Posted on 06/30/2010 7:30:10 PM PDT by PuzzledInTX
Why is the Angry Public so Angry?
I think we all know why the Tea Party movement arose and why even the polls do not quite reflect the growing generic anger at incumbents in general, and our elites in particular.
Anger at Everything?
There is a growing sense that government is what I would call a new sort of Versailles a vast cadre of royal state and federal workers that apparently assumes immunity from the laws of economics that affect everyone else.
In the olden days, we the public sort of expected that the L.A. Unified School District paid the best and got the worst results. We knew that you didnt show up at the DMV if you could help it. A trip to the emergency room was to descend into Dantes Inferno. We accepted all that in other words, and went on with our business.
But at some point perhaps triggered by the radical increase in the public sector under Obama, the militancy of the SEIU, or the staggering debts the public snapped and has had it with whining union officials and their political enablers who always threaten to cut off police and fire protection if we object that there are too many unproductive, unnecessary, but too highly paid employees at the Social Service office. In short, sometime in the last ten years public employees were directly identified with most of what is now unsustainable in the U.S. The old idea that a public servant gave up a competitive salary for job security was redefined as hitting the jackpot.
The Tea Party is not over
There is another Tea Party theme that those who play by the rules are being had, from both the top and bottom.
(Excerpt) Read more at pajamasmedia.com ...
Mega bumps
Spot-on.
Agreed. I remember the '94 Republican Revolution. I was ecstatic that the old guard Liberals in Congress and Senate had been displaced by Republicans, finally. Tom Foley, the Speaker of the House, was voted out! The second time in history, IIRC.
Roll the tape to 2000: we finally have the presidency, barely, and Clinton is finally gone. We can finally start to SHRINK the size of government. Uh-oh, 9/11! Our priorities change! The conservative agenda is on hold as expected for such a tragedy. Now what? Deficit spending, growing government, new department, a what?-a new entitlement-prescription drugs? War not going well, Republican corruption, Amnesty, deficit spending still - the conservative agenda got locked in the closet, for the foreseeable future.
When the Repubs get back in office, I have little faith that they will reverse the Obama agenda, for instance, health care. We could be screaming from the top of our lungs to reverse it and they will panty-waist-milquetoat-meely-mouth their way out of not doing a darn thing. Somebody wake me up from this nightmare.
I think what he's pointing out is that Obama has intensified and focused the anger.
The recession, anger with Bush, deficits, the furor at Wall Street, unease with the long wars abroad -- all that put the American people into a restive, herd-like mood by 2008 to the point that they were liable to charge at any given target. Barack Obama, however, focused that anger by using their hoof-stomping to sneak in a neo-socialist agenda that he knew in normal times had no public support.
I also agree with those who predict "status quo" at election time. The same "leaders" will be in power after the election. Maybe not the same faces in Congress, there is certainly turnover there. But expecting the federal government to voluntarily contract itself is delusional.
And too, probably a quarter of the country is raving batshit nuts looney left - "democratic communists" if you will. And another half of the country is just along for the ride, ignorant (I don't mean that in a bad light, just that they have other "more important" things in their lives than the government). The end will be messy and ugly, and the end is inevitable. I do not see politicians suddenly developing humility and honesty. They are still holding the government out as somehow being "the solution."
What a roller coaster, from that, to rolling over rather than shutting down the government. I knew, the day that the GOP didn't capitalize on the government shutdown, that the GOP was not serious about shrinking the federal government.
-- When the Repubs get back in office, I have little faith that they will reverse the Obama agenda, for instance, health care. --
They've already said they plan to keep parts of it. No demolition of the federal dept of education, etc.
The federal government can't collapse fast enough to suit me.
Sadly, you are correct.
Bump.
the washington elite live high.
meanwhile, federal workers, state, county and city unions hold high salaries and pensions
at the expense of those who pay taxes.
unions destroy the work ethic, and always insist they’re victims.
ping
"The point is not that Obama is ipso facto as president responsible for the recession, the 10% unemployment, the ongoing wars, the congressional corruption, or the BP spill, but rather that he sold himself on the notion that he was not merely a different politician (originally, distinct from Hillary and Bush, and then McCain), but an entirely new sort of public figure altogether, beholden to no one, eager for bipartisan 21st century-change, ready to address long-festering problems in untraditional ways."
An excellent synopsis of the reasons behind the Tea Party movement!
Obama needs to read this article. Why can’t Hanson read this at a rally in DC someday ?
>>The federal government can’t collapse fast enough to suit me.
I actively hope for the collapse. What service does the federal government provide that I need in my daily life?
"Need?" Probably none. But much as the fed government has grown too big, it does have certain functions that are worthwhile and valuable. Some it does well, others it shirks.
"The common defense" holds military invasions away. "Coin and regulate the value of money" it has farmed out in order to avoid accountability. I think the patent and copyright acts are "good" except the term for copyrights is way too long.
The problem with the feds is they have all the stuff they are supposed to do, covered (have had, for decades), and now they busy themselves where they have no business. It's a big house of cards, and it won't come down voluntarily, meaning they won't take it apart on their own initiative. It'll collapse of its own weight - no need to "actively" anything.
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