I also see him as a company man working with corporatist interests. I have objected to any authoritarian stand he takes, such as FISA, rendition, no rights for detainees, etc.

I love my country, but I fear our rogue government when it ignores the rule of law and the Bill of Rights.

Conservatives seem to like to have it both ways. Big Government can’t do anything right, yet “small government” must wield the world’s mega military machine effectively and wisely. Government must not interfere with the corporate agenda no matter the impact on the public and environment. Small government must be able to send paramilitary armored assault teams of cops to kick in the doors of peaceful protesters and forcibly detain credentialed journalists. Remember the tactics at the GOP Convention?

There’s no role for government to regulate Big Business, but we need government to dictate the behavior of responsible consenting adults in their homes. They have no objection to warrantless NSA and CIA surveillance of US citizens. It is as if the Second Amendment was as far as they read into the Bill of Rights. Waterboarding is torture when someone else does it, (We’ve prosecuted against it) but not when we do it. And the Right accuses the Left of “moral relativism”.

There is a long list of contradictory disconnects at play here. Here is one of my favorites. Two thirds of US corporations pay no income taxes. Yet through lobbying and campaign donations they buy representation in the government. There you have it. Big Business has representation WITHOUT taxation! The rest of us get the shaft, buddy. Workers’ rights to collective bargaining are being crushed. Is it any wonder the middle class is shrinking and the poor are multiplying? This is not democracy, it is corporatism and it leads to fascism.

Some of us want to have government work for the public interest, as in education, health care, infrastructure, police, fire, courts, and municipal services.

On the other hand the right wants no regulation, and no legal oversight. Government is to facilitate the interests of Big Money or get out of the way. It is their golden rule: those with the gold make the rules.

If the government works for the public, then call it socialism if you must. Just understand that when the tea baggers shriek “socialism” and “communism” over a 3 percent tax restoration for the rich it makes them look like selfish greedy idiots.

Remember “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesars”?