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Friday, August 24, 2012

You Tea Partiers Are Just Wankers Whipping Up Fears

A friend posted this link on Facebook to Michael D. Higgins financially illiterate rant against the Tea Party. The comments on the Facebook link were all supportive and full of name-calling against the likes of Mut, WC Varones, B-Daddy and Dean. There was no indication of any comprehension of Ireland's fiscal situation - that the government had nationalized the Irish banks and assumed their gargantuan debts following the financial meltdown.

Listening to an Irish politician rant against the Tea Party when Irish politicians chained the entire country to what amounts to oars in a slave galley is pretty near the heights of irony. Following that up with comments by a bunch of people who probably don't make enough money to be paying their fair share of taxes puts it over the top.

Since it's on Facebook, I'm not big on replying. I don't like getting into politics over there, but I'm wondering if I should offer to introduce them to some of the Tea Party folks mentioned above. Then they could engage in a constructive, knowledgeable conversation with real, live humans and do more than just hurl epithets at straw men.

Here we see Tea Party type DDE whipping up fear. Or maybe meringue. Or maybe it's fearfully good meringue. Or meringue you should be afraid of. It all confuses me, to tell you the truth. After listening to Mike Higgins rail about the need to spend, spend, spend it's clear I'm not the only confused person out there.
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7 comments:

  1. tim eisele12:53 PM

    While your main point on your "fair share" post that you link is true enough, I think your actual numbers are double-counting. If you are already assuming that every tax-paying household has retired, non-income-tax-paying parents (which are going to be a separate household from you), then you've already accounted for "half of the country that doesn't pay any income taxes". Whether you call them retired parents, or unemployed strangers, doesn't matter in this calculation - half is half.

    That would cut the amount a household would have to earn to pay a "fair share" to about $150,000 or so. Still awfully high, but not so high as to be absurd.

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  2. K T Cat1:00 PM

    I didn't review the math so you may be right. Still, it's a good bet these folks aren't breaking 100K, so the point is still there.

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  3. W.C. Varones1:01 PM

    In the early days of the Tea Party, politicians and the mainstream media were doing everything they could to stir up hatred against the Tea Party.

    Our local NPR station KPBS even did a segment titled, "Are Tea Partiers Hate Groups?"

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  4. K T Cat1:51 PM

    I didn't know that one about KPBS. At least they invited a Tea Party person onto the show.

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  5. Doo Doo Econ4:10 PM

    I hate to rain on the parade, but being called "hate groups" by NPR is nothing. How about U.S. military educators war gaming against the tea party.

    http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/full-spectrum-operations-in-the-homeland-a-%E2%80%9Cvision%E2%80%9D-of-the-future

    As far as retirees, they still have investment income and social security income taxes.

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  6. K T Cat4:18 PM

    Wow. That's quite a link.

    "While mainstream politicians and citizens react with alarm, the “tea party” insurrectionists in South Carolina enjoy a groundswell of support from other tea party groups, militias, racist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan, anti-immigrant associations such as the Minutemen, and other right-wing groups."

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  7. Dean9:02 AM

    I watched that video. There only appeared to be one person ranting and fomenting.

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