Immigration reform - Amnesty bill

[Ironwolf]

Tahliah, you have the exact balance - we have a country founded by people who sought to use freedom as a backbone. The freedom also is highly dependant on having a populace that is on the whole a lawful and moral group.

Look to Chicago, it is a known corrupt and tainted city. While the media flagellates George Zimmerman for shotting someone that in all reality was simply a tragic event that both people could have avoided and didn't, Chicago had 70 shot and 11 dead over 1 weekend.

In Detroit - where I work - it is a daily occurance to have murders daily. Look to the cities where the moral decay has infested the populace and single parent families are the rule. They are failing and badly. Detroit is bankrupt. Chicago is worse than the wild west - while having the strictest gun laws in the country.

In the country - where many conservative live. They/we seek to maintain the lifestyle that led to this countries success for 200 years.

A telling map is this one:

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2012/

Scroll down and look to election results by COUNTY. The vast majority of the country is conservative - except in the cities. The cities and their values or lack thereof is what we have running the show for everyone else. I live in one of those rural areas and the city I work in - Detroit - in no way reflects my way of thinking or my values.

I am a non-christian that many would call a pagan. But I share many of the same values as they are common sense. I have read and studied the bible and it is a very good guide to making a moral people. Can leaders use religion for abuse? Absolutely! From the crusades to the Nazi reign and the bombings in Boston - evil men can justify what they want to do by saying god wants it.

America has ignored the government and has taken for granted freedom. Now we see the government handouts have exceeeded the number of people working and it can't last long that way.

[Kyriani]

Wow, this is some thread. 

To the OP, the people who are telling you that the current version (the Senate version) of the "comprehensive" immigration "reform" bill will do nothing at all to help your girlfriend are exactly right; it's geared toward those people who are currently living in the U. S. who are not legally entitled to do so.   It does nothing to improve our seriously dated and extraordinarily difficult legal immigration process; this, to me, is one of its greatest failings.  All the other points others have so eloquently made about the economic impact (it will be destructive) and the inherent problems with "rewarding" illegal behavior are spot on. 

As to the TEA Party, Sarah Palin, and God (oh my!), it seems to me--a TEA Party Constitutional conservative with libertarian leanings--that the main problem is a misunderstanding of what the TEA Party is, and to a lesser extent, Sarah Palin are really about.  This is perfectly understandable given the bizarre demonization of us by everyone from the close-minded on MSNBC to the deliberately obtuse in the tabloid media to the willfully divisive on the political left.  We aren't monsters, we don't want to eat your children, roll back the clock to 1950, chain women (barefoot and pregnant) to the kitchen (thankfully, that would so not work for me!), and we don't want to reinstate slavery or whatever bizarre and strange fear tactic you've chosen to internalize.     

We are interested in fewer taxes, limited and Constitutional government, and individual liberty.  These are the basic tenets of the TEA Party movement--it's not a party, and the people who identify with the movement are not sheep.  We don't think or speak with one mind (aka any party's "talking points"), and beyond these basic principles, you have a wide range of views that include liberal (in its true sense), conservative, independent, former and current Democrats who recognize that the party has lurched far left, former and current Republicans who realize the same about that party, and everyone in between.  We are doctors, lawyers, graduate students, teachers, firefighters, police officers, construction workers, sales clerks, business executives, film and television actors and actresses . . . we are moms, dads, grandparents, sisters, brothers, husbands, wives, sons, and daughters.  We are men, women, gay, straight, black, white, Hispanic, religious, agnostic, atheist, spiritual or not . . . we are all these things and more, but the main thing that we are is Americans who love our country.  This, I think, gets lost in the cynicism (some of it well-placed, some misplaced, and some simply ill-informed), and if you don't believe me, come to a TEA Party meeting or rally in your area, talk to us.  We won't bite, and you may well be surprised at how perfectly normal we are.  We don't froth at the mouth or rant crazily; we're pretty normal, really.  You may already know many of us, even like us, and not even realize we're one of those people.  :P

Sarah Palin . . . sigh.  I think it best not to get into this here.  Suffice to say that she has been brutally and unfairly treated by leftist media and pols who saw in her something that they feared would jeopardize their own ideological agenda.  It was ugly, mean-spirited, and intolerant.  And it was motivated by the same fear of free and diverse thought that prompted the IRS scandal.  To whomever said that leftist and/or progressive groups were also targeted; this has been debunked and was debunked with the very next testimony before Congress.  It's important to follow all the news, not just the news that fits our own preconceived notions or our hopes.  TEA Party groups and individuals, as well as Jewish and Christian/Catholic organizations were targeted and not just by the IRS (as if that weren't bad enough; discrimination for political and/or religious views should be easily recognized as wrong, no?) but also by such diverse executive branch agencies as the ATF and the EPA!  This is not a local problem, this is a culture of discrimination and bullying that should not be tolerated by anyone in America.  It's not okay now, it wasn't okay in the past, and it won't be okay should the next administration--be it (D) or (R) or whatever--do it.

As to God and religion.  Someone put up a bunch of quotes by our Founders on religion and our nation's founding.  I thought it would be helpful to counter this with other quotes that serve to demonstrate that despite our Founders' differences, they managed to be respectful of one another and to craft one of the best governing documents ever written not despite but because of those differences.  We forget sometimes that it's okay--even healthy and productive--to disagree.  Instead of damning people for thinking other than we do, we'd do well to open our minds just a bit, no?  Don't forget that among our founders were both federalists and anti-federalists and that they did not expect nor demand that everyone think as they do "or else."  It's a good thing to remember in this climate of politically- and media-manufactured hatred against anyone who thinks other than we do (this happens on both sides, of course).

"Without the restraints of religion and social worship, men become savages." 
Benjamin Rush (March 1789)

"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." John Adams (October 11, 1798)

"There is not a shadow of right in the general government to intermeddle in religion. Its least interference with it would be a most flagrant usurpation." James Madison

"The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretence, infringed." James Madison (Original wording of the First Amendment; Annals of Congress 434 (June 8, 1789).)

"I lament that we waste so much time and money in punishing crimes and take so little pains to prevent them...we neglect the only means of establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government; that is, the universal education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by means of the Bible; for this Divine Book, above all others, constitutes the soul of republicanism." Benjamin Rush

"No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffused and Virtue is preserved. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauched in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders." Samuel Adams (letter to James Warren, November 4, 1775)

"That religion, or the duty we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience." Patrick Henry (Virginia Bill of Rights, June 12, 1776.)

"To the kindly influence of Christianity we owe that degree of civil freedom, and political and social happiness which mankind now enjoys. . . . Whenever the pillars of Christianity shall be overthrown, our present republican forms of government, and all blessings which flow from them, must fall with them." Jedediah Morse

"We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We've staked the future of all our political institutions upon our capacity...to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God." James Madison (1778 to the General Assembly of the State of Virginia)

"The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government." Patrick Henry

So what you're saying is that despite evidence to contrary the Tea Party actually does believe that women should have the right to handle their own personal medical decisions without government interference and that gay people should be able to get married like anyone else. That corporate welfare should end and the taxes that are being collected should be used for the people? Is that about the gist of it? If so, then why on earth is the Tea Party in bed with the Republicans?

A telling map is this one:

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2012/

Scroll down and look to election results by COUNTY. The vast majority of the country is conservative - except in the cities. The cities and their values or lack thereof is what we have running the show for everyone else. I live in one of those rural areas and the city I work in - Detroit - in no way reflects my way of thinking or my values.

You need to scroll down to the next pic after that "by county" good sir. Because you're not seeing it in context. By county it LOOKS like more red than blue but as it says here:

"As you can see, the states have been stretched and squashed, some of them substantially, to give them the appropriate sizes, though it's done in such a way as to preserve the general appearance of the map, so far as that's possible. On this map there is now clearly more blue than red. "

You're not reading the context of that link which is basically saying those cities you vilify have MORE people than those sparse red states. The states may be bigger in SIZE but not necessarily in POPULATION.

Your link supports the exact opposite of what you intended. It shows that the MAJORITY of the POPULATION are NOT conservatives.

Read it again and actually understand what it is saying.

[Segev]

So what you're saying is that despite evidence to contrary the Tea Party actually does believe that women should have the right to handle their own personal medical decisions without government interference

We do, but we also oppose infanticide.

and that gay people should be able to get married like anyone else.

Technically, your little inflamatory attempt is bait that I am foolishly taking, but: they have the same right to marry as anybody else. Just because I don't like vegetables doesn't mean that I'm denied service at a vegan establishment; I just don't want to partake of what they offer. It doesn't give me a right to demand they redefine "beef" as a vegetable. (And if you want to discuss the legal access rights associated with marriage, you'll find many of us don't oppose the idea of "civil unions" or the like. I do warn that there's a lot of sticky ground to cover very carefully, though, as we wouldn't want, say, the mafia to decide that all of the "Family" are one big happy Civil Union, would we? Slippery slope, you say? Some said the same about "gay marriage" in the 90s.)

That corporate welfare should end and the taxes that are being collected should be used for the people?

You conflate two things that are unrelated here, and in so doing bastardize definitions and make your question meaningless except as a tool of false propaganda. Let me try to untangle it for you:

• Corporate welfare, AKA crony capitalism, which was once called Mercantilism, is alive and well, and the Tea Party opposes it. It take the form of government subsidies for chosen kinds of business and businesses that engage in favored kinds of research that could not hold water in a fair market, and is a huge waste of taxpayer money. Worse, it seems that the biggest recipients are the biggest donors to the ruling class's campaigns and are so far in bed with the government that the politicians' spouses should be jealous. It has nothing to do with business and everything to do with government reaching so far into the private sector that it becomes hard to tell the difference.
  
• Lower taxes are not "welfare" by any definition, no matter who gets them lowered. To claim they are is to claim that all money is properly the government's, and that that which we do not pay in taxes is "given" to us by the government. This perverse mindset is poisonous to a free people, and must be utterly rejected.
  
• As a follow-up point, if you actually attended a Tea Party rally, you'd find that the two most commonly-advocated tax systems are entirely devoid of special treatment for anybody: one is the so-called "Fair Tax," which seeks to make everything a flat sales tax paid by all; the other is the traditional "Flat Tax," wherein everybody pays a flat percentage of their income, no matter how much they earn.
  
  Whether you like these two plans or not, whether there are potential flaws and sticky ground that needs covering or not, you cannot claim - without straining logic to the point that I have to wonder if you agree that global warming is due to the lack of modern-day pirates - that there is any special treatment for "corporations" under it.

Is that about the gist of it? If so, then why on earth is the Tea Party in bed with the Republicans?

The "gist" of it is that you are grossly distorting many things, and revealing a bit of hysteria in your venom. However, if you pay attention, the Tea Party is only "in bed" with the Republicans because that party at least pretends to hold towards something akin to what the people in the Tea Party believe. You'll also note that we're really quite fed up with the so-called Republican "leadership" and are pushing to make them change or get lost so we can put real conservatives who do hold our values in. We'd like to be represented by those who lead us, rather than expected to bow and scrape to the (lack of) wisdom of our ruling class masters. And too many in the so-called Republican "leadership" think of themselves that way, as evidenced by how embarrassed they are to have conservatives supporting them.

Your link supports the exact opposite of what you intended. It shows that the MAJORITY of the POPULATION are NOT conservatives.

Read it again and actually understand what it is saying.

In that case, you should be all for the Tea Party taking over the Republican Party. It will cause the moderates in the Republican party to move to the Democrat party, and allow the new Democrat Majority to crush us right-wing extremists once and for all. Whether you're right or wrong about the views of the "majority of the country," it is in the best interests of the country for this to happen because of the results when it does.

[FatherXmas]

The problem with any political movement is while everybody is drawn to it believes in Issue A (limited government, lower taxes, responsible government spending) it does draw in people who believe in other issues and when those people outnumber or at least out voice the original organizers, that's when the message gets hijacked and muddled. 

What also hurts a movement is when the mass media decides to put the more fringe elements on camera or in front of a microphone and portray them as the "mainstream" members of the movement.  It makes good TV, people enjoy seeing those with beliefs far outside of societal norms being made fun of by newscasters. 

But as someone involved with a local Tea Party group in my area since the beginning we are equally annoyed on how the original message has been hijacked by non-Tea Party groups who show up at rallies at the capital.  All we wanted fiscally responsible, limited government, but the hard core militia groups and conservative religious groups crashed our party, took our name and the media never took notice that today's Tea Party bares little resemblance to the original 2009 ones.  Sure the "new" Tea Party still supports the original core issues but tacked on so many socially conservative issues that those now obscure the original cause.

[FatherXmas]

Sadly, perhaps not "we all," but the freedom to disagree openly is a freedom. It doesn't make disagreement correct, but it's a right we must protect by our own standards.

However, for me, personally, I can at least say, "Hear here."

I was going to say Hear hear but I was in a SciFi grove so I went with the BSG line.

[Kyriani]

if anyone is "grossly distorting things" here its you Segev. As much as I admire your efforts with TPP I am sorely disappointed that you support such discrimination against fellow citizens. And yes I know you didn't outright say that but you ARE supporting it whether you admit it or not.

We do, but we also oppose infanticide.

"Infanticide" can only occur AFTER a child is born if it happens against the mother's will. And in any case its her body and its her right what to do with it. Having an abortion is LEGAL and is not something any woman does lightly. It is traumatic and carries a hefty emotional toll on any woman who goes through with it. The fact that the party that wants to strip the rights of a woman to determine her own medical choices in regards to abortion are the same party that is also against sex education and contraception which would PREVENT abortions from occurring in the first place is BAFFLING.

Technically, your little inflamatory attempt is bait that I am foolishly taking, but: they have the same right to marry as anybody else. Just because I don't like vegetables doesn't mean that I'm denied service at a vegan establishment; I just don't want to partake of what they offer. It doesn't give me a right to demand they redefine "beef" as a vegetable. (And if you want to discuss the legal access rights associated with marriage, you'll find many of us don't oppose the idea of "civil unions" or the like. I do warn that there's a lot of sticky ground to cover very carefully, though, as we wouldn't want, say, the mafia to decide that all of the "Family" are one big happy Civil Union, would we? Slippery slope, you say? Some said the same about "gay marriage" in the 90s.)

Gay people cannot marry the person they love in most states but that's changing. It WILL come to every state eventually. Your argument is a BS pure and simple. They don't have the same right you do. The only actual restrictions we place on who can marry who in the United States are: they cannot be an immediate blood relative, they must be of the legal age of consent, and you can only be married to one person at a time. There is no logical justification to deny couples the right to marry because they happen to be of the same gender. It is discrimination plain and simple and there is no logical argument to the contrary.

Separate but equal is never equal. Civil Unions are unnecessary and fall far short of marriage in protections and rights. Marriage exists. Gay people need it and are just as deserving of it as you are. There is nothing you can say to argue that point. Not a single thing. Gay people are not "less than" they are not "second class" to straight people and they deserve to be treated like everyone else.

Marriage is not inherently religious and it existed before Christianity did. Marriage between the same gender also existed before Christianity came to prominence.

Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people called spouses that creates kinship. Mainly this was done to facilitate the transfer of property and combine resources between two different families. Marriage is nothing more and nothing less than that regardless of what this or that religion has to say on the matter. Another person's marriage is no business of anyone else and does not impact their lives in any meaningful way.

Loving v. Virginia, Chief Justice Earl Warren's opinion for the unanimous court held that:

"Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival.... To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State."

The same standard applies to homosexuality as it does to racial discrimination. They are denied the right to marry the partner of their choice without any logical justification. And YOU support that. YOU help that to keep happening. YOU spend man hours and dollars fighting to deny your fellow tax paying citizens the same rights you enjoy because they are different.

You conflate two things that are unrelated here, and in so doing bastardize definitions and make your question meaningless except as a tool of false propaganda. Let me try to untangle it for you:

    Corporate welfare, AKA crony capitalism, which was once called Mercantilism, is alive and well, and the Tea Party opposes it. It take the form of government subsidies for chosen kinds of business and businesses that engage in favored kinds of research that could not hold water in a fair market, and is a huge waste of taxpayer money. Worse, it seems that the biggest recipients are the biggest donors to the ruling class's campaigns and are so far in bed with the government that the politicians' spouses should be jealous. It has nothing to do with business and everything to do with government reaching so far into the private sector that it becomes hard to tell the difference.
    Lower taxes are not "welfare" by any definition, no matter who gets them lowered. To claim they are is to claim that all money is properly the government's, and that that which we do not pay in taxes is "given" to us by the government. This perverse mindset is poisonous to a free people, and must be utterly rejected.
    As a follow-up point, if you actually attended a Tea Party rally, you'd find that the two most commonly-advocated tax systems are entirely devoid of special treatment for anybody: one is the so-called "Fair Tax," which seeks to make everything a flat sales tax paid by all; the other is the traditional "Flat Tax," wherein everybody pays a flat percentage of their income, no matter how much they earn.

At no point did I say lower taxes were welfare. What I do think of as welfare is the bailouts, the subsidies, the massive tax breaks and loopholes that corporations and the super rich get to take advantage of that us regular Joe's don't typically have access to. You want to pay less taxes... I get that. Everyone wants that. Doesn't matter what side of the political spectrum you're on. I also made no such claim about money belonging to the government. Not really sure you're coming from with all that stuff.

Republicans favor a regressive graduated tax code that grants wealthy Americans a lower tax rate than the average middle class American. Putting this into concrete terms, what the Republicans want would mean that if the average middle class American pays $0.25 out of every dollar earned, a wealthy American would only have to pay less than $0.12 on every dollar they earned. That is not flat or fair.

The tax policies and deregulation favored by the radical right created the economic mess we are in today just as similar foolish policies in the 1920's caused the Great Depression. Tax policy, government regulation of commerce and industry, and a viable and sound safety net for all Americans are all required to restore growth and prosperity. Underfunding the government is bad policy as is eliminating the safety net programs that reduce individual risk when small businesses fail as most do historically. The social safety net the Republicans want to elminate is actually necessary for the economy to grow, it promotes risk taking by small businesses since their owners know they will never starve if their business fails. Most small businesses eventually fail regardless of how successful they have been in the past.

Virtually every tax in the US is regressive except income tax.  That is,the more money you make, the less money you you pay as a % of your income.  If you replace income tax, the only progressive tax (one where if you make more you pay a higher percentage) then you will have a strongly regressive system.  (The system is probably effecitively flat already when you add all taxes/fees together).

Not only does regressivity hurt poorer people, it reduces demand and it increases income inequality.  Income inequality is heavily correlated with all sorts of bad outcomes including lower lifespans, higher infant mortality, lower happiness and so on.

Lack of high level progressivity is also a major reason for the financial crisis.  What should be done instead of a flat tax is to tax all income over a million at 90%, all income over 5 million at 95%, closing loopholes and so on.  It is not a coincidence, or an accident that the US was highly progressive in the 50s or 60s, nor is it an accident that the countries in the world with the happiest citizens (aka. the nordic countries) have high tax rates.

The current system is not fair because of loopholes and special treatment, not because it's progressive.  Those loopholes could be changed under any new tax system, whether highly progressive or flat.

Basically, a flat tax would be a huge transfer of wealth from the people who can least afford it up to people who do not need it.

1) It would not raise enough revenue. A flat tax would have to be 25-30% in order to raise the same amount of money as our current tax system.

2) It is unfair to the middle class. A family of four with 2 kids under 17 years old and an income of $60,000 pays $2065 under the current tax system. They would pay $10,200 with a 17% flat tax.

3) It is very unfair to the poor. A single parent making $17000 with a child under 17 would get a refund of $4098 due to refundable credits. Under a 17% flat tax system, they would owe $2890. A net change of $6988 or almost $7000 out of their pocket.

4) It is a gift to the well off. A businessman making $250,000 would pay $61,957 under that current system and only $42,500 under a 17%.

In that case, you should be all for the Tea Party taking over the Republican Party. It will cause the moderates in the Republican party to move to the Democrat party, and allow the new Democrat Majority to crush us right-wing extremists once and for all. Whether you're right or wrong about the views of the "majority of the country," it is in the best interests of the country for this to happen because of the results when it does.

I am hoping the Tea Party keeps doing exactly what its doing. You guys scare the bejeesus out of the average folks and it hurts the Republicans tremendously. Not that the Democrats are much better. They've got their own sleazy issues but they are the lesser of two evils. Don't get me wrong I am not totally against some TP stated ideals. But I honestly believe the entire movement was originally a Republican ploy to create a "grassroots" group that got out of their control. I don't think the Tea Party will be able to take over the Republican party. The old guard Republicans are not so different from Democrats in many ways and they will try to use you when they can and try to crush you if you get in the way.You already see it happening with the infighting amongst the various conservative groups and law makers. I'd have been happier if the Tea Party was independent of Republicans and actually formed their OWN party that didn't just tag along with the Republicans. You could have done more good that way IMO. You would have drawn members from both R's and D's weakening both (which I honestly feel is needed) so that more diverse voices can be heard.

[Kyriani]

I think I need to step away from this topic from here on in because I WANT to support the TPP but the political stances of its developers now make me question that support. The idea of giving money to a company whose members support denying citizens basic civil rights and denying women the right to handle their own medical choices does not sit well with me. Especially when they will use my own dollars to harm me. I wish the TPP all the best. I won't be replying further to this topic however.

[Tahliah]

So what you're saying is that despite evidence to contrary the Tea Party actually does believe that women should have the right to handle their own personal medical decisions without government interference and that gay people should be able to get married like anyone else. That corporate welfare should end and the taxes that are being collected should be used for the people? Is that about the gist of it? If so, then why on earth is the Tea Party in bed with the Republicans?

Actually, yes, that's exactly what I am saying.  The TEA Party, as I've explained, is not a group of lock-step zombies who can't think a thought without first checking that's it's "ok" or in line with anyone or any group; instead, it is composed of people who share the fundamental principles of lower taxes, limited and Constitutional government, and individual liberty.  That last one is important to many in the TEA Party who are socially-liberal and/or libertarian. 

One thing that I find perplexing about the whole "women's health" argument is that, as a woman, I have organs, limbs, and other physical, emotional, and psychological areas that could potentially need the attention of a health care professional; I'm not just a walking vagina/womb.  My health isn't restricted to my reproductive organs.  And no woman's "health" is dependent on on-demand abortions.  This is abortion-as-birth control, not "healthcare."  As to late-term abortions on-demand: that's infanticide.  And while I can't speak for the entire TEA Party on this--or any issue--I would venture out on a limb and say that we pretty much all reject infanticide as a means of birth control. 

As to the question of gay marriage, again, there are many views within the TEA Party on this subject.  Yes, some are completely opposed to it, but there are others, such as myself, who would prefer to see government get out of the business of marriage altogether.  Marriage is a religious sacrament, and gay marriage--mandated by the government--has the horrible and real potential to impinge on religious liberty and religious conscience.  That is totally unacceptable and antithetical to our nation's founding principles.  This is why I think that all civil rights should be based on civil contracts, not on religious sacrament.  I find it interesting that the far left--who scream loudest about the nonexistent, in the Constitution, "separation of church and state"--are the ones demanding loudest that government be involved in mandating religious sacrament.  It does make me wonder what the actual principles are on the left.  Is it that gay unions are really a civil rights issue or is it that government should dictate to religious institutions? 

Why are we "in bed" with Republicans?  Well, first of all, as you can see from just this thread, not everyone in the TEA Party is in bed with Republicans.  There are a lot of Democrat TEA Party members (I'm a former democrat, actually--a JFK and Reagan democrat who is horrified by the collectivist, antiAmerican lunge left the party has taken), and a lot of Indie ones.  The TEA Party has largely gone with Republicans in recent elections because the GOP is supposed to be the party of limited government, lower taxes, and individual liberty.  The Democrats have moved so far away from these basic American principles that it speaks loudly and proudly of expansive, intrusive government, oppressive taxes, and the suppression of the individual in favor of the collective.  Their candidates simply don't match basic TEA Party ideals. 

Indeed, it must be said that many in the GOP do not, either.  That is one thing that the TEA Party has been working on in both red and blue states: electing people who match, or most closely, match our own principles (is that really so awful?  Don't you vote for people who best match your own principles?).  This may include, and has included, democrats, independents, and republicans.  Mostly, though, republicans.  But there are two distinct "types" of republicans, the establishment type (big spending, big government, big interventionists) and the "type" that the TEA Party supports (limited and Constitutional government, etc.).  I'd be more than happy to vote for a Democrat who shares my values.  We are not, as a rule (and again, we are not some monolith with one brain), tied to party.  That's why we are mostly amused by leftists who tell us that "Bush did it!" (arguably, the origins of the TEA Party started under Bush with his big spending, big government ways) or that there's a "circular firing squad" in the GOP.  We don't care about the GOP.  We care about our country. 

[Tahliah]

"Infanticide" can only occur AFTER a child is born if it happens against the mother's will. And in any case its her body and its her right what to do with it. Having an abortion is LEGAL and is not something any woman does lightly. It is traumatic and carries a hefty emotional toll on any woman who goes through with it. The fact that the party that wants to strip the rights of a woman to determine her own medical choices in regards to abortion are the same party that is also against sex education and contraception which would PREVENT abortions from occurring in the first place is BAFFLING.

First of all, refusing medical care to a fetus who survives abortion is, by your own definition, infanticide.  And that is exactly what is supported by the fringe left.  Second, a viable fetus--one who could live outside the womb--is a child.  And that is what is being discussed at present, the late term-abortion-on-demand of viable babies (20+ weeks).  The majority of people in the TEA Party do support exceptions for the health of the mother and incest, though why in the latter case one would wait 20+ weeks is beyond me. 

I am hoping the Tea Party keeps doing exactly what its doing. You guys scare the bejeesus out of the average folks and it hurts the Republicans tremendously. Not that the Democrats are much better. They've got their own sleazy issues but they are the lesser of two evils. Don't get me wrong I am not totally against some TP stated ideals. But I honestly believe the entire movement was originally a Republican ploy to create a "grassroots" group that got out of their control. I don't think the Tea Party will be able to take over the Republican party. The old guard Republicans are not so different from Democrats in many ways and they will try to use you when they can and try to crush you if you get in the way.You already see it happening with the infighting amongst the various conservative groups and law makers. I'd have been happier if the Tea Party was independent of Republicans and actually formed their OWN party that didn't just tag along with the Republicans. You could have done more good that way IMO. You would have drawn members from both R's and D's weakening both (which I honestly feel is needed) so that more diverse voices can be heard.

We don't scare anyone . . . capable of separating what the media and democrat pols say to demonize us and their own common sense and ability to think for themselves.  We're not particularly scary at all, except to progressives and establishment GOP.  And that's as it should be.  We're pretty scared by those folks, ourselves.  What scares the "bejeesus" out of self-described "average folks" is the false image that you have of us.  You are demonstrating in each of your posts an almost perverse deliberate obtuseness and intolerance that would be shocking if we weren't so used to it.  No matter what we say, how we explain our actual views, you cling to your own idea of what our views are.  Don't you find it strange that you think you know who we are and what believe better than we do ourselves? 

The you're not "grassroots" claim is just silly.  Of course we are.  Why do you think the IRS was sent to stifle only average Americans who were trying to establish TEA Party groups and not the "big" so-called conservative groups (like Rove's) who were lawyered-up and had the cash to fight back?  Why do you think we were the ones who were intimidated and silenced simply for our beliefs?  Because we don't have the money or the backing to fight back, that's why.  We are just average Americans who stood up in '09 and are still standing despite this administration's, the Democrats', and the establishment GOP's best efforts to silence, intimidate, bully, and discriminate against us.

We did not form our "own" party because third parties do not work.  We watched leftists try it with "green" parties, etc., and we watched them realize--after a few decades--that this was not working, and we watched them instead take over the Democrat party.  It worked, so why wouldn't we do the same with the GOP?  Seems like common sense to me.   It took progressives quite a while to accomplish their task, and the old school Dems didn't go down without a fight.  We anticipate--and are experiencing--the same thing.  A third party is not a viable option in my opinion, but as you can see in this thread, there are TEA Party members who disagree and want to form one.  That's as it should be.  One of the worst things that any of us could do is sell out our principles and values as the left has done.  Leftists have lost all credibility on all issues because they spent eight years bashing Bush for everything from "illegal" wars (his were not) to warrantless wiretaps and now suddenly think all this is fantastic and wonderful under Obama.  No one can respect that or take leftists seriously in future (when a conservative in either party takes the WH, leftists will attempt to go back into attack mode, but it will be a laughable joke in light of the past four plus years supporting policies they claimed at one time to oppose vehemently.). 

I ramble off-point.  You are clearly sure of who we are and what we stand for, and it's equally clear that nothing we tell you will change your own incorrect viewpoint.  That's okay.  You're entitled to be wrong about us, and you're even entitled to ignore the evidence in this thread that you have the TEA Party all wrong.  The bottom line here, really, is that we are all City of Heroes/Villains players who miss our beloved game. 

[Tahliah]

And just as an apology/explanation: I have no idea how to quote without putting my own reply in quotes, too.  Ugh.

[Segev]

*cough* Multi-posting because I got too long-winded. Sorry. :(

if anyone is "grossly distorting things" here its you Segev.

I don't see how. I stated what I, as a conservative, believe. I have not stated what you believe. There's no distortion unless you think I'm lying about what I believe.

As much as I admire your efforts with TPP

Thanks. We do all have some areas of common ground, or we wouldn't be having civil discussions on this forum. ^_^

I am sorely disappointed that you support such discrimination against fellow citizens. And yes I know you didn't outright say that but you ARE supporting it whether you admit it or not.

Let's not get personal, here. You accuse me of supporting discrimination, when I say I am standing up for human rights.

"Infanticide" can only occur AFTER a child is born if it happens against the mother's will.

I trust you don't mean that a mother has the right to "abort" a child post-birth. I doubt that you mean this; I hope you don't mean this. That is the denotation of the words you used, here, though, so I suspect you mis-spoke.

And in any case its her body and its her right what to do with it.

It is. She has a legal right to, among other things, not have sex without contraception. (Rape is a horrible, horrible crime I wish on nobody, and while I tend to ask, "Why is it the baby who gets the death penalty?" it is a red herring to bring it up at all, as the debate is not about corner cases. And heavens, I hope rape is a "corner case.")

Men and women both have the right to choose their sexual partners or lack thereof. However, actions have consequences. A father does have the right to drink and then go for a hike on a cliff side. He does not have the right to leave his 1-year-old child unsupervised in a cabin on its own while he does so. Like it or not, a woman and the man responsible both have obligations to a baby when their actions create him (or her). Laws should be in place to enforce a man's obligations, since natural law makes it a lot harder to do so. In fact, if a woman chooses to have a baby rather than abort it, she can bring those laws to bear against the man who donated the genetic material. This is no different: the baby has a right to live. I'm all for helping support a woman through this hard time and helping her put the child up for adoption if she doesn't want to raise him. But murdering babies because their inconvenient is not a solution.

I support preserving the life of both mother and child, and where that is not possible, leaving the choice to the mother.

It is infanticide to kill a baby. Period. Sometimes, it's a choice of who to save, but even then I view such a choice as tragic (but necessary). It's not about denying women rights any more than child support laws are about denying men rights. Yes, it's intensely more inescapable for those 9 months, but outside of rape, the woman made a choice that resulted in a baby, as did the man.

Having an abortion is LEGAL and is not something any woman does lightly. It is traumatic and carries a hefty emotional toll on any woman who goes through with it.

I'm disputing neither of these facts. I would like to change the former to be something done only with the same legal gravity that, say, conjoined twins pick one to cut off. Parents can't just say "Cut the left one off and kill it" if he could survive without his connection to his twin.

The fact that the party that wants to strip the rights of a woman to determine her own medical choices in regards to abortion

This is a disingenuous debate technique, designed to villify your opponent rather than engage his points. We don't want to "strip a woman of her rights." We want to protect women from murder. (Or do you think that all aborted babies are male?)

If it is a woman's right to decide what she does with her body when it comes to killing the baby that is dependent upon her support, why is it not the man's right to decide what he does with his livelihood if she chooses to have the baby and raise it? Why is he forced to pay child support if he can be proven to be the father? Easy and legal abortion means that there is hefty incentive for a man who wants not to be committed to the relationship for the next 19 years (until the child turns 18) to pressure the woman to make this "traumatic" choice which "carries a hefty emotional" (and, I will add, physical) "toll on [the] woman [if she] goes through with it."

I find such pressure, which is legal to put, to be a fairly anti-woman thing to do, myself.

But again: if a woman has a right to choose what to do "with her body" at the expense of the child, why does the man lack the right to choose what to do "with his livelihood" at the expense of the woman and child? (I'm not saying he should; quite the contrary. But are you? If not, then how do you jive the unequal treatment under the law?)

are the same party that is also against sex education and contraception which would PREVENT abortions from occurring in the first place is BAFFLING.

Actually, it's not sex education we oppose. It's mandatory sex education, against the will of parents, or behind the parents' backs, which we oppose. And we tend to promote teaching abstinence because, of all the "birth control" methods, it is the only one guaranteed to work 100% of the time. ...okay, technically, it failed all of once, but Divine Intervention is a bit outside the scope of this debate. ^^;

The destruction of the family and moral teaching has done far more to promote irresponsible sex than any supposed "lack" of sex ed.

Gay people cannot marry the person they love in most states but that's changing.

Nor can polygamists, and that's not changing. Your point?

It WILL come to every state eventually.

Perhaps, but forcing it through the courts is the wrong way to do it. If it's so inevitable, it should be debated and passed through legislative processes, not imposed through court mandates.

Your argument is a BS pure and simple. They don't have the same right you do.

Yes, they do. There is nothing in the law about "the person you love." While marriage should BE about love, the law isn't about that; it's about promoting the institution that has evolved over millenia of human history.

The only actual restrictions we place on who can marry who in the United States are: they cannot be an immediate blood relative, they must be of the legal age of consent, and you can only be married to one person at a time.

Er, that's patently false by your own admission. Right now, in most states, we also state that you can only marry people of the opposite gender. We also have a fair number of very close scrutiny laws applied to marrying foreign nationals, because it's abused as a quick end-run around immigration law.

You may want those to be the only "restrictions we place on who can marry who," and it's a valid debate to have. (I happen to think it's as valid as the debate over whether the dead should be allowed to vote, with mediums appointed by their descendents telling us how they want their votes cast, but if people honestly thought that was good policy, it would be a valid debate to have. Marriage has a definition, for crying out loud, that has been recognized across every culture in human history. But hey. Valid debate.) But those are not the only restrictions, as evidenced by the fact that we have to CHANGE the laws to allow men to marry other men and women to marry other women.

[Segev]

There is no logical justification to deny couples the right to marry because they happen to be of the same gender. It is discrimination plain and simple and there is no logical argument to the contrary.

Why? You declare there is no logical justification; does that mean that any justification raised, no matter why it is brought up, is inherently discrimination? That's circular logic.

But let's play this game: "There is no logical justification to deny groups the right to marry because they happen to include more than two people. It's discrimination plain and simple and there is no logical argument to the contrary."

You've stated that "you can only be married to one person" is a restriction. Why? Why is that one okay, but "you can only marry somebody of the opposite sex" discrimination? There are cultures where polygamy (or even polyandry, though that's rarer) were well-accepted as a practice in the definition of marriage. Unlike so-called "gay marriage," it requires no new definitions; it just is a bit weird by our modern Western Christian standards. Is that not discriminatory? Heck, the laws were originally passed specifically to target the Mormon Church; prior to that, they didn't forbid (but didn't expressly support) it.

If a man happens to love twin sisters, and they both love him, why must you be a bigot and forbid them to have all the rights of a loving romance that happens to include only two women?

Heck, you list "can't be a blood relative" as a condition, but that only makes sense when children are a possibility. Why can't those twin sisters marry each other? Are you a bigot against gay autophiles? (People who love not only the same gender, but the same phenotype.)

I ask these questions seriously. You can cry "slippery slope" all you want, but unless you can explain to me why the line must be drawn to prevent these kinds of "marriage," and are not bigotry, then you are being arbitrary when you say that homosexuals are being discriminated against.

Again: under the current law, any gay man can marry any woman, and any lesbian can marry any man, they choose. This is no different than a straight man's right to marry any woman (gay or straight), and a straight woman's right to marry any man (straight or gay), they choose. (All, obviously, provided the other participant is willing and legally able to consent.) What you're calling "bigotry" is the refusal to change the rules to allow gay people NEW rights that do not exist for anybody, gay or straight. I point back to my vegan restaurant example: I don't like what they serve there, but they're not refusing to serve me. I don't get to demand that they serve steak in order to cater to me.

All that said? Conservatives mostly only oppose same-sex unions being called - and given the same rights wrt children - "marriage." There's plenty of room and sympathy for debate on how to structure a "civil union" legal construct that gives any two people of any gender the "access" privileges that are commonly cited as being denied gay partners. (Though, again, I have to ask: why must such be restricted to just two people? What, other than bigotry, makes it not okay for a man and three women, or a woman and two men, or three men and three women, to decide they all want that level of access to each other's information because they love each other that much?)

Separate but equal is never equal.

This isn't "separate but equal." They literally have exactly the same rights as straight people. They just don't LIKE what is offered there, because they don't have a member of the opposite sex with whom they want to marry.

Civil Unions are unnecessary and fall far short of marriage in protections and rights.

How so? What rights do civil unions deny people that gays need? Why do you define civil unions to deny these rights? No, I'm serious; "civil union" is as-yet undefined, legally. Why are you arguing for them to deny rights you feel are essential? This is a place for fair and honest debate! Let's debate what Civil Unions should do! Why are you dismissing them as inherently denying rights Marriage grants?

My only place of difference would be wrt children. Let Civil Unions grant every other legal right marriage grants, for all I care. But marriage as a social institution of a father and a mother raising and being jointly responsible for children is something that you can't just hand-wave and say "it's the same" when it's two mommies or two daddies. We can debate and discuss how to handle this difference, legally. That's a fitting thing for legislators and the public to debate and for legislation to define.

But to reject it out of hand is to construct a straw man

Marriage exists. Gay people need it and are just as deserving of it as you are.

Technically, again, they have just as much access to it as I do. More, for some; a lot of gays are more attractive and socially adept than I am, and thus could likely woo a partner despite not being interested in so doing. But that's another matter. ^^;

What is it about "marriage" that gays "need?" The right to share property, to have access to each other's personal information and private records when they're sick or injured, the tax benefits (and penalties) associated with marriage? Why can't "civil unions" grant all of that?

[Segev]

There is nothing you can say to argue that point. Not a single thing.

Well, seeing as I've spent a lot of words arguing, either you're constructing a straw man (and thus are right, because I'm not arguing for your straw man), or you're patently wrong. I think it's actually the former, because gay people have all the rights I do under the law, right now. And if we legalized so-called "gay marriage," I would have all the rights they do. I could marry another man, if I so chose, and get whatever benefits I saw in so doing. I don't think it likely I'd want to, but I could. Just as, right now, without changing a bit of law or cultural definition, a gay man can marry a woman, and a lesbian can marry a man. They just don't really want to.

Moreover, I'm not arguing that they shouldn't have civil unions. What rights, again, do those NOT grant that marriage does? How are you defining them such that they are somehow discriminating against gays? You're the one doing it, at that point, and not me.

Gay people are not "less than" they are not "second class" to straight people and they deserve to be treated like everyone else.

Have I said they are "less than" or "second class?" Not once. I have, in fact, been arguing that they are, in fact, already treated like everybody else. You're the one who's insisting that, somehow, "civil unions" designed to grant them additional rights are not okay. Why can we not add every right they will need, but not the ones that would violate the rights of those least able to speak for themselves: children?

Trying to slander - or, as this is print, libel - anybody who tries to debate you is not honorable, nor intellectually honest. I am certain you feel strongly. Feeling and wanting to treat people with kindness - even fairness - is laudable. But doing so without examining it carefully and fully understanding the topic - by appealing to emotion and demonizing all opposition as hateful - is an invitation to far greater hate disguised as self-righteousness. It smacks of witch-hunting.

"All who oppose these laws against communist behavior are communists!" "But those violate basic tenets of personal liberty and free sp--" "ARE YOU A COMMUNIST?! THAT IS THE ONLY WAY YOU WOULD OPPOSE THIS!"

[Segev]

Marriage is not inherently religious and it existed before Christianity did.

Arguable, as earliest man conflated religion and law. But not really a point in need of debate, as the arguments for preserving traditional definitions of marriage only touch upon religion. They are not based on them.

Marriage between the same gender also existed before Christianity came to prominence.

This is actually quite false. Cultures that tolerated (rather than ridiculed or vilified) homosexuality had terms other than "marriage" (or their translation of the same) to reflect them. They also were very commonly polyamorous. Sometimes, this polyamory allowed multiple-marriage, and others, it allowed one "wife" and a number of "concubines" or "catamites." I think even those that allowed polyandry were vanishingly rare, and typically were cultures that died off due to lack of replacement-population. (Human mating biology being what it is, polygamy makes a certain amount of genetic and temporal-efficiency sense, while polyandry actually retards the ability to replace population. Note that I am not speaking in favor of anything here, just commenting on biological reality.)

The only cultures I've heard attributed with "same sex marriage" being okay are Amerindian ones, and those accounts are spurious at best. We lack much documentation of that era, due to the indians not really having much writing and being very sparsely populated, so much of what we go by is speculation based on anecdotal verbal history and traces of largely impermanent archaeological finds. Even here, then, we cannot be sure it was "the same" as traditional marriage in those cultures, if it in fact happened at all.

So, no. History and human culture throughout it pretty much stands against this claim. If you want to claim human history has been culturally flawed, we can have that debate, but appealing to it is not making your case hold much water.

Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people called spouses that creates kinship.

True, but it has pretty much always been that a marriage is between spouses of opposite sexes. There are no actual "marriage for kinship" instances of two men or two women joining into it. Those, traditionally, involved "adoption," whether as a brother, sister, or son or daughter.

Mainly this was done to facilitate the transfer of property and combine resources between two different families.

And was invariably between children of opposite sex, because THEIR children were seen as sealing the pact.

Marriage is nothing more and nothing less than that regardless of what this or that religion has to say on the matter.

Non-sequitor; marriages were generally anciently sealed by religion because it was seen as transcending laws of men and was meant to provide supernatural sealing of the bond.

Another person's marriage is no business of anyone else and does not impact their lives in any meaningful way.

Except the children of the couple.

And, um, again, by all those arguments you made: why do you say it can only be between two people? Why couldn't "marriage" between one man and multiple women, for instance, secure the union of several families' property? (Genghis Kahn was infamous for this.)

Loving v. Virginia, Chief Justice Earl Warren's opinion for the unanimous court held that:

"Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival.... To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State."

The same standard applies to homosexuality as it does to racial discrimination.

Nonsense. Let me spell it out for you in both terms:

"A gay man has the same right to marry any woman, straight or gay, that he wishes (provided she is consenting), as a straight man. The same is true of gay women and men, straight or gay."

"A black man has the same right to marry any woman, white or black, that he wishes (provided she is consenting), as a white man. The same is true of black women and men, white or black."

Both of these statements are 100% true under current law. The latter was not true under racially-restricted marriage law.

Therefore, no, the same logic doesn't apply. The same emotion might, but emotion is not law, and is not the basis of good law. We must discuss this rationally. Trying to make this a "civil right no different than race" is an attempt to dodge debate and proclaim victory, to impose your will and bully those who do not agree into not even having a right to examine the case logically.

They are denied the right to marry the partner of their choice without any logical justification.

And a married man is denied the right to marry a partner of his choice without any logical justification. Why do you oppose polygamy?

Besides, there are logical reasons, mostly revolving around children. Outside of children, I would define civil unions identically with marriage in terms of rights and privileges granted. I don't see why you wouldn't, except in an effort to deny any ability to discuss the issue.

And YOU support that. YOU help that to keep happening. YOU spend man hours and dollars fighting to deny your fellow tax paying citizens the same rights you enjoy because they are different.

Well, no. I spend man hours and dollars fighting to protect traditional marriage and the family from being further destroyed in a culture war that has already torn apart much of our lower-income parts of society through the disgusting promotion of single motherhood and irresponsible sexual behavior amongst poor men.

As stated, there is no right that I have that a gay man does not, any more than I am denied rights at a vegan restaurant that a vegan man is not. If you want to discuss the opening of a burger joint across the walkway from the vegan restaurant, that's fine. But don't demand that the vegan restaurant reclassify "hamburgers" as "vegan food."

[Segev]

At no point did I say lower taxes were welfare. What I do think of as welfare is the bailouts, the subsidies,

Up to here, we have no disagreement.

the massive tax breaks and loopholes that corporations and the super rich get to take advantage of that us regular Joe's don't typically have access to.

Here, you actually do say that lower taxes are "welfare." Perhaps these elements of the tax code are wrong. You won't get much argument from the Tea Party about that! They want to simplify the whole thing and have lower taxes in general. But if you are saying that these things are "welfare," then you also are saying that the poor who pay lower income tax rates are getting a hand-out from the government for not having the same tax rate as the super-wealthy. I disagree. They are having less confiscated from them by the government.

You want to pay less taxes... I get that. Everyone wants that. Doesn't matter what side of the political spectrum you're on. I also made no such claim about money belonging to the government. Not really sure you're coming from with all that stuff.

Again, the moment you call "tax breaks" or "loopholes" or anything else that causes somebody to pay less in tax dollars "welfare," you are thinking of it as being the government's money and that not having to pay it is the government "giving" it to them.

I'm all with you on subsidies; end them. End them all.

The Tea Party's two primary (competing, even amongst the Tea Party) views on tax code tend to be very simple: either a national sales tax at a flat rate, or a flat income tax that is the same for everybody, with no deductions at all.

I am even bolding them to draw attention; the Tea Party isn't in favor of subsidies for ANYBODY, as a general rule.

Republicans favor a regressive graduated tax code that grants wealthy Americans a lower tax rate than the average middle class American.

Nonsense. That's all politicians, because they're in that wealthy upper class, and get donations from the same. The actual tax code winds up being regressive like that because they've constructed a "we have ours but you can't get yours" model: High "progressive" taxes on income, but low capital gains et al.

The people who are truly "super-wealthy" all make their money on capital gains. Warren Buffet, even with the so-called "Buffet Rule," still pays lower taxes than his secretary because he doesn't make much income. He makes capital gains. And Obama and the other Democrats know this as well as the Republicans when they engage in their class warfare propaganda.

Putting this into concrete terms, what the Republicans want would mean that if the average middle class American pays $0.25 out of every dollar earned, a wealthy American would only have to pay less than $0.12 on every dollar they earned. That is not flat or fair.

Name me one Republican that has actually advocated that. No, seriously.

And then, name me one Tea Party person who has.

Again, the Tea Party formed in outrage, not just at the Democrats, but at the so-called Republican "leadership." And we are looking to oust that leadership and replace it with people who represent our views.

The tax policies and deregulation favored by the radical right created the economic mess we are in today just as similar foolish policies in the 1920's caused the Great Depression.

100% false.

The mess we're in right now was caused by over-regulation and government meddling. The housing crash was precipitated by a bubble generated when Barney Frank and his cronies threatened banks who were "red lining" people. This "evil" practice was simply the refusal to give loans to people who couldn't afford to pay them back. If the banks kept up this horribly greedy practice, Barney said, he would investigate them into oblivion with newer and bigger regulations. So they did what they were told to do, and started giving out those loans. The ones that came to be known as "toxic assets." Then, being as they didn't want to actually lose the money, they started "bundling" them and selling them from loan agency to loan agency, passing them around like a proverbial hot potato.

In the 20s, we had a roaring economy. It was thanks to deregulation and a hands-off attitude. In fact, the 20s are notable because we had a sudden and deeper depression in the late teens, but Calvin Coolidge refused to get the government involved. The 20s roared because that crash was a self-correction to people doing stupid things, and the correction unleashed assets and growth potentials that were being misallocated prior to it. When the stock market crashed in 1929, it should have been a small crash. Yes, some people who'd foolishly over-invested (which is what caused the bubble and thus the crash) lost their shirts, but would have been fine as the economy quickly rebounded.

Unfortunately, first Hoover and then FDR got involved in "saving" people with boondogle make-work projects and later the "New Deal." Economists now examine this and see that these practices retarded the return of workforce to useful and productive jobs and drained capital that would have gone into rebuilding the economy, prolonging the depression in to what it came to be known as: a Great one.

Similar problems have made our housing crash turn into the worst "recovery" ever (and, by some metrics, a depression worse than the Great one). We've drained productive capital and propped up the very wasteful and resource-consuming things that produced the crash in the first place. We should have allowed "too big to fail" to fail, and had the government stay out of it. We'd be back by now, as we were in the 20s, and as we were in the 80s, well above merely recovering what we'd lost. In terms of jobs, we STILL haven't gotten back to Bush levels; we still haven't regained all the jobs we lost as the crash set in.

Historically, now, we have: 1920s, which boomed back after a big crash; 1930s, which prolonged into a long Depression; 1980s, which boomed back after the "misery index" years of the late 70s; and now the 2008-2013 economy, which is so anemic a "recovery" it might as well be a prolonged Great Recession. Examining the policies of each era, we see that government involvement is common to each of the times we've had a prolonged recession.

De-regulation doesn't seem to be the cause of these problems. It may even be the solution.

Tax policy, government regulation of commerce and industry, and a viable and sound safety net for all Americans are all required to restore growth and prosperity.

Then why haven't they? Each time we've leaned on them, we've had a prolonged depression or recession. When we've not leaned on them, we got roaring economies that recovered in less than a year.

Underfunding the government is bad policy as is eliminating the safety net programs that reduce individual risk when small businesses fail as most do historically.

The government "safety net" doesn't protect small business in the slightest. Besides, how can we call a government that spends multi-trillions of dollars per year "underfunded?"

No, seriously. Under Obama, we've added a full third of the entire national debt as it stands. Bush couldn't make that claim. This is all Obama and his government and his spending policies.

If that's "underfunded," just how much money does the government NEED to "save" the economy? $10 trillion/year? Would that be enough? $20 trillion/year? How much? When is it "too much" rather than "not enough?"

The social safety net the Republicans want to elminate is actually necessary for the economy to grow, it promotes risk taking by small businesses since their owners know they will never starve if their business fails. Most small businesses eventually fail regardless of how successful they have been in the past.

False. Not once has the economy grown and boomed out of a recession thanks to such a thing. Each time, these policies have drained the very small businesses you claim they help.

Virtually every tax in the US is regressive except income tax.  That is,the more money you make, the less money you you pay as a % of your income.  If you replace income tax, the only progressive tax (one where if you make more you pay a higher percentage) then you will have a strongly regressive system.  (The system is probably effecitively flat already when you add all taxes/fees together).

Why not just replace the whole thing with one flat tax? The Tea Party would swell behind a serious proposal to do that. (They also like the Fair Tax, but since you like income tax I am happy to discuss a flat one with you, and ditching all the others you feel are regressive.)

Not only does regressivity hurt poorer people, it reduces demand and it increases income inequality.  Income inequality is heavily correlated with all sorts of bad outcomes including lower lifespans, higher infant mortality, lower happiness and so on.

This doesn't seem relevant as it seems to be trying to explain why regressive taxes are bad. As regression is not the goal... *shrug*

Lack of high level progressivity is also a major reason for the financial crisis.  What should be done instead of a flat tax is to tax all income over a million at 90%, all income over 5 million at 95%, closing loopholes and so on.

Uh, no. Nothing you've said prior to this supports this nonsensical idea, and it would, in fact, utterly fail to solve the problems you've noted. As income wealth is not what the mega-wealthy have, all this would do is enforce that, if you're not already rich, you can't become rich. Sounds like a caste system, to me.

It is not a coincidence, or an accident that the US was highly progressive in the 50s or 60s, nor is it an accident that the countries in the world with the happiest citizens (aka. the nordic countries) have high tax rates.

Ah, so we should be like Greece and Spain and...oh, wait, nordic, you say? You mean the ones that are actively looking to change their policies because they're no longer getting enough of their population working to support their government? Like Sweden?

The current system is not fair because of loopholes and special treatment, not because it's progressive.  Those loopholes could be changed under any new tax system, whether highly progressive or flat.

The Tea Party supports eliminating deductions. That's all loopholes are: deductions put in place to engage in social engineering. Some politician thinks an activity is "good," and wants more of it, so he put a deduction into the tax code to support it. The Tea Party would easily rally around any flat income tax with no special deductions. Well, not "any." Too high a rate would also have them angry. But I think it would be a huge improvement to move the debate to what the one single percentage rate all Americans pay in income tax is to be.

Basically, a flat tax would be a huge transfer of wealth from the people who can least afford it up to people who do not need it.

Nothing in your prior statements supports this conclusion. It is an unfounded assertion which holds no water. If you have logic to support it, please supply it.

A flat income tax can't transfer money, by itself, to anybody. IT would require the government to then actively take money it has taxed, and give it as grants or subsidies to people. If you claim that NOT taxing people at a higher rate is transferring wealth TO them, then we're back to you claiming that all money, effectively, is the government's, and that all wealth they let you KEEP is "given" to you by them. Which is a poisonous idea.

1) It would not raise enough revenue. A flat tax would have to be 25-30% in order to raise the same amount of money as our current tax system.

By a static examination, you're right. But I don't think that we should be SPENDING as much, either, so perhaps we wouldn't NEED as much revenue. Moreover, a dynamic analysis that takes into account human behavior and the beneficial effects on the economy hints that, from historical evidence, a flat tax would actually bring in far MORE revenue. If nothing else...it would close all those loopholes you hate so much.

2) It is unfair to the middle class. A family of four with 2 kids under 17 years old and an income of $60,000 pays $2065 under the current tax system. They would pay $10,200 with a 17% flat tax.

While that is not a good thing for such a family, I think you are being intellectually dishonest (probably unintentionally) when you say it is "unfair." Unless you define "fair" as "not hurting somebody more than they are hurt now," in which case your excessively progressive tax proposal of 90% of all income over $1 million is grotesquely unfair to people who dare to try to achieve independent wealth.

If a 17% tax is too high, then perhaps we should cut spending and have a lower one.

Again, I ask you: how on earth is multiple trillions of dollars a year "underfunding" the government such that it cannot do with a cut of...what, 10%, say?

3) It is very unfair to the poor. A single parent making $17000 with a child under 17 would get a refund of $4098 due to refundable credits. Under a 17% flat tax system, they would owe $2890. A net change of $6988 or almost $7000 out of their pocket.

So...are you saying the poor pay net negative taxes? That seems unfair, to me, frankly. That IS the government taking money from one person and giving it to another.

Again, your definition of "fair" is flawed. It may not be "kind." But you know what? These people take advantage of far more of our infrastructure than do the wealthy. They're the ones ON all the programs, aren't they? When do they pay their "fair share?"

No, I'm not accusing them of anything. I'm not arguing that they're doing anything wrong. I'm pointing out that this notion that people who GET something for nothing (and government programs ARE just that, particularly if you pay LESS THAN $0 IN TAXES) are somehow selfless and worthy of sympathy when the people who ARE PAYING FOR ALL OF IT are "greedy." That mindset baffles and sickens me.

Besides, if these policies and tax codes weren't structured such that they punished this poor mother for trying to earn more money (and in so doing pricing out of various benefits she gets, which costs her more than the increased earnings she got), she would be able to work towards not being poor anymore. That's the problem with so-called "progressive" policies: they love the poor. They love them so much that they need to KEEP them poor so they can keep "loving" them.

4) It is a gift to the well off. A businessman making $250,000 would pay $61,957 under that current system and only $42,500 under a 17%.

How is that a "gift?" If the money is NOT the government's before it is taxed - if the money you don't pay in taxes isn't "given to you by the government" - how is that a gift? It's taking less from them, sure.

If I hold you up each month and take $100 from you, and then decide one month I'll only take $20, am I giving you a gift?

The government ultimately takes money by force; if it didn't, then people could choose not to pay taxes at all and suffer no punitive consequences.

I am hoping the Tea Party keeps doing exactly what its doing.

If anything, we'll ramp up our efforts and try to take over the Republican party leadership positions.

You guys scare the bejeesus out of the average folks and it hurts the Republicans tremendously.

Well, I think otherwise, but he beauty of the Tea Party winning out in the Republican party is that regardless of whether you or I are right, ultimately good things will come to the country.

If I'm right, then it will sweep the newly conservative Republican party to victory and we'll enact policies that I believe will save the nation, and, since in this hypothetical, I'm right, they will!

If you're right, then it will doom the Republicans to oblivion and drive whatever remains of their moderates to the Democrats. Hopefully, that will spur a clean-up of the sleazier democrats to make room for the moderates, and the policies you like - which, in this hypothetical since you're right, will save the country - will be enacted.

In either case, it will make it so that there are actually two distinct parties with two distinct platforms, and we can have a proper national debate rather than having one side (*cough* as you do above with your accusations against my character and your straw man insistance that there is no logic to be made with anything that disagrees with you) try to simply deny any debate is possible. And this will lead to true Republic-style elections and we'll see where things really stand, rather than having a ruling class that is little different from its counterpart in the other party telling most of the country to sit down and shut up and let the rulers make all the decisions.

I honestly believe the entire movement was originally a Republican ploy to create a "grassroots" group that got out of their control.

You're wrong, but that's really irrelevant. (The tea party sprang up because we were pissed, initially about Obamacare being passed the way it was.) As it stands, we're the base of the Republican party (and perhaps some of the base of the Democrats) that the party has left behind, and we're going to take it back. I hope.

I don't think the Tea Party will be able to take over the Republican party. The old guard Republicans are not so different from Democrats in many ways and they will try to use you when they can and try to crush you if you get in the way. You already see it happening with the infighting amongst the various conservative groups and law makers. I'd have been happier if the Tea Party was independent of Republicans and actually formed their OWN party that didn't just tag along with the Republicans. You could have done more good that way IMO. You would have drawn members from both R's and D's weakening both (which I honestly feel is needed) so that more diverse voices can be heard.

I hope you're wrong.  Going third party would actually be a bad thing unless we so utterly gutted the Republican party in the process that they were a non-factor in the very next election.

I agree that the R leadership is trying too hard to be like the Democrats. So do most Tea Partiers. It's why we are so loud. We are so determined to get our people in through primaries and, I hope, through taking over internal Republican offices during internal party elections.

You should hope so, too: again, if you're right about how we "scare" the country, the Republicans will then fall, and your righteous leadership will take us further in the direction we're going which, by your thesis, will save the country. If I'm right, we'll sweep to the fore and the Democrats will lose historically, and the traditional values of this nation will save the country.

So, win-win, no matter who's right...if the Republican party is led by those with Tea Party values.

[Kyriani]

I'll make this my last post and keep it brief so as not to leave you with too much more to cherry pick and spin your yarns.

Your party is toxic to me. Your party outright works to harm me every day and with every advance they make. Members of your party have openly stated people like me should be put in concentration camps. People in your mindset have killed people like me... children even... simply for existing.

No matter your party's stance on any issue I can never support any group that would treat another human being the way most of your party treat people like me. You specifically may not be like most but I want to make it clear I am a human being. I am not so different from you. And what you represent is reprehensible to me. You may think I am being overly dramatic but until you've walked in my shoes, seen what I've seen, been through what I've been through, you will never understand what it's like to be hounded for the bulk of your childhood and early adult life by people who find your very existence unacceptable. People who actively try to encourage the rest of society to treat you as a pariah in some vain hope of getting you to hide yourself to change yourself and be more like them when there is nothing wrong with you.

You're no hero. I am very sorry now to know you are involved in any game involving heroes.

Don't pick apart my post trying to debunk me. Just read it and ask yourself... "why does someone... or maybe more than one person... feel this way about people in my party?". Thinking about how your actions affect others is a worthy pursuit.

[Golden Girl]

You're no hero. I am very sorry now to know you are involved in any game involving heroes.

So are increasing numbers of other people.

But if it makes you feel any better, in the greater scheme of things, conservatism (small "c"), always loses in the end, because human society, and especially Western society, is progressively liberal (small "l") - society is always changing and evolving, and it's impossible to prevent those changes for any great length of time.
The further back in time you go, the worse society has been -  but throughout  that time, there have always been conservatives who thought that things were just fine the way they were - for example, back in the Civil Rights era, the Southern Democrats - the "left" - were very happy with segregation - they were conservatives who liked things just the way they were - and currently, during the Gay Rights era, most Republicans - the "right" - are just fine with the current state of marriage equality - and will have as much success with keeping that as the Southern Democrats.
If you look at other injustices in history, like slavery, no voting rights for women, no voting rights for non-whites, illegal abortions, absolute monarchs, legally enforced religion, witch hunting and so on, no matter how awful all these things have been, there have always been people who've supported them, and fought to keep them - they were the conservatives of their day, and they've all been swept away by the relentless drive of humanity's naturally progressive nature.

It doesn't matter if you're left, right, center, white, black, Asian, female or male - society will always change and improve, because that's what we do.

[Segev]

I'll make this my last post and keep it brief so as not to leave you with too much more to cherry pick and spin your yarns.

Your party is toxic to me. Your party outright works to harm me every day and with every advance they make. Members of your party have openly stated people like me should be put in concentration camps. People in your mindset have killed people like me... children even... simply for existing.

No matter your party's stance on any issue I can never support any group that would treat another human being the way most of your party treat people like me. You specifically may not be like most but I want to make it clear I am a human being. I am not so different from you. And what you represent is reprehensible to me. You may think I am being overly dramatic but until you've walked in my shoes, seen what I've seen, been through what I've been through, you will never understand what it's like to be hounded for the bulk of your childhood and early adult life by people who find your very existence unacceptable. People who actively try to encourage the rest of society to treat you as a pariah in some vain hope of getting you to hide yourself to change yourself and be more like them when there is nothing wrong with you.

You're no hero. I am very sorry now to know you are involved in any game involving heroes.

Don't pick apart my post trying to debunk me. Just read it and ask yourself... "why does someone... or maybe more than one person... feel this way about people in my party?". Thinking about how your actions affect others is a worthy pursuit.

I have no interest in picking apart your post to debunk you. I ahve interest in discussing issues.

It's easy to understand why somebody feels this way about people in any party. There are people who feel the same way about yours. Politics brings out a lot of passion in many and a lot of corruption in prominent places, because politics is tied to power, and power attracts corruptible people.

I'm sorry you feel attacked. I know there are people who say hateful things about all sorts of people. I've been accused by "people like you" of being a hate-monger, of being a nazi, of deserving to be raped and killed for daring to believe as I do, just as much as you've been said to belong in a "concentration camp." I'm not claiming to be more or equally persecuted to you. I don't know and frankly do not care what specific group you belong to. Not because I don't care about you as a person, but because I hate identity politics. I do not view people as skin colors, sexual orientations, genders, or even cultural groups (except when their cultural identity shapes the most effective way to interpret their actions and to interact positively with them). I see people as individuals, each wonderfully unique and uniquely skilled, with abilities and traits that allow them to do great things.

As a conservative, I believe everybody can and should achieve wonderful things if allowed to do so. I believe that treating people as interchangeable parts important only for their group identity is dehumanizing and destructive to their capability to be great.

I am no hero. I am simply human. I strive to live up to my religion, which believes in loving my neighbor as myself. I do not always succeed. I am fallible. But I can honestly say that I wish you nor anybody else any ill. And I have not supported anybody who does, no matter what you wish to say about "my party." Why do people feel that way? Because of liars in the other party who have chosen to distort, conflate, and project their own hatreds onto others in order to denounce while deflecting their own self-guilt. Are there people on both sides of any line who hate others for being different? Yes. But it no more makes me a hate-filled nazi than it makes you a gulag-abusing communist.

Anyway, I am sorry you have such a poisoned an distorted view of at least a third of your fellow Americans. I am sorry you have bad experiences. But disagreeing with you does not make me evil, and you might ask yourself if dehumanizing those who disagree with you in that way is really the kind of person you want to be.

[Segev]

If you look at other injustices in history, like slavery, no voting rights for women, no voting rights for non-whites, illegal abortions, absolute monarchs, legally enforced religion, witch hunting and so on, no matter how awful all these things have been, there have always been people who've supported them, and fought to keep them - they were the conservatives of their day, and they've all been swept away by the relentless drive of humanity's naturally progressive nature.

It doesn't matter if you're left, right, center, white, black, Asian, female or male - society will always change and improve, because that's what we do.

Indeed. Heroes are about personal responsibility, helping people out of misery, and protecting the weak from those who would steal from and otherwise harm them. I think we can all agree these things are laudable. And that rational, well-meaning people can disagree about how best to do that. What sets them apart from the tyrants and the bullies is that they will discuss it rather than silence their opposition and force their will through threat of violence and intimidation.

And no, the Tea Party has engaged in neither of those activities.

[Segev]

Anyway, it's clear this is going sour fast. I am sorry for debating and stirring up ill feeling. I just hate seeing things I believe in attacked without defense, and maligned with straw men. Still, it is irresponsible of me to respond in so much length, and I apologize for that. We have other, more positive things on which to focus.