Posted on 07/04/2011 6:33:19 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
WASHINGTON -- Our nation confronts a challenge this Fourth of July that we face but rarely: We are at odds over the meaning of our history and why, to quote our Declaration of Independence, "governments are instituted."
Only divisions this deep can explain why we are taking risks with our country's future we're usually wise enough to avoid. Arguments over how much government should tax and spend are the very stuff of democracy's give-and-take. Now, the debate is shadowed by worries that if a willful faction does not get what it wants, it might bring the nation to default.
This is, well, crazy. It makes sense only if politicians believe -- or have convinced themselves -- that they are fighting over matters of principle so profound that any means to defeat their opponents is defensible.
We are closer to that point than we think, and our friends in the tea party have offered a helpful clue by naming their movement in honor of the 1773 revolt against tea taxes on that momentous night in Boston Harbor.
Whether they intend it or not, their name suggests they believe that the current elected government in Washington is as illegitimate as was a distant, unelected monarchy. It implies something fundamentally wrong with taxes themselves or, at the least, that current levels of taxation (the lowest in decades) are dangerously oppressive. And it hints that methods outside the normal political channels are justified in confronting such oppression.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
I take it E.J. means the Democrats. If they don't get to spend all they want they will bring the nation to default.
Oh, that's not what he meant?
Obama..”All your money are belong to us.”
Silly me; I thought the TEA in TEA Party stood for Taxed Enough Already.
Any way you look at it ... it is war ... revolution ... picking a fight ... fill in the blank.
hey E J gets something right....
the Tea party DOES think our current government is illegitimate!
you got that one right.
we will fight you until we are free.
I know states' rights advocates revere the 10th Amendment. But when the word "states" appears in the Constitution, it typically is part of a compound word, "United States," or refers to how the states and their people will be represented in the national government.
Before the Civil War it was, "These United States."
You can always count on E.J. Dionne and his younger version, Ezra Klein, to give the Jornolist-approved, Obama-loving version of everything.
Leave it to them to let us know on July 4th that the Tea Party is dangerous and we don’t REALLY have a limited federal government, notwithstanding the plain language of our founders. Good grief.
Yes. Crucial distinction. We were once a federation of sovereign states. Lincoln turned us into a single government with state-level partitions.
If the people that wrote the Declaration were here today they would be first to bring this Government to default. This is exactly what the Declaration was about. Out of control Government screwing the citizens. They were feed up and so are we Mr Liberal jackass.......
Whether they intend it or not, their name suggests they believe that the current elected government is as illegitimate as was a distant, unelected monarchy.
DUH! The current Government becomes illegitimate when it violates the trust that was placed on it by those that elected it and pushes the Nation into further debt.
The Government is legitimate becuase it is elected.
The way that they borrow money (conficate future wealth) and sends the bill to people who will be taxed without representation IS illegitimate!
You bet. And he twists every line to fit a construct. Nothing about “Big Government” UNTIL grievance 10? Which presumes that the list of grievances are in descending order of importance— they were NOT.
Then this apparatchik parenthetically inserts the actual words about “swarms of officers... eating out their substance” even as he tries to make the claim this is not about Big Government-— what a maroon.A Progressive making further justification for inroads that have to STOP now!
He did get the part about CONSENT to taxes correct- but made no connection to the career dems and rinos who continue to “eat our substance” nickel and diming and “TRILLLIONING” our very substance into oblivion.
This man is a danger to all free citizens and patriots, and really because he is so contrived and a tool, a danger to himself. A fool, in short.
When you read through all the gibberish, it boils down to one thing, E.J.Dionne’s fear. He is afraid that taxes will not be raised and spending will be cut, a liberal’s worst nightmare.
This is enough to terrify any wealth redistributionist, and Dionne is no exception. His only consolation at this point is his hope that his scribblings may win the praises of card carrying communists on New York’s Upper West Side.
off his meds again...
The government has usurped the power of the people...killing babies...telling me I have to accept homosexuality as something good...telling me what to eat...
Just go away...
[that current levels of taxation (the lowest in decades)]
Taxation is the percentage of GDP taken up by government, not just what’s on your W-2. we are at high rates of taxation plus inflation plus regulation.
Yes, and that is the “Lost Cause” that most everyone does not understand.
Sarcasm ON! The democrat party has ALREADY spent us into default. THAT needs to be the central tenet of conservative republicans state publicly as they refuse to give junior another increase in the national credit card line. THAT is what is going on and the voters have voted in conservatives presumably to effect this stance in the HOUSE. It is the Senate that needs to be watched like a hawk.
The various tools of the credit class that do not work or invest for a living, who manipulate the tax laws so that they may continue this lifestyle— these tools ALL include the element of fear of DEFAULT. The fact is that the country ONLY defaults if we fail to pay our interest debt to those who hold our paper— and these holders happen to number NOT just US citizens but foreign powers.
We continue to pay the interest— then we are NOT in default, BUT we cannot expand the Progressive liberal agenda, in the face of no tax revenues from people and companies who have reduced income. This should be plainly stated... and to defy any of the rational Americans to say otherwise. It requires the individual and several LEADERS across the country in every village and city,to take a stand. And to be ready for the truly useless people (not the legitimate disabled, etc. and our wounded veterans) riding in the wagon to uh... get upsetty pie when they have to get out and walk and no longer indolent on our money.
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