Saturday letters
Republicans and drivers in today’s letters to the editor.
Pick of the Day: Tea Party rants have done real damage now
The win by the tea partyers and anti-government types on the Crooked Road issue should stir those (like me) who dismiss that movement as a bunch of kooks (“Crooked Road nixes heritage bid,” March 15 news story).
By showing up en masse at county board of supervisors and city council meetings and shouting down opposing voices, they have wrongly convinced some supervisors and others that they represent a majority of citizens.
Consequently, in this case, our tax money will go to other causes instead of helping to promote and preserve a part of local culture that is dear to many Southwest Virginia hearts. I hope the decision by the Crooked Road not to seek National Heritage designation is reversible – if not now, then perhaps next year.
To help that happen, we need to speak up ourselves and/or vote out those who have come under tea party sway. If you need encouragement, then go to a board or council meeting where an issue like this is being discussed, listen to the uninformed tea partyer rants, and ask yourself if you want to live in a county, state or nation run, directly or indirectly, by those.
RONALD HALL
PULASKI
March 16, 2013 - 12:58 PM
Hmmm…Tea Party = kooks, uninformed. Not real classy Ron.
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Tea Party is not a movement, its a REVOLUTION! Welcome to the revolution, Ron.
Al, you do know that not all “REVOLUTION” efforts are successful, or good, don’t you?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_revolutions_and_rebellions
What differentiates the successful from the unsuccessful? And the good from the bad?
I guess that would be based on whose side you would be on or even who won. Surely there are some that are “universal”?
Yes, on both sides of both questions. Which tells me that we should be as careful about blithely dismissing a movement as we are about embracing one.
I believe the point: “Tea Party rants have done real damage now” was rather specific and certainly not “blithely dismissing”. Most people who speak against the supposed TEA “party”, are not “blithely dismissing”, they are frantically pointing out the damage being done.
Rants are more words, and no more harmful by themselves than the CPUSA/Dem Party rants… and certainly less harmful than the CPUSA/Dem Party actions and policies.
But we were talking in the context of revolutions, not rants.
If it hadn’t been for the Tea Party movement beginning in ’09 and their success in the ’10 midterm elections, I suspect that there would be no real discussion in Washington today about deficit reduction.
It seems Obama and the Dems don’t believe there is a spending problem!
Obama has increased the federal budget to an all time high of 25% of GDP. The Republican controlled House (thanks to the Tea Party!) will propose a budget that will roll back federal spending to the more traditional 19% of GDP and a balanced budget in ten years.
During his ’08 campaign, Obama said: “Driving up our national debt from $5 trillion dollars to $9 trillion is irresponsible. It’s unpatriotic.” Well, Obama got elected and proceeded to drive up the national debt to $16 trillion and climbing! How patriotic is that?
We have an Obama spending problem!
Kinda like it seemed Bush and the Repbs didn’t believe there was a spending problem?
Giving credit to the TEA “party” for the 2010 elections discounts a heck of a lot of history. But of course that only matters when it can be used against the “Communist Dems” like me.
Personally, I think that people who call us “Communists” do not deserve credibility on any level.
Conveniently forgetting the economic crash that caused that increase to the federal budget is just flat dishonest.
I can appreciate that those who can afford their lifestyles have no qualms about throwing the poor, elderly and disabled to the wolves, but it will still not absolve the truth of the deficits and why catering to the rich and powerful is just as much to blame for our situation as the number of people in need.
“…compared to what Obama inherited, the annual deficit has gone down slightly. CBO projects that for fiscal 2012, which has just ended, the fiscal 2012 deficit will be $1.09 trillion.
So, far from doubling the deficit, Obama (along with, it should be noted, some Republican help in Congress) has instead reduced the deficit by about 8 percent.”
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/oct/05/mitt-romney/mitt-romney-says-barack-obama-has-doubled-deficit/
“Federal spending is lower now than it was when President Obama took office“.
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/05/15/484767/obama-budget-chart/
The facts remain, that there is plenty of blame to go around and slashing spending in the middle of an economic crisis would have been catastrophic.
http://www.factcheck.org/2011/07/fiscal-factcheck/
I think people who talk of the “Tea Party” as if it were a single monolithic entity not only lack credibility but remain willfully ignorant of the origin of the movement, and of the aims of the original Tea Party movement. They would rather mindlessly repeat Dem Party talking points than stretch their intellectual capacity and actually learn for themselves, proving the old adage that a lie repeated often enough becomes truth to those who want to believe it.
Here’s a hint: the original Tea Party makes no excuses for the GOP, or the Bush presidency (any of them) or the damage he did, in terms not only of economic and fiscal policy, but also in terms of foreign and military policy. True Tea Parties did not support Romney, or his proposed policies, think Paul Ryan’s budgets are not serious, and lambast both parties for adherence to junk economic theory known as Keynesianism. They are tired of being wooed and screwed by the GOP. And they hate it when the ignorati lack the wherewithal to distinguish between them and those who glommed onto the name to get votes.
Agree or disagree, one cannot honestly call true TPers republicans.
But it is a matter of record that the CPUSA (a single entity unto itself) endorsed the Dem Party each of the last two presidential elections rather than run their own candidate. It’s certainly not true that not all Dems are CPUSAers (most would be (I would wager) repulsed at the thought), but they all sure work hard to get Dems elected.