Tea Party Express Video- 11Apr10 in Michigan

[Taiji Bum]

The Tea Party Express in Clinton Township, Michigan 11Apr2010. I attended this with my mom today and made this short video for her. Please be civil. My mom is in this video and I get protective.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPNFBWoQ57g

[soaring crane]

This is going to sound a little weird but I'm actually glad to be living in a country that had the Nationalism/Patriotism kicked out its culture. The only time in fifteen years I had to endure any flag-waving was during the World Cup in 2006, and that was more like huge party.

 

Hey, btw, I was thinking that, and please don't take this too harshly because it's not meant that way, if you're really serous about the "be civil" and worry that you might have to "get protective", whatever that means, then maybe you shouldn't be posting videos on the www(?).

[joeblast]

I most certainly hope that patriotism is never kicked out of American culture. Its got to do with remembering what history is - were we greatest when our government was most powerful, flexing its muscle most, or were we greatest when people were free to pursue their dreams? This is a battlefield of ideas - do you feel most comfortable making your own decisions, or do you feel most comfortable having a small subset of your options even being possible in return for some "guarantee?" I can tell you that I am 100% positive I could have invested the thousands and thousands I saw go to Social "Security" this year from my paychecks much more wisely rather than tossing it into the black hole it went into.

 

As far as I'm concerned, the federal government has exceeded its mandate in a great many areas, it plays fast and loose with its credit and we need some leaders that are willing to cut spending - drastically - there's no other way to get out from debt. Not cutting taxes, not increasing taxes - its cutting spending that's going to do it.

[TheSongsofDistantEarth]

I most certainly hope that patriotism is never kicked out of American culture. Its got to do with remembering what history is - were we greatest when our government was most powerful, flexing its muscle most, or were we greatest when people were free to pursue their dreams? This is a battlefield of ideas - do you feel most comfortable making your own decisions, or do you feel most comfortable having a small subset of your options even being possible in return for some "guarantee?" I can tell you that I am 100% positive I could have invested the thousands and thousands I saw go to Social "Security" this year from my paychecks much more wisely rather than tossing it into the black hole it went into.

 

As far as I'm concerned, the federal government has exceeded its mandate in a great many areas, it plays fast and loose with its credit and we need some leaders that are willing to cut spending - drastically - there's no other way to get out from debt. Not cutting taxes, not increasing taxes - its cutting spending that's going to do it.

 

 

I agree. Distrust the government and place your trust in business and corporations. Biggest expenditures are those pesky wars. End them now!!

[joeblast]

ummm...dude, you do know that those wars arent even close to our biggest expenditures, right? not that they're a drop in the bucket, but...they're not even close.

[TheSongsofDistantEarth]

You're right again Joe, as always...a trillion dollars isn't even worth even mentioning. My bad, dude...

 

 

Q+A: Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan tops $1 trillion

WASHINGTON

Fri Jan 15, 2010 12:04am EST

 

 

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The cost to U.S. taxpayers of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001 has topped $1 trillion, and President Barack Obama is expected to request another $33 billion to fund more troops this year.

 

Over two-thirds of the money has been spent on the conflict in Iraq since 2003. This year is the first in which more funds are being spent in Afghanistan than Iraq, as the pace of U.S. military operations slows in Iraq and quickens in Afghanistan.

 

HOW MUCH HAS BEEN SPENT ALREADY?

 

Congress has approved $1.05 trillion dollars for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the National Priorities Project, a nonpartisan budget research group that has a continuously running war cost counter on its website.

 

The tally topped $1 trillion last month, when U.S. lawmakers approved the fiscal 2010 defense spending bill that included $128 billion to be spent on the two conflicts through September 30. The trillion-dollar total includes war-related costs incurred by the State Department, like embassy security.

 

 

 

BTW, what is the point of the original post of a tea-party gathering in Michigan? It's not like there's already enough media coverage of the angry masses...Are we supposed to recognize Darin's mom?

Edited April 13, 2010 by TheSongsofDistantEarth

[joeblast]

you incorrectly asserted that they were our biggest expenditures. whaddya want?

[soaring crane]

I most certainly hope that patriotism is never kicked out of American culture. Its got to do with remembering what history is - were we greatest when our government was most powerful, flexing its muscle most, or were we greatest when people were free to pursue their dreams? This is a battlefield of ideas - do you feel most comfortable making your own decisions, or do you feel most comfortable having a small subset of your options even being possible in return for some "guarantee?" I can tell you that I am 100% positive I could have invested the thousands and thousands I saw go to Social "Security" this year from my paychecks much more wisely rather than tossing it into the black hole it went into.

 

As far as I'm concerned, the federal government has exceeded its mandate in a great many areas, it plays fast and loose with its credit and we need some leaders that are willing to cut spending - drastically - there's no other way to get out from debt. Not cutting taxes, not increasing taxes - its cutting spending that's going to do it.

 

So, reading this, it looks like the only thing that really matters to you in the end, is money? I don't really believe that, but that's where you took it, for your own reasons. That's apparently the yardstick you use to measure the distance people have to go to "pursue their dreams". Dreams always have to involve cold hard cash? What if my dream is to live in a socially fair society that places high standards on ethics and quality of life? What about the people who prefer to work to live and don't see any use in a life wasted living to work?

 

But that's all tangential to what I meant above.

 

"Patriotism", I mean, "My country - love it or leave it", flag-waving, bombs-bursting-in-air, Pledge-Of-Allegiance, hand-on-heart, teary-eyed Patriotism - is an evil but useful tool that the powerful apply to keep the masses docile and manageable. It's the enemy of free-thought and free-will. And, yes, Germany is a place that learned the hard just where it can lead.

 

The original American Tea-Party, circa 1935:

 

Edited April 14, 2010 by soaring crane

[joeblast]

You'll have to include a reference for that image - I was able to see the wikimedia url but in searching through a dozen google pages, wiki, etc, I wasnt able to find a single bit of information on it. Not to sound cynical - but in case you missed that bit of history, the original boston tea party happened long before your image was thought of - and besides, is that some veiled attempt to link "tea party" with Nazism, hence the gesture in the picture? That's the most common thing that is referred to by that gesture, and if you've studied it to any depth, you'd know that hitler's nazism was but a cousin of socialism or marxism, which is diametrically opposed to the entire concept of the tea party. So what's your intent in posting that picture?

 

 

Money is but a tool - that was included to keep this on topic, as overspending has driven many a fiscal disaster in the last 50+ years. As we all know, rich does not equal happy - but at the same time, the point is having the means to pursue one's interests. This ties in to government spending because the more the government must provide for each citizen, the more it must tax each citizen. There's obviously a balance, for some amount is necessary, but at some point it becomes too much of a burden on citizens and there winds up being too much of a concentration of power at the government level, being able to dictate far too much of one's life.

 

That's entirely the reason why we have a federalist separation of powers here. Its not the government's job to take care of you - their job is enumerated in the constitution and that is most certainly not there, even though some politicians would extrapolate the concept of the general welfare clause until it was all but indistinguishable from socialism.

 

So what's a "socially fair" society? One where all men are born equal, or one where the government tries to guarantee equal outcomes? The two are not mutually exclusive, although the latter has historically always resulted in much more unfairness being foisted upon those subject to it, rather than it simply being the Utopian level playing field that the vision is based upon. Also historically speaking, the more government has tried to "fix things" so to speak, high standards of ethics and quality of life have been anything but paramount. These are individual virtues that must be taught at the familial level, no dictate of government will imbue such virtue upon its people. And as to the former, it is simply politically correct to state that all men are born 100% equal. Reality states otherwise - and that is why we want to leave our descendants a better and more prosperous world than what we inhabit. For each of us doing our small part, we try to leave our children with better conditions and wise approaches, therein we are ensuring that they have every advantage possible. Its ingrained in the very concept of jing, the creme de la creme essence that is passed on to the next generation.

 

It is simply logical that one who works hard should be rewarded for his efforts, regardless of the venue.

 

So, sorry - until we have more free energy than we know what to do with and we can manipulate matter on the scale where we can simply create food and not toil to provide for ourselves the basic necessities of life, we'll be watching Star Trek on TV and will not even have such a "utopia" exist or even have the possibility of such in the near or relatively remote future. And even then, with many of the basic struggles of life removed, there will still be need to get off one's ass and do something to make a living. Integrating work and the rest of life is part of the tao, it is part of the challenges faced by virtue of being a human.

 

 

 

That patriotism can be subverted towards an end to "keep the masses docile" holds little difference aside religion or anything else that can be perverted towards those ends. Do you honestly think this "tea party" concept has anything to do with those ends?

 

There is no substitute for honest self-observation.

[gendao]

So, reading this, it looks like the only thing that really matters to you in the end, is money? I don't really believe that, but that's where you took it, for your own reasons. That's apparently the yardstick you use to measure the distance people have to go to "pursue their dreams". Dreams always have to involve cold hard cash? What if my dream is to live in a socially fair society that places high standards on ethics and quality of life? What about the people who prefer to work to live and don't see any use in a life wasted living to work?

I have no problem with that - as long as you lay in the bed you made. Could you pledge to do that?

 

Unfortunately, most of these "dreamers" who "don't care about money" don't like to do that. Eventually, when they see the better, hard-won lifestyles of hard workers "wasting life to work" - they demand all those same monetary-based results as well (without doing the work themselves). Better homes, better care, better schools, better food, more choices in anything, etc. That's when these liberals impose Socialist "Robin Hood" policies to force others to give them charity. See welfare, Sec 8 housing, Community Reinvestment Act, race/gender-based affirmative action, Universal Healthcare, etc etc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPRPqeYi-60

Problem is, the "conservative ants" who have been working hard all summer long are getting really fed up with the "liberal grasshoppers" playing around all summer and then stealing from their stores once winter comes (see Nancy Pelosi - who has now forced the entire nation to pay for the healthcare of her liberally bankrupted state). Year after year, decade after decade... The fact is, they simply want the same things you do - to pursue their dreams in a fair society. But a society that robs Peter to pay Paul is NOT fair, now is it???

[soaring crane]

I just want to clear up that what I had in mind when I added the comment to the photo wasn't that "Tea-Partiers are Nazis". My thoughts at the moment were only on Nationalistic movement in general. The Nationalist/Socialist movement in this country was much, much more than a crusade against the Jews, but I forgot at that moment that that aspect is the one (obviously) which made the strongest impression and will always be the first thing to come to mind whenever a reference to Nazism is made. So, it was tasteless of me and, yes, I regret it now. But life goes on.

 

Regarding the posts from Joe and Vortex, we live on different planets and it would be pointless, and honestly a waste of good Qi, for me to address the debate further.

 

But, Vortex, yes, I lay in the bed I make. No problems with that at all. Actually, I'm kind of lazy about making my bed in the first place...

 

Also, yes, the photo is authentic. Search "Origins Pledge of Allegiance" and do some boning up. I've been viewing the US from a safe distance for 15 years and what I see from over here isn't necessarily the same things you see from inside.

[joeblast]

...pledge of allegiance...

Created 1892 by a christian socialist baptist minister...who was pressured into leaving where he preached because of his socialist sermons. The guy was also a school superintendent and lobbied to have this pledge recited by schoolkids (and a look back at history, he was successful) ...(Now that its a little more clear what your intent was, no harm, but...the presentation seemed rather tangential )

 

 

 

So this tea party thing is an entirely separate sort of phenomenon...its not merely a nationalism, but a subset - patriotism - and there's some subtle connotation that sets one aside, namely "Among the ancient Greeks, patriotism consisted of notions concerning language, religious traditions, ethics, law, and devotion to the common good, rather than pure identification with a nation-state." Patriotism is a significant part of what this country was founded on - a foundation more of ideas as opposed to nationality. An integral part of those ideas (as implemented in the US) are limited government and people having the freedom to pursue life, liberty, and happiness outside of constraining government dictate - recognizing that in order for the government to weigh in too hard on "making things fair" it must overburden some, often to at exponential rates - and that's certainly not fair. I.E. one of the most significant differences between value assessment being the reliance on exchange-values (i.e. a free market economy where the people themselves, as a whole, decide what is worth what) and use-values (government decides how much something is worth.)

Unfortunately an over-implementation of use-values wind up leading to severe distortions that simply screw up a lot of how a market operates - look at part of our current healthcare crisis - the individual insurance market was severely hampered as to be almost nonexistent because of price and wage controls set by FDR back in the 30s, which led to congress "throwing employers a bone" and giving them a significant tax exemption for providing healthcare insurance - since a lot of employers started going that route in compensating employees since the government told them that they couldnt pay their employees more!

 

 

Pointless debate?? It is one of the most often debated subjects today - I still have yet to hear a convincing argument for huge government solutions. Unless the government can somehow "keep the masses suppressed" into thinking they are being taken care of well...I can appreciate that it "works" in the couple microcosms that it does, as those countries have entirely different histories - but here, where the country was founded on freedom, entrepreneurship - ideas that the government can simply take over large swaths of the economy are repulsive to say the least. ("It is a saying among Divines, that Hell is full of good Intentions, and Meanings"..."A democracy can only exist until the masses discover that they can vote themselves largess from the treasury"...) Especially here, our legislature is exceedingly inefficient, exceedingly incompetent, exceedingly corrupt. Certain things are dong well by the government, a hell of a lot are decidedly not done well. Social security, Medicare/medicaid, the post office, amtrak, welfare - all of these areas the government has stepped in to try and be a bloody do-gooder and has only served to screw things up and saddle us with debts and liabilities that will wind up making the country look like Greece in a bunch of years - things like SS have ballooned out of control, far from their original intent - which was, after all, paved with good intent - but the fact is, it was an insurance model, never designed to go to everyone. 65 was set as the age of benefit when life expectancy was 58 and 62 respectively for men & women - this was just a bit of "help" "in case" you lived longer than life expectancy - and now look where we are...65 got etched in stone as a retirement age, average life expectancy is now 78 and the program bankrupt, we all toss money as an "investment" that we will never, ever see.

 

How's "fair" fitting in? In a country founded on the excellence of the individual, government "fairness" comes at the expense of the individual.