”Tea party” protesters are rallying their troops once again this summer and zeroing in on the Democrats’ health care legislation after launching a grass-roots rebellion nationwide against big government and taxes earlier this year.
Protest leaders say health care has risen to the top of their battle plans not only because of the massive costs of such overhauls but because the “government-run” legislation working its way through Congress encroaches on the freedoms of all Americans, as the political debate on the issue intensified last week, fueled by angry crowds at ongoing town-hall meetings hosted by members of Congress across the country.
“I think the health care issues symbolize what the great debate in this country is about, and that is the overreaching of government, what is the appropriate role of government, and at what point does excessive government regulations and control interfere with the freedoms and liberties of individuals and their families,” said Joe Wierzbicki, coordinator of the Sacramento, Calif.,-based Our Country Deserves Better Committee.
The group’s Tea Party Express kicks off a bus caravan on Aug. 28 and will host 35 rallies in cities and towns from coast to coast that will end with a taxpayer rally in Washington on Sept. 12 to voice their opposition to health care legislation that Democratic leaders are expected to move through the House and Senate following the August recess.
“We are also asking individuals to go out to these town-hall meetings and express their views and mobilize,” said Mr. Wierzbicki, whose organization was formed during the 2008 elections and now boasts 350,000 supporters.
[More]
Related:
Obama blasts ‘scare tactics’ in health care debate
Tea Party Express Tour Schedule
A Bailout Song
The video is hillarious if you happen to like tea parties. I love it and just a guess but I think it could go viral in the next couple of weeks.
We’ll see.
Rasmussen says today that Obama is in trouble on his health plan. The polls don’t look good.
Latest idea…
Referendum?
It’s revived a lot of things. These people who protest so vehemently against a measure that could prevent them from going bankrupt over their next major sickness haven’t for the most part read the bill (even Obama hasn’t). They aren’t doctors or economists. But they have made an assumption about the 50 million who will be slowing down their trip to the front of the line. Too bad the political environment is too charged to really delve into what the Tea Party fears.
We’ll see how it goes and you’re right. It is highly politically charged but we both knew it was going to happen so all we can do now is sit back and watch. US politics is a really messy affair as all know but nobody has done democracy better in my view. This is just another example of it as “We the people” sort things out.
Frankly, I’m fascinated.
that’s a tale telling jingle! Americans and many of our own are in trouble. Heard a report whereby Americans’ collective overdraft charges at the banks is hovering around $38 billion. Sometimes ‘making a way when there’s no way’ must be considered. the responsibility lies largely with unethical business/industrial practices over decades now. It’s important to pinpoint the main areas who’ve tripped up. Gov’t and one man, left or right can’t fix this. it’s multi-faceted. We know that. But if you haven’t got your health, you’ve got nothing. We’ve lost the natural ways, but they can be brought back through web connectedness.
See Robert Reich’s article on salon site re the health care program and public comments are interesting. i can’t capture the link.
Everytime i think about Americans, the ‘kibbutzim’ idea comes to mind. they’re on the verge of a second revolution and no wonder.
You’re right, Jack. Nobody speaks up better than Americans and I agree with one article I read which said to the effect, 90 percent of Americans are Conservative even if they vote liberal. They are ‘generous to a fault’ and the average taxpayers are doing the heavy lifting — cap and trade will break the camel’s back.
Our assigned task as conservatives, our duty is to convince many to bring conservatism back in vogue. I think many are doing a good job of that.
Obama’s “Senior moment”…right here.
This is like watching Abbot and Costello.
So, AARP understands the bill, but the Congress doesn’t. ‘confuzzin’ is everywhere with the main objection being the prospect of a gov’t deciding who gets to live or die. Private insurers rates get to rise (looks like) and big pharma won’t concede to bulk buying bargains. Nobody’s budging, but the media are having a field day while the TEA protesters are being told, for all intents and purposes, to behave. Better analogy is the mighty U.S. Titanic’s deck chairs are in dissaray.
Want to know about a hospital bill? Ed Koch just had heart surgery involving I think six weeks in hospital. The tab — $1 million. He’s written a piece in JPost if anyone’s interested. That’s one better than the $90,000 tab for an amputation, two week hospital stay resulting in death. Does anyone know if children have been covered as was reported not too long ago. That would be step number one in dissipating the ‘mass confussin’ eh
Time to resurrect the Monty Python video, “bring out the dead.” There’s the truth in comedy. Let’s watch the duration time wise of this media circus.
Jack:
It appears that the Tea Parties have the White House’s attention re: Obama’s JFK moment as well. If the tree of liberty does get watered, how quickly do you think these tea parties will back off from responsibility? Fox will say they had nothing to do with it and Sarah Palin will probably make a nice conciliatory speech. Even Rush Limbaugh might shut up for a day. But all of them will be guilty. This has gone way beyond healthcare.
Strange days, indeed.
This has gone way beyond healthcare.
You are right about that Cynapse and it started around Jan 21 (and even before) with the Obama administration. It just took a while for America to wake up.
Well Ward, some people are already ready to water the tree and to use your words some probably won’t let one of “them” in office for another generation. What isn’t clear is how many of you there are relative to the population and whether JKF’ing the president will help your cause.
What health plans? Since when do Obama’s vague ramblings rate being called a plan? Did Congressional Democrats bother to read any of these non-plans that they are now trying to foist onto the American public in Townhall meetings? The Obama administration is trying to cater to both the far left and big business lobbyists simultaneously while ignoring much needed tort reform, so even if they do eventually form a plan it would be doomed to failure. The Democrats control all three branches of government so it is ridiculous for them to try to blame Republicans for a mess only they could be responsible for, therefore, the tea partyers have every right to be angry at their government for trying to demonize and blame them for the Obama administration’s own failures.
“ignoring much needed tort reform.”
one hundred percent correct. it needed to be pointed out.
One idea may be to offer critical illness insurance, so people don’t have to lose their homes to pay for care.
Instead, Obama wants EVERYTHING covered.
Look how well that’s working out for us. Here in BC, the gov’t is musing about cutting 6,000 surgeries. (One of the reasons may be that the hospitals are scrounging for $$ to pay their carbon taxes and that’s putting pressure on everything else. Schools are in the same boat.)
If we in Canada can’t afford cradle to grave medicare, how in the world will the U.S., with 10 times the population, their trillions in debt, and with them carrying the world’s superpower stick? Add on the cap and tax and the taxpayers can truly only handle so much.
Something’s gotta give. And I fear they will be cutting back the military ( big time), and God only knows where this world will head when that happens.
“One idea may be to offer critical illness insurance, so people don’t have to lose their homes to pay for care”
or they could buy a house with only 3 bathrooms instead of 4 and use the extra money to buy health insurance.
The CBC scare tactics of US people losing their homes is really about people making bad choices on how to look after themselves.
Why can’t the government just be an insurer for those who can’t get their own plan? Set up a basic plan for life-altering illnesses, subject to a small % repayment on credit? Add this to some tort reform and improved regulation and you get the best of both worlds. Given the 50 million additional patients, this move would also create jobs. Seems a lot easier than what Obama is trying to do, and inevitably it may even save his life.
Agree Cynapse, something like that is what Mitt Romney did as Gov of Mass.
Mass. is 100% insured now and the government didn’t insure anyone, instead they negotiated a deal with private insurance. Still, there is some controversy in Mass. about cost overruns and more MSM on that matter would be helpful.
Government should not be delivering anything but sometimes it needs to play a role to make sure somebody delivers it and it took a Republican like Mitt Romney to make that happen on a State basis, which is key… let the States compete versus a central plan in Washington. At least Canada has that part right, our Provinces are experiments on the best Health delivery.
“or they could buy a house with only 3 bathrooms instead of 4 and use the extra money to buy health insurance.”
Good point, nom….
In any case, tort reform is one thing for sure that is badly needed.
I dont have a problem with government delivering somethings, provided they can do it cheaper and better than the private sector.
UV, the odds of that happening lie somewhere between slim and nil…
The gov’t can’t possibly do it cheaper, not when THE UNIONS are involved. THE UNIONS who are actively campaigning for Obamacare because they know the payoff will be great.
Cheaper? Highly doubtful. More efficient? Dream on. Fairer? Probably. But no one wants fairer – they want to preserve their place at the front of the line because they deserve it, for they are them. It would be much better if the government knocked this initiative down the state level (where the states could act as blanket insurer for the truly needy) and created a policy framework under which the states could act as required.
Are you talking nonsense for any particular reason, Cynapse? Perhaps NDP ninjas poured socialist-drops into your drink while you weren’t looking?
There might be a few rich elites at the top of the heap who think that way but they’re a tiny percentage; statistically insignificant. The majority of folks want their healthcare to be dealt with quickly, effectively and inexpensively. They don’t care about their place in a line as long as that line is moving. They fully expect others to be in line ahead of them… and behind them. They don’t care whether it’s single payer or whatever… they just want to be well.
Government does not now and will never create “fair” because it doesn’t exist. It’s a fictional creation of utopian ideologues… like pie in the sky, streets paved with gold and fences made of sausages. No policy framework in the world will change that.
You saying “nothing’s fair, Cynapse” is just manufacturing a reason for blatant injustice. This is the demagogue’s and sociopath’s excuse for everything they do. It’s no different from saying that no journalist is 100% objective, so let’s all be as partisan as Rush Limbaugh. Yes, perfection is impossible, but there’s nothing wrong with having a bit of a compassion. Again, too bad for you if only socialists are capable of such, because it means in the long run socialists are going to win. I just finished a book on sociopaths and it was quite adamant that sociopaths usually ruin themselves and everyone around them in the end.
If these people cared only in that the line is moving, they’d have offered reasonable alternatives to Obamacare. The healthcare industry did that, but these Tea Party folks aren’t saying anything except “I don’t want to pay taxes”. Take it at face value – there’s nothing but self interest in pure anti-taxation sentiment. Stop trying to fool me and yourself into thinking otherwise.
Ah, the classic defenses! I hope the socialist-drops wear off soon…
Anyone who doesn’t agree to {insert favorite program} isn’t compassionate.
It doesn’t matter if it’s unreasonable… as long as it saves one small child.
Collectivism=good, Everything else=bad.
Nice little work-in about the sociopaths. It’s completely irrelevant to the topic but the unstated message (if you disagree with me, you’re crazy) isn’t quite subtle enough.
Compassion isn’t the exclusive property of socialists by a long stretch despite their bleated claims. The simple fact is conservatives are far more charitable with their own resources than socialists who prefer to misuse the taxpayer’s dollars than to open their own wallets.
It’s very obvious you mistrust the Tea Party folks and either misunderstand or don’t care about their objections. The original Boston Tea Party was about taxation without representation… and the new Tea Party is exactly the same…
The sad part is the Tea Parties are as much Dubya’s fault as they are Obama’s fault… Bush spent tax dollars like a drunken sailor, weakening the US economy when it could least afford it… then along comes Obama with his corporate welfare bailouts to the trillions… and now Obamacare. Is it any wonder the tax slaves are finally revolting against their oppressors?
There are no classic defenses. It just becomes tiresome to hear the Tea Party rhetoric when even someone of mediocre intelligence (which you far surpass) knows that there were NO protests by these tea party people when 50 million were left to rot. There are NO alternatives being offered by the Tea Party people themselves because most of them haven’t read the 1000-page legislation and thus cannot offer any valid critique. All they know is that nationalization will cost money and slow down the lines. They stopped thinking about it at that point – it was time to protest.
You keep trying to paint me into an ideologue for pointing out the obvious fact that people cannot critique something they haven’t read, nor are they concerned about how 50 million people with no healthcare should be handled. Just admit it – they don’t want to pay. This problem could have been solved long before Obama if the tea party people gave a damn.
I’m all for government cutting debt as you know. It’s merely irritating to see so many Americans following the Conservative credo (better to spend $10 killing the guy across the street than $1 helping your neighbour). That is slightly sociopathic (or possibly fear-driven) and definitely not indicative of any fiscal responsibility.
And yes, I think Obama should cease with this initiative … for the SAME reason I think Bush should have stayed out of Iraq (apart from flunky evidence)
My intention wasn’t to paint you as an ideologue; rather to disassemble the illogical arguments you were presenting.
I’m not sure why you feel you must polarize these issues. Everything I’ve read about healthcare in the US says governments, insurance companies and individuals are spending huge money and getting piss poor value for it. Do you honestly believe more government intervention will somehow resolve that?
Absolutely, the Tea Party folks don’t want to sign a blank cheque to a guy whose been throwing trillions of tax dollars around like it was Monopoly money. Who can blame them? Is it all about Omabacare? Not a chance. Is it an expression of frustration with governments and bureaucrats? Completely!
Which is better: your imaginary Conservative credo or my imagined Socialist Manifesto: the equal distribution and sharing of abject misery (except for a few ruling elites)?
On a somewhat related note, when I turned onto my street on my way home from work today, I stopped at the mailboxes and grabbed the bills (sigh….) but as I was getting into my Hummer, I noticed a man sitting in the shade of my neighbour’s tree next to his motorcycle.
I know most of my neighbours and he wasn’t one of them… and he wasn’t looking very healthy… So I walked over and asked if he was okay. He said he felt dizzy and sea-sick so he’d parked his bike, hoping it would pass. Despite the heat, he wasn’t sweating. I grabbed a bottle of water from my backseat and gave it to him right away. Then I pushed his motorcycle to my driveway and brought him inside my air-conditioned house. He called his wife (a nurse) who came and picked him up. His motorcycle is now parked in my garage. Before they drove off, I made sure he had another bottle of water (and one for his wife as well).
Sorry if that doesn’t fit the caricature uncompassionate Conservative you’re trying to sell.
Polarization can be useful to shake real agendas out in situations where platforms have been intentionally obfuscated, such as this one. You’ve agreed that money is behind much of this protest and so will many people when pushed to the wall with a polarizing question. Otherwise, these tea party types will cloak their true agenda in euphemisms like “freedom” and “minimal government”, knowing that neither actually exists. But referencing these concepts and a historically revered event like the Boston Tea creates a rebuttal-proof argument. Nationalized health-care is nothing like an unfair taxation being imposed by a colonial master, as the former promises only internal benefits while the latter was designed to raise funds for the colonial master to continue its rule over the locals.
Still to make the comparison and say that both are equal for involving “taxes” ignores the fact that the Obama administration is trying to defuse a ticking time bomb before it explodes the U.S. into a third world nation. Whatever your feelings of “winner take all” style capitalism, it’s simply not healthy to have such a large gap between people within the same economy, and no matter how individualistic you may be you cannot insulate yourself from the effects of having such a large and poorly serviced underclass. Want to see how it ends up? See Brazil. A few shootings between drug dealers in Toronto pales in comparison to robbers in Rio de Janiero who are willing to chop off a stranger’s arm just to take his watch. That’s what desperation and social stratification (whether by government design or by rigged market games) attains.
Does that make ObamaCare the only moral choice? Not at all (ObamaCare is more of a social Trojan horse, but that’s another thread), but the Tea Party isn’t at the point of suggesting alternatives. They just don’t want to pay for the poor to enjoy benefits that they feel they earned through the hard work that apparently no one else does. Of course, that argument won’t win mass appeal or allow supposedly “moral” people to sleep at night, so they dress it up with fake white wigs, drums/flutes, etc.
I’m all for an alternative. Let’s hear some from the tea party.
Late back to the thread and its been covered well, but I will note a point to you Cynapse
1. re comment #13. How about laying off the race baiting just for a while. It adds nothing to your arguements.
Ward did you look at the link I posted? There was no baiting of any kind.
Concerns about his safety are mounting in the midst of a tense summer that has seen mobs of angry demonstrators showing up to protest Obama’s health-care reform plans – including a man openly carrying a pistol on Tuesday in New Hampshire, where the president held a town hall meeting on health care.
It’s legal to carry holstered weapons in the state, so long as they’re not concealed. The man was also waving a sign that read “It Is Time To Water The Tree of Liberty,” a reference to the Thomas Jefferson quote: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
cynapse — you are right, the far right is turning this into something else and it’s not desireable. Sure, health care for all, given the sheer size of the population and the deficit, is complex and is stoking angers amongst Americans, but it’s not insurmountable as it involves roughly 50 million people without basic healthcare access, while Rolex health care, the pride of the world, isn’t available to ordinary citizens. After it’s secured for children first, the exhorbitant administration costs (the bureaucracy) is due for restructuring/streamlining and/or downsizing. Cost analysis and tort reform are long overdue.
I’m not overly concerned for the President’s personal safety in that he could be a JFK lite target, the security in place since 9/11 is probably about as airtight as it gets. Most hopefully.
The American peoples fears are justified. It is about America becoming a Third World scenario. Economists are talking up the economy, forecasting the end of the recession, yet unemployment rates are in the double digits, some say approaching 20 percent in some parts. Look at California. Americans, in the majority, are in financial survival mode, millions without access to affordable healthcare and bankruptcy looms, the taxbase is shrivelling at record rates, across all internationals.
Astute monies expended management, as you point out above Mac is THE KEY. Real value for every buck put out there. Wasted dollars must not go out there. As in our own country, they’re being wisely targeted, refused where it’s not an emergency. It’s all to do with management targeting the wasted expenditures. Jobs and health are hand and glove items, without which a recovery isn’t possible. Priorities will likely get addressed in the next few months and sense will evolve out of this present heated, chaotic debate. Because it’s regular people up against their elected representatives and those representatives are the front guys, protecting and obscuring the vested interests who simply are intentionally lurking in the shade, refusing to make the necessary concessions, as they target every last tax dollar.
Never mind the reference to a second ‘American Revolution’, it’s more resembling the French Revolution with Pelosi resembling Marie Antoinette, and the rest of them, Reid, Frank, et. al, resembling her court jesters. A cartoonist should do up Pelosi in the Marie Antoinette costume, sending the message. And some in the Al Capone attire, the ghosts of infamous corruption. A funny picture that, but a targeted democratic message is there.
Polarization is simply oversimplification, creating binary situations to force a misleading choice. It’s intellectually dishonest and beneath you.
Of course money is an issue for the Tea Party movement… just like it is for any movement, even (or rather especially) your concept of “fairness” which is basically code for redistribution of wealth, that cardinal goal of socialism.
The twin truths of the cynic say that 1) no matter what someone tells you, they’re not telling you the entire truth… and 2) no matter what they’re talking about, they’re really talking about money. So don’t bother making any extrapolations from the fact I acknowledge money was at the root of the Tea Party movement. Such results aren’t worth typing out.
You dismiss freedom and calls for restriction on the size and scope of government out of hand as apparently you’re unable to embrace either concept which saddens me.
As you often do, you search far afield for examples of nasty capitalism. Today’s bad example is Brazil which has had a civilian government since (gasp!) 1985. Somehow, the US has more than 200 years more experience at civil governance than Brazil but you figure the US is going to follow Brazil’s example and descend into chaos? Yeah, that sounds like a valid comparison to me!
I’m curious. Why do you believe the Tea Party owes you (or anyone) an alternative? Since when are protesters required to offer an alternative to that which they’re protesting? Didn’t Obama get elected as POTUS? Doesn’t Obama command a “super-majority’ in the federal government? If the people are protesting, isn’t it up to Obama to come up with alternatives?
One more question… why shouldn’t the Tea Party folks feel they earned benefits? After all, they’re paying for their benefits and that of others as well… If they do have trouble sleeping at nights, it’s not due to their morals… it’s out of worry over a government whose agenda is apparently socialism by whatever means necessary including force.
You dismiss freedom and calls for restriction on the size and scope of government out of hand as apparently you’re unable to embrace either concept which saddens me.
Wrong. What I dismiss is the timing and convenience of the argument. The only people worthy of trust in this regard are the ones who ALWAYS complain about this issue, not just when the beneficiary group doesn’t meet their partisan standards.
$1 for medicine = $1 for war
Money does not have context.
Moreover, if the only way you think fairness can be achieved is through direct redistribution of money, then your system is irredeemable garbage. How about setting up a system where it’s not virtually impossible to get ahead in life without winning the lottery or crawling out of a wealthy womb? Oh wait, you live in one of course. Each Mac Jr isn’t going to set you back $100k come college time.
One more question… why shouldn’t the Tea Party folks feel they earned benefits? After all, they’re paying for their benefits and that of others as well… If they do have trouble sleeping at nights, it’s not due to their morals
You’ve got that right.
No one said the Tea Party folks should not feel they’ve earned their benefits. We’re talking about maliciously withholding even minimal care from those who have no benefits and justifying it with the belief that those without must have been lazy bums who deserve what they get. There’s no sense citing examples, since, as a police officer, you’ve surely seen someone who’s simply in a bad way, right? Well if that doesn’t affect you at all (and it does, as you demonstrated) then yes there is a problem with your humanity – especially if you simultaneously advocate 10x the outlay of money for prisons and war. You’d be pushing an agenda based on a mixture of conceit and fear. Not illegal, but not definitely not beyond reproach.
But (let me save you the typing) that’s not what you’re doing. So now that you see what the tea party people are doing, what ARE you doing?
There has been allegations of partisanship regarding the Tea Party movement but I would suggest that’s just a form of polarization and I’ve just explained how I feel about that!
The Dems (the party of all protesters) can’t believe anyone would protest against their policies or programs so they use gross generalizations in accusing any and all Tea Party folks of being GOP hacks. I’m certain there are GOP hacks but there also appear to be a great number of people who previously had no interest in politics but have grown outraged, first by the mess which Dubya was making and then by the even greater mess of the One…
As much as you seem to get off on linking medicine versus war and the GOP, I don’t see Obama bringing the troops home. I would suggest that argument has run it’s course.
Polarization will always be a good intellectual tool to curtail people from dressing up their agendas in sheep’s clothing. It also stops embarrassing predicaments like tea party members lobbying for a system they’ll get absolutely no coverage under (and there are probably more than a few cases of that). If they spell out properly what they’re fighting for and ignore the feel-good euphemisms, it would be rather obvious whether they’re fighting the right battle.
Whatever hubris the Democrats have will be gone within a few months. They’re starting to act like Republicans and haven’t really changed a thing. This whole health care initiative is a clever attempt to settle a few hot-button issues, IMO. You can’t dump a trillion dollar industry overnight (nor do I think they want to) but you can sneak in government support for, say, abortion and euthanasia.
The war argument stands because war efforts can’t turn on a dime and the money’s already been spent … nary a tea party in sight, I might add. When combined with the LACK of alternatives to Obama Care being presented in the current tea parties (whether or not you think an alternative is owed) it becomes clear that these demonstrations are another example of A trying to stay ahead of B at all costs. It’s been happening in the USA since before its 200 years of civil government that you find so invincible.
I’ll say it again – a rigged market is just as bad as an oppressive government and the result will inevitably be harmful conflict.
And the little guy will always ‘get it in the neck’ Cynapse and it doesnt matter whose in power.
Very nice of you to take my words out of context and accuse the entire Tea Party movement of being sociopaths. Glad to see you’re not taking things to extremes. I’m a bit shocked you didn’t see any of the war protests since there’ve been literally hundreds of them… many by the same people who are now part of the Tea Party movement.
So you figure it’s “malicious” for someone to refuse to pay someone else’s bills, eh? How DARE they want to keep the fruits of their labours!! That’s simply unacceptable!!
I don’t see the Tea Party movement as being a healthy development (I see it as a flash in the pan which will be gone as quickly as it arrived) but I certainly don’t see them as a collection of sociopaths… On a somewhat related subject, I’ve yet to hear you condemning Obama’s hired union thugs who are shouting down critics at townhall meetings and beating people who won’t stay shouted down… Let me guess… they’re not sociopaths because they’re Dems?
Since polarization is such a fine tool, you won’t mind when I start cutting out your emotional rhetoric and reducing your arguments to hot air?
Granted, there were lots of war protests. But who was at them? Mostly Bush-haters, Marxists, unions, hardcore feminists, credit-card activists, sympathizers of Islam and maybe a few people of genuine conscience. Missing from most of those protests was any serious financial discourse. The only diatribes approaching the tea parties we see today came from Alex Jones, Pat Buchanan, and other fringe conservatives of dubious association. Most of the rest of the right (not unlike most of America) was too busy gorging themselves on sub-prime loans and other instruments of cheap debt to buy the latest gadgets, pausing every now and then to “support the troops”, lest Osama swoop out of the sky and flash-convert the nation to Islam. Any talk of the cost of war was dismissed as un-American. Ironic, non?
If you think my arguments are hot air, stop responding. Just because they’re worded to back your rosy view of the protest into a corner doesn’t mean they lack substance. Why don’t you challenge my “emotional” time line of US expenditure vs citizen protest?