Posted on 02/12/2010 6:44:43 AM PST by Tolik
If the tea party movement is the soul of small government and personal responsibility, the Republican Party is the institutional body conservatives need to regain control over government run amok. You can't have one without the other, says Bill Whittle.
The transcript of this video essay is below. IMHO: video is better - Bill Whittle's presentation is characteristically passionate; and his passion is contagious.
Well, the Tea party movement is not even a year old, and already it is holding its first national convention. I was honored to be asked to speak at the West Los Angeles event on September 12th of last year, so unlike most of the talking heads you see opining on the Tea Party movement, at least I am one of the very few to have been to one personally.
Now the most remarkable thing about that remarkable experience is something that is very hard to put into words. It’s the quality that makes me reluctant to try and tell you what it is, because it clearly is so many different things to so many people. And that grass-roots, “never-done-this-before” sense of excitement and empowerment is the first thing that really hits you.
These are the most regular, decent people you’ll meet, and with very few exceptions not one of them has been involved in politics in any way. It’s just that — like so many of us — They’ve just had enough!
Of course, the media coverage has tried very hard to portray the normal, average, every-day Americans of the Tea party rallies as dangerous and angry racists and Wal-Mart knuckle-draggers, while identifying the mass-produced signs, the mass-produced T-shirts, the mass-produced members of bused-in wiccan nihilist anarcho-Maoist lesbian eco-weenie anti-war protestors as somehow the genuine voice of the American people.
So as a person who has been there, let me try and explain what I think this whole movement is about.
The people I have met at these events were generally the happy, decent, hard-working people that make up the vast middle of Silent America. They are not bitter, and they are not “consumed with rage.”
But they — I mean, we — are angry. We have a right to be angry. As a matter of fact, we not only have a right but in fact have an obligation to be angry. The spending orgy in Washington brought on by the Democratic control of both houses of Congress and the election of the most liberal member of the Senate to the office of the Presidency is taking the country off the edge of a cliff and everybody knows it.
This spending is so monumental, so out of control and so beyond the pale that huge numbers of what were honest, decent, hard-working and unassuming citizens no longer feel like taxpayers but rather like host organisms: we find ourselves staggering around in shock, like victims of a plane crash or some natural disaster, looking around at the destruction of the work ethic that gave five percent of the population an economy four times the size of its nearest competitor. We watch, horrified, at the government takeover not of businesses or industries but entire sectors of the free market. That’s why there’s a Tea Party.
You know what this reckless, Imperial orgy of spending feels like? It feels like coming out of the shower in the morning, dazed and exhausted after a good night’s sleep, and stepping in front of a mirror to find yourself covered in leeches that are sapping not just the blood it takes to make government function, but rather all of it — every last living drop of it — to fund entitlements and work projects and boondoggles of every description: congressional “climate change” junkets that include skiing and snorkeling days in New Zealand, and Bridges to Nowhere, and the use of Air Force jets as the personal chauffeurs not only of the Speaker of the House but for her families and business cronies, too. We see a President who talks about sharing hardship but who then decides to go out on date night and catch a show in New York City and ends up spending every single tax dollar you and your kids will make in your entire life: gone!
Gone! What did you get for it? Nothing. What service did it do the country? None! So why did they spend it? Because — listen now — they spent it because that’s not your money. That’s their money. Just because you got up in the morning, sat in traffic, and worked all day before sitting in traffic again to come home exhausted… that doesn’t mean it’s your money to these bloodsucking, leather-winged, Big Government entitlement-mongers. No, that’s their money to spend as they see fit — and not just all the money you send in taxes today, or next year, or the next ten years — they — Democrats and Republicans too — have spent all the money you will make in your lifetime, and then spent all of the money your kids will make, and the pool of work that your grandkids will do in 2060 or so — that’s mostly been spent too.
You want to know why we’re angry? What once was a social compact between the people and their representatives has rotted away into this: a people no longer paying a reasonable price for the limited number of things that only a government can provide, but rather victims of identity theft — people who open a monthly credit card statement only to discover fifty thousand dollars of vacations not taken, and jet skis and plasma TV’s paid for but never delivered. That’s why there’s a Tea Party.
Now some critics of the Tea Party movement say it is hypocritical to complain about Democrat spending without complaining about Republican spending as well. Well, there are two things to say about that: first, that is a profound insight from someone who has obviously never been to a Tea Party event, because if they had been there, they would know that the real thunderbolts thrown in response to this spending orgy is aimed not at the Democrats but rather the Republicans; the people who should know better, the people, in fact, that we thought would be standing guard over our hard-earned treasure, not shoveling it out the door by the fork-full.
Secondly, I’ll just let this graph do the talking.
The grey bars are Bush’s Deficits. Notice that they were declining yearly in his second term, until TARP — which President Obama claimed as his own personal miracle — drove them up during his last year. Now look at the red bars: that’s Obama’s spending: four times Bush’s last year — the spike of TARP included — and not for an emergency fix of the banks, but rather to buy things like ATV trails on one hand and General Motors on the other, all in the name of “stimulus,” which, we were promised, would cap unemployment at 8% instead of the nine or 10% we would see without the line at the government cash trough. The official unemployment rate is now at least ten percent; some analysts say the true number may now be half again that, or even double.
Oh, and by the way, shocking and damning though this graph is, it’s a little long in the tooth. The fact is, this President and Congress have been waging a year-long war against business and the evil, evil wealthy, who, needless to say, have decided to keep their heads down, produce less, and pay less in taxes.
Here’s a graphic that better illustrates the real effect of the decreased revenues as a result of this war on the private sector:
That’s why there’s a tea Party.
So what’s ahead? Well, no one knows, least of all me. But I do have a very strong sense of what should be ahead.
Despite the authentic and wholly justified sense of betrayal that many conservatives feel at the hands of the GOP, I think that talks of a third party are suicide: not only permanent minority status, but also handing the store over to the people most intent on robbing it — forever.
The Tea Party Movement is really the conservative movement. It’s like a soul that has somehow been cut off from its physical body, and now both wander the landscape, trying to decide what to do. Because if the Tea Party movement is the grass-roots, common-man philosophical soul of small government and personal liberty and responsibility, then the Republican party is the skeletal structure — the bones and arteries and sinews needed to live in the real world.
The only road to success and recovery from this rocket-sled of ruin is to re-unite these two elements. We tried that, actually: Tea Party passion and internet fundraising, plus GOP ground operations, call centers, networks and so forth, and this was the result:
Pretty damn impressive!
Now, was Scott Brown the perfect conservative candidate? To many — even many who supported him — he was not. That’s not the question we should be asking. The question we should be asking — and did ask, it seems — is not whether Scott Brown is more conservative than Ronald Reagan. The question is whether or not Scott Brown is more conservative than Ted Kennedy or Martha Coakley.
He is, and by a very wide margin. That’s a win!
Victory is a ratchet. To retake this country we need every gain we can get — no matter how small — and to give up as little as possible. If Scott Brown — Republican senator from Massachusetts — turns out to be the most liberal man in the Senate then we’re living in paradise. That’s why there’s a Tea Party. And that’s why being a part of the Tea Party movement is, when it is all said and done, just plain fun.
And a final note: do you know who we owe the remarkable success of the Tea Party movement to? We owe it to Rachel Maddow, and Keith Olberman, and Chris Matthews. We owe it to Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid, and Barack Obama — not just for the political motivation, but because they decided to make it personal.
By calling us Tea Baggers, and racists, and Nazis, and rubes, and hicks… by pretending we’re just a fringe group of dangerous radicals, or saying — as the President did, twice, and apparently with a straight face — that he was unaware that tens or hundreds of thousands of hard-working American patriots were clogging the streets of the city he lives in — well all of these geniuses poured can after can of lighter fluid on to what might have been some old, wet charcoal — nearly impossible to light — and turned it into a wildfire that will likely remake the landscape of this country. That’s why there’s a Tea Party.
So thanks, you big-brain, sneering, socialist ninnies! We couldn’t have done it without you.
Life is not an “issue”.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable RIGHTS, that among these are LIFE....
Life is a right. The ultimate right.
And Brown believes in trading rights.
I couldn’t agree more!
“By calling us Tea Baggers, and racists, and Nazis, and rubes, and hicks… by pretending we’re just a fringe group of dangerous radicals, or saying — as the President did, twice, and apparently with a straight face — that he was unaware that tens or hundreds of thousands of hard-working American patriots were clogging the streets of the city he lives in — well all of these geniuses poured can after can of lighter fluid on to what might have been some old, wet charcoal — nearly impossible to light — and turned it into a wildfire that will likely remake the landscape of this country. That’s why there’s a Tea Party. So thanks, you big-brain, sneering, socialist ninnies! We couldn’t have done it without you.”
You did indeed nail it, Tolik. Yes!
Alright.
Suppose we win the total elimination of abortion in any and all forms, and we lose everything else.
Would you be happy with that? Would you then remain quiet?
Under such an scenario, tell me what we win, and what we lose.
CA....
[When news is coming at a quick pace, my link blasts can help you catch a lot in a short time. Just one ping a day, or maybe two pings on a truly wild day.]
Tolik nailed it. [I quoted his closing words in post 43]
Blizzard of Lies: Debunking The Warm-Air-Holds-More-Moisture Defense
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2449802/posts
Climategate and Snowmageddon Headline Roundup:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2449802/posts?page=74#74
NATO GEARING FOR LARGE AFGHANISTAN OFFENSIVE...
Report: Iran disrupting satellite transmissions...
Obama, Commander in Chief [Headline Roundup]:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2418483/posts?page=2641#2641
Man Sues California Mall After Guard Arrests Him for Having Conversation About God
http://www.infowars.com/man-sues-california-mall-after-guard-arrests-him-for-having-conversation-about-god
Loony Left and Culture War Headline Roundup:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2449773/posts?page=2#2
[Washington Times — Rewarding a non-investigation with a seat on the bench.]
“The Obama administration’s controversial abandonment of a voter-intimidation case against members of the New Black Panther Party is bordering on sinister.”
Suspended Jersey City mayor Leona Beldini convicted [Name That Party!!]
“Jersey City Deputy Mayor Leona Beldini was found guilty Thursday of two of six counts in a scheme to extort bribes from a government informant ...”
Dirty Jersey: Feds Bust Dozens in Corruption Scandal
When Obama isn’t palling around with terrorists, he’s giving them Miranda rights:
[Washington Times — Rewarding a non-investigation with a seat on the bench.]
“The Obama administration’s controversial abandonment of a voter-intimidation case against members of the New Black Panther Party is bordering on sinister.” [snip]
DEMOCRATS — CORRUPT THUG-O-CRATS [Headline Roundup]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2449620/posts?page=17#17
In response to this post: “Read My Lips/Just Words”: Three Examples of Zero’s Wothless Word
Also ....
Republicans Object to Biden Stealing Iraq Success, Another 9/11 Unlikely Biden Says, Biden Smears Palin’s Sanity, Jobs bill too small for rats, Economic Powder Keg, Hayworth meets Sherrif Joe [McCain Primary], Three examples of Zero’s Broken Promises, gun rights, more.
“Read My Lips/Just Words”: Three Examples of Zero’s Wothless Word
Obama Admin wants to track cellphones; ‘No reasonable expectation of privacy’...
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10451518-38.html
[Broken Campaign Promise — what they feared from Bush is reality with Zero.]
David Horowitz’s take:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2449792/posts
Bam’s tax betrayal [NY Post]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2449765/posts
Obama: “Not one dime” more in taxes … Update -Video | Radio Vice ...
http://radioviceonline.com/obama-not-one-dime-more-in-taxes
Ann Coulter: OBAMA’S OWNED — YOU CAN BANK ON IT (Bought and Paid for)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2448703/posts
“How about just punishing the guilty? The Democrats can’t do that because the list of Wall Street’s biggest offenders may turn out to be eerily similar to the list of Obama’s biggest campaign contributors. [Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and JPMorgan Chase]
Flashback: Obama Says Bonuses Are Violation Of ‘Our Fundamental Values’...
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/02/10/flashback_obama_says_bonuses_are_violation_of_our_fundamental_values.html
The Texas GOP Governor’s Race: Three’s a Crowd
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2449794/posts
[Tea Party flexing its muscles]
Republicans Object to Biden Taking Credit for Success in Iraq (Go To Hell Biden And Obama!)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2449579/posts
Another 9/11 Unlikely, Biden Says
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2449492/posts
“Those hair plugs must be some kind of ESP/Matrix type of antennae, allowing him extraordinary perception.” — Eagles6
SENATE DEMS AX BIPARTISAN ‘JOBS BILL’...
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/32878.html
‘TOO SMALL’...
Biden: I Like Palin But She’s ‘Just So Far Out There’!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2449377/posts
[Smearing Palin’s Sanity]
Economic Powder Keg
Angela Merkel dashes Greek hopes of rescue bid
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2449801/posts
The Much-Awaited Treasury Selloff Is Not A Manner Of “If” Anymore, It’s Here
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2449476/posts
Beware A Trojan Horse Rally Like The One We Saw Before 1987
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2449483/posts
The Market Insider | 2-11-2010 | Joe Weisenthal
Misc
Ridicule of Conspiracy Theories Focuses On Diffusing Criticism of the Powerful
http://www.infowars.com/ridicule-of-conspiracy-theories-focuses-on-diffusing-criticism-of-the-powerful
Bus Tunnel Victim Says She Begged Police For Help Before Beating
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2449338/posts
Infowars Take:
3 Security guards stand by as 15 year old girl beaten
http://www.infowars.com/3-security-guards-stand-by-as-15-year-old-girl-beaten
Patrick Kennedy won’t seek reelection
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2449661/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2449650/posts
[It would just be a joke anyway.]
‘Crabzilla’: The biggest crab ever seen in Britain... and it’s still growing
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2449745/posts
6-Year-Old Student Handcuffed, Committed by School
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2449799/posts
[”Round all the gutter snipes up! By adult standards, children are insane.” WKRP]
Larry King To Gov. Paterson: Does Being Blind Make It Harder To Read Headlines?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2449783/posts
Look what they’re erasing from U.S. history
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2449156/posts
“ ... omit references to Daniel Boone, Gen. George Patton, Nathan Hale, Columbus Day and Christmas.”
[I’d rather read Worldnetdaily than those who have trouble spelling ‘net’.]
History of England starts at 1700, says university
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=124868
Academics attack decision to scrap research – ‘entrenching the ignorance of the present’
Reid blasts bar association over judicial ratings
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2449627/posts?page=2
[A democrat who can’t get along with the leftist ABA? That is really weird.]
After Threat, Obama Gets His Nominees (Recess appointment would rubber stamp them anyway.)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2449788/posts
Go, Hayworth! [McCain Primary]
Sheriff Joe Says: Come Meet J.D. Hayworth! [McCain Primary]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2449727/posts
Gun Rights
States’ Gun Rights: Raising the Bar for Nullification
http://www.infowars.com/states-gun-rights-raising-the-bar-for-nullification
Some 22 states are considering a bill known as the “Firearms Freedom Act,” which declares that guns, accessories, and ammunition made, sold and kept within that state are not subject to federal laws or regulations.
The Tyranny of Emergency – Gun Rights Suspended…Again [due to snow]
http://www.infowars.com/the-tyranny-of-emergency-%e2%80%93-gun-rights-suspended%e2%80%
Man Arrested for Practicing Second Amendment, Warning About Martial Law
http://www.infowars.com/man-arrested-for-practicing-second-amendment-warning-about-martial-law/
Massachusetts passed a martial law bill in 2009.
I agree with both of you, we have been robbed and some was to give benefits to those that paid FICA next to nothing. Problem is, that was the whole idea, welfare sold as a pension. My Grandmother paid in about 2 years and got SS for 35 years. My Dad paid (was taxed) for 40 years and never saw a dime.
The problem is the youth (most who cluelessly voted for O) and unborn really are not responsible for our willingness (through representative democracy) to pay FICA taxes. This really is a problem. But I say we must demand federal employees retirement including health benefits get cut before we even talk about SS and medicare cuts. Have we really sold ourselves into their slavery for a few dollars?
““Boot them all.”
Demint
Pence
Bachmann
Issa
Duncan Hunter
All?”
YEAH,NO KIDDING! LETS GET RID OF THE ONLY HONORABLE FIGHTERS WE HAVE. DATS DE TICKET.
“Have we really sold ourselves into their slavery for a few dollars?”
As of now? YES.
That's got me beat.
Oh, Well.
I used it in a post sometime after Teddy died that I might need to change my tagline from "Kennedys: Can't fly, can't ski, can't drive, can't skipper a boat, but they know what's best." to "Vote For Hire: Tea-publicans need only apply."
It’s my take that government employment agreements should be lived up to. If a person has worked the prescribed years and is retired, their retirement pay should not be pulled out from under them.
Should retirement promises for people still working be adjusted? Yes. On a sliding scale depending on how many years they have in, government employees should be promised less and receive less. Those five years from being retired should see very little change, but those a couple of decades or more away from retirement should have their expectations lowered. Franky, I don’t see why they deserve more than the social security anyone else will get.
New employees should be presented that reality IMO.
If people have planned their futures based on an agreement, that agreement should be lived up to. I don’t believe retirement pay is why our government is going under. It’s the absolutely insane spending to buy support that is killing us.
NASA, the military, these things are not killing us. What is killing us is a non-productive segment of our society that saps the federal government dry, and the people who go along with it to curry favor with them.
Just like Social Security and Medicare, government retirements need to be addressed with the intent to get them under control down the road. I know that sounds like too little too late, but you’d be surprised how quickly this would start to turn around in the scheme of things.
Twenty years from now we could gut the retirement outlays by 25%, and from there on it would speed up. We would have things in hand from 35 to 40 years out.
That’s the same way we should reform SS and Medicare.
People should be encouraged to build up their own funds to cover these basic needs, and if the government were to frame it right, privatization of these matters would be accomplished with very little pain.
THX.
This won't work. It's like telling those forced into the bottom of the pyramid ponzi scheme they must keep on paying with no hope of the payoff to support those at the top. You can't tell young people they are on their own when they retire, but you will take their money they could save for retirement to pay those at the top of the pyramid. It won't fly, it's morally wrong, and it's anti-freedom. But the retirees bind together and vote and the young slaves are clueless (they are learning to live with their retired parents and not work on the books, and voting for Obama for free health care) so the country goes bankrupt .
I think the point is that we are in a war and we won't get everything we want right away. So we need to fight an "incremental" strategy taking ground inch by inch. Otherwise, too often, in this culture we end up with the "nothing".
I certainly would question mine (in future) being cut given the current state of affairs. I sure would oppose Obama cutting it to save himself.
Yes..., it will work.
Think about it. Thirty years from today a major portion of the people who are retired now or are retiring right now will have passed on. Twenty years from now probably close to half of them would be gone.
For that reason, people forty years from retirement would have to pay very little to support today’s retirees. Who pays the bulk of funds to the federal government in the way of taxes now? Isn’t it the wealthy and people who make the most money, generally at the end of their careers? Of course it is. Young people generally pay in very little in the first place. It’s generally not until you’re in your early thirties before you’re contributing significant funds into the system. So in reality, that wouldn’t change much. If anything early arrivals in the work force would get a break. They could start saving for themselves earlier, without having to support the retirees.
Those closest to retirement today, would continue to pay their full load. On a sliding scale back farther from retirement, people would be notified they would receive less (if government employees), and would have to pay in less.
In forty years, SS, Medicare, and government retirement plans should be gone.
I do think the military should continue to get retirement. I do think some categories of a national security nature and law enforcement should get some small retirement. But the majority of the retirement funding should come from a person’s own accumulation of wealth over a lifetime.
I think you beat me on this board - if that’s any consolation! :)
“I do think the military should continue to get retirement. I do think some categories of a national security nature and law enforcement should get some small retirement. But the majority of the retirement funding should come from a person’s own accumulation of wealth over a lifetime.”
Which would make them personally responsible to wisely manage that wealth...shocking!
I would never advocate people on SS today, to have their payments reduced. In fact, I believe it would have to be ten years or more prior to retirement, that people would need to be prepared to receive less than what is paid out today.
I would be prepared to alter that a bit if the stats made it clear that wouldn’t work. I still think there is a lot to be gained by allowing people to accumulate their own wealth, instead of the federal government absconding with it and mis-using the funds.
I envision a time when people’s own wealth would cover almost all their medical, and retirement needs.
Catastrophic insurance would cover people in times of severe need.
I would like to see the feds eliminate early taxes on individuals with those funds being diverted to their own savings until they had $10,000 in their account. From there on the feds would go ahead and take on the tax funds.
Once a person had ten thousand on account, they would be covered for all but the most extreme illnesses, the deductible for those capping out at something like $10k.
If a person had accumulated $30-40k, they might opt to increase their medical deductible for reduced monthly payments on the catastrophic insurance.
People saving for their retirement without having to pay in SS, Medicare, and a considerable portion of their present taxes, could save a considerable sum by retirement age.
I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but I do believe a system like this could be developed that would work just fine.
Exactly! Shocking. Isn’t it a shame this even needs to be stated in this nation.
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