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Boston Tea Party rallies against Socialism; threatens to secede
By Anonymous on Sat, 07/07/2012 - 11:53pm
The Tea Party so wanted five conservative judges to find the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional but as you know, that was not the decision. [float=right]
Boston Tea Party rally in Columbus Park.
Photo by Chris Faraone.
[/float] So today, the Boston Tea Party rallied in opposition of the national health care law in Chris Columbus Park near the waterfront and the North End.
Still, taxes in any form are a source of resentment for the Tea Party. Even when it comes to the "job-killing" deficit, they refuse to address it in part by raising taxes. Not for nothing, but what isn't job-killing these days, clean air and clean water notwithstanding?
On one hand, Tea Party people feel the decision has given them ammo -- "It is a Tax." -- to use against their enemy, also known as a political opponent, in the upcoming election. But this tax penalty will affect about 1% of Americans only, and the Federal penalty is substantially lower than what we pay in Massachusetts; $700 versus $1200.
On the other hand, Tea Party people find the Affordable Care Act so distasteful that in their rhetoric they're threatening to secede from the union, the absence of death panels from the final law notwithstanding. Perhaps, they're being a little over dramatic. As the joke goes, Tea Party people secede to Canada in a bid to leave socialized medicine behind.
I've always wondered why Tea Party people used the word 'socialist' as an epithet. It never has been for me. Apparently, calling someone 'socialist' in Tea Party parlance means 'unamerican'. Never mind that roads, interstate highways, police departments, fire fighters, public education, medicare, social security, government funded primary research, medical research, NASA, and national defense is socialism. Government is a decent model for us to do together what we cannot separately.
I wonder what distopic future the Tea Party seeks ...Government hands off my medicare!
Ok, I was wrong about Tea Party dropping the debunked death panel rhetoric.
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Comments
Nice to see that UHub is
Nice to see that UHub is turning into BlueMass Group Jr.
Turning?
You must be new here!
He must be so proud, 7/4/09.
What a great day for a tea party - would you care for a watercress sandwich?, 4/14/10.
Nothing says Massachusetts like the Stars and Bars, 4/15/12.
Hard to tell
Hard to tell why people don't like it when other people have a place to comment on stories about the tea party. It can't be taboo, can it?
I, for one, am glad they didn't invite the two anti-gay speakers. I found their contributions to the discourse rather hateful.
So you're admitting that you
So you're admitting that you are Blue Mass Group Jr? Because the articles you link are not showing any counter balance of some positive aspect of the Tea Party.
uh...
*WHOOSH*
Ahh yes the classic argument
Ahh yes the classic argument of if you question something conservative you probably are just part of the pinko/mainstream media/Muslim loving/homosexual agenda. Wonder how the Herald covered it...you know it begin a real newspaper and all...or a shill for Red Mass Group. Go figure.
Tea Party ralliers slam Obamacare, Boston Herald
Tea Party ralliers slam Obamacare, Boston Herald
By Richard Weir
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Is the Herald trolling the Teaparty?
How else can you explain this:
With Hess it's even more relevant for me, as I have a friend still in school working on his PHD in Biochemistry (working toward curing cancer / pharmaceuticals).
He's also a diabetic (genetic, not thorough poor health), out for the summer doing cancer research in Cali, and couldn't get Health Insurance because of it being a pre-existing condition. He's currently uninsured.
Once the ACA is in effect, that won't be the case anymore.
P.S. what are the positives
P.S. what are the positives of the Tea Party. For reals, what have they done that has helped anyone other than a bunch of rich, homophobic, racist, neo-cons? Wait I forgot they sure helped out with all the crops in Georgia. You know the ones that spoiled after they pushed anti-immigrant legislation. Or what about the burden added to the tax payers in FL after Rick Scott tried to push drug testing for welfare. Or the push for Voter ID laws. You know the ones that keep the elderly, young, and people of color from voting. Shit they had a word for that, oh yeah Jim Crow. The Tea Party is pushing fear and what the Koch brothers want. But wait there is also Allen West, you know the guy who talks about killing Muslims and shit like that. A real hero for the American people and freedom everywhere...and I quote...
"During a March 2011 town hall, West talked about the “Coexist” movement, saying of their bumper stickers: “Every time I see one of those bumper stickers, I look at the person inside that is driving. Because that person represents something that would give away our country. Would give away who we are, our rights and freedoms and liberties because they are afraid to stand up and confront that which is the antithesis, anathema of who we are.”"
the positives of the radical right
I don't know the positives of the radical right but I do know the negatives.
They aren't interested in solving problems through compromise, which means than can do it by majority only. They don't believe in seeking agreement through negotiation -- EVERYTHING is a principled issue from food stamps to big money for oil company tax subsidies. We have so many urgent and complex problems and their obstruction is pnly making the worse and more difficult to solve.
We've wasted two years and extended the recession because of the Tea Party US House of Representatives that has been busying itself with laws that redefine rape, restrict access to contraceptives, restrict access to constitutionally guaranteed abortion, cut food programs - SNAP - at a time when more Americans need them than ever before, privatize Medicare, cut Social Security, cut investment in research and education.
They've been accused of being know-nothings which I think is an overstatement but not by much.
They are the only party to have damaged the US credit rating over a debate of whether we should pay our debt. Whether they're willfully destructive or stupidly counterproductive is up for debate.
I am not without compassion for this voting block. They're white, near retirement or retired and scared. At the same time, you can blame those who use this grassroots group for their purposes -- AFP, FreedomWorks/FoxNews -- and keep them fired up by stoking the fear.
THIS
The Tea Party isn't exactly a coherent group with a single message anymore. It's GOP derpfests.
Hell, there's two separate Tea Parties in MA alone, fighting each other. One focused on social issue's, one with a very hard libertarian bend; both thinking taxes and government are absolute evil. (The ones not directly going to them of course)
Then there's the fact that these guys think it clever dressing up as colonials because the revolution was about taxes or something.
Forget the fact that the Boston Tea party wasn't about taxes imposed, but Boston's anger at parliament for reducing tariffs on East India Tea Company's imports in colonial ports, thus making it cheaper than what the local smaller tea merchants could do.
The colonist were mad that they didn't have representation in parliament, and couldn't block the removal of the tariff. IE, support their small, local merchants over the behemoth EITC which could undercut their stock by quite a bit.
So yeah, the Boston Tea Party was a result of the English lowering taxes and tariffs, not increasing them, and the colonist wanting to raise them.... and the colonists wanting to stick it to a large, successful, efficient business in the name of protectionism.
So yeah.
Scott Brown has also started
Scott Brown has also started his radio ads to scare/misinform the public about the ACA decision. In these ads, he acknowledges and defends MA's Romneycare but shuns the ACA.
Both Scott and Mitt are
Both Scott and Mitt are trying to thread a needle by supporting the state law without so much as a reservation while opposing the federal law as if it's genocide.
There just isn't a lot that's different in the fundamentals of these two laws.
That said, if Republicans repeal ACA, thousands of Mass residence will lose important benefits like no lifetime caps, no recession, children on parents coverage until age 26, free preventative care...
Was Scott Brown
Was Scott Brown at the rally?
How ACA is Making a Difference for the People of Mass
How the Health Care Law is Making a Difference for the People of Massachusetts
For too long, too many hardworking Americans paid the price for policies that handed free rein to insurance companies and put barriers between patients and their doctors. The Affordable Care Act gives hardworking families in Massachusetts the security they deserve. The new health care law forces insurance companies to play by the rules, prohibiting them from dropping your coverage if you get sick, billing you into bankruptcy because of an annual or lifetime limit, or, soon, discriminating against anyone with a pre-existing condition. keep reading
Obamacare would cut Medicare
The original tea party anger over Obamacare was because they were going to fund it partly by cutting Medicare. So it was old people with Medicare who didn't want to pay for young people with no insurance.
Republicans have already
Republicans have already voted for the same cuts... twice, a few years back.
Not exactly
The reduction in medicare costs comes because, under a universal coverage system with no pre-existing conditions, people are able to continue working and receiving coverage instead of qualifying for SS disability soley for the health insurance.
Tea Party is Pro-Socialism
The status quo ante was socialistic: anybody could go to the emergency room, be guaranteed treatment, refuse to pay, and the cost would be socialized to the rest of us. The ACA requires that people stop freeloading and pay for their own insurance. Some get help with the costs. People who are determined to be freeloaders and rely on the community to pay their upkeep in a socialized fashion have to pay a tax/penalty to help with the costs they want to pass on to society.
The Tea Party and Scott Brown are protesting in favor of a return to greater socialism through the repeal of the ACA. They want to enable people to continue to be freeloaders and rely on socialism to pay their way instead of taking individual responsibility.
You argument make sense,
You argument make sense, except the current system is just as socialistic. It replace the older system where as person who refuses is paid by the people to another socialistic (though not quite socialistic - to me its corporatist - but I can see their viewpoint) system as it is now a sanction government program.
My guess their final goal is to not just return to the old system where you argued it is socialist, but a system that avoid mandatory payment if a person refuses (they probably not thinking about those who just can't) pay.
Well
that would be arguing to drop laws that force Hospitals to administer care to the sick and dying, regardless of ability to pay. One such law passed by Reagan.
Now if that's now the unofficial position of the GOP, I'd like them to own it.
People dying in the street and hospitals refusing service until payment is made up front is an awesome platform . Go for it.
Is now a good time to point out that the woman from FL who started litigation against ACA, that got to the SCOTUS, recently had medical complication and has racked up $25K+ in bills while being uninsured? Costs that the state of FL, insurance companies and the hospital now have to cover? That are then passed on to us responsible people.
Problem with healthcare is that you're already a customer just by being alive, since you can't pin down when you'll be going in for care. And as said above, no one is pinning to change the laws otherwise.
Socialist freeloader
Yup, she's a socialist freeloader. Like most of today's right-winger diarrhea-mouths, she doesn't actually want to reduce socialism, she just wants to cut to the front of the line for free shit that other people have to pay for. If it costs the country more, if it is more socialistic, all fine as long as they get it first.
Some animals are more equal than others.
The Tea Party and Occupy
The Tea Party and Occupy should have been cooperative allies. Their original grievances stem from the economy. The only difference is one view government as the part of the enemy to the economy while the other see the government as the one that needs to fix the economy.
Unfortunately the Tea Party have long since been hijacked to judge things on social views. I think Occupy have been successful so far in keeping their original goal of being an economic movement and not let themselves become hijacked by politicians who moves to focus on pointless issues, but they are now almost completely marginalized.
Meanwhile, banks get paid and now health insurance companies now get to enjoy a system that almost can't be better suited to them.
Yup
And even the Tea Party is not entirely wrong. Their view of Government is wrong, but government collusion with private enterprise is the real issue, and the thing that should be uniting both.
Private Capital and Government are supposed to be separate pillars keeping each other in check, much as we have the separation within government. For too long Government and Big Business have been buddies patting each others backs.
The Angry *insert race* *insert gender*?
I see Tea Party folks as having a moral and economic philosophy based on an assumption of scarcity. They believe that the well is always about to run dry, that catastrophe and starvation are around the corner, that wealth is always scarce and that life itself is a struggle between haves and have nots. But instead of turning that belief into a struggle to increase wealth for all people they focus their energy toward eliminating any (perceived) competitors to that wealth. Unfortunately the competitors are most often their neighbors. But since raging against enemies and blaming scape goats of one kind or another is more emotionally satisfying, and less intellectually demanding, than actually thinking about how to improve our world, we get Tea Party rallies that amount to rage fests against the targets de jour.
Teaparty in a Nutshell
If I can't be special and have special rights because I'm white and male and straight, then it must be discrimination and it must mean the destruction of America!
Since when did you start freelancing?
So now you write for Pax Centurion - or is it only racist and sexist when it's not it directed at straight white males? Double standard much Swirly?
Eye roll
Where do I say that "All White Males" believe these things? And, by the way, when have you bothered to read the signs and talk to the people involved?
Their arguments amount to exactly what I described:
1) something is "taken away" from them because gays get married and blacks get jobs or poor people get health care
2) this is discrimination because their unearned privileges are now rights
3) America will collapse because the natural order of privilege has changed and God will get mad or it isn't democracy without their special rights.
There's the cliff notes for ya, Stevil. Come back when you understand what the words "power", "unearned privilege" and "right" mean in society (pats Stevil's head).
You draw with a pretty broad brush
I'm not a big supporter of the tea party movement - they're a bit extreme for my taste - but they are millions strong and describing millions of American men as essentially neo-nazis is a tad of an overreach worthy of the Pax Centurion. And when I went to the rally a couple years ago to see what it was all about - there were about as many women as men in the crowd.
Funny - I hear these same arguments on the left about power, unearned privilege and rights of the wealthy like they just woke up that way one day when the fact is almost none of them did and none of them deserve what they have (or their attempts to keep what they have).
The kinds of nasty comments both sides make, including yours above, are why we have such a dysfunctional country these days.
A sincere question: What does this sign mean?
ACA like Romneycare focuses on increasing the number of citizens covered by health insurance, in part by providing government subsidies based on a person's income, it addresses the most egregious business practices of health insurers that harm their customers, and it sets a limit of how much of your premium can be taken as profit.
In that context, I don't understand what the sign means unless it's a satirical swipe at women who object to laws restricting access to contraceptives and abortion. What do you think?
Derp
What it means
is the guy who is holding it is a fucking idiot.
We laugh at them but they won
We laugh at them but they won a majority of the US House and they're determined to break everything. Register and vote.