Wait, so you're trying to justify the Tea Party analogy?
*Rolling back a tax cut makes it now "out of control." I suppose the same pre-tax cut "out of control" taxes killed the economy in the 1990's. Uh, wait, it didn't. There's room for responsible debate on the appropriate level of taxation. Drawing an arbitrary line in the sand as "out of control" is empty rhetoric.
It wasn't about taxation or revoking the Bush tax cuts, it was about the out-of-control spending and borrowing that is occurring.
*Taxation without representation - What representation are we lacking, exactly? You don't agree with what your representatives did, fine. We don't run government by referendum. If you find our constitutional republic inadequate and wish to overthrow it for a direct democracy.....that's your choice.
There were of course your ultra-Libertarian types who didn't know what they were saying at these rallies (you listen to talk radio and they occassionally call in to!), but the basic point is there (regarding taxes), which is that Americans are being taxed too much. You add up federal, state, county, city/town, property, FICA, sales, corporate taxes (passed on to the consumer, shareholders, employees, etc...) and the average American is handing over a pretty large chunk of their paycheck to Uncle Sam.
Also now the states, because they have spent so much, are all raising taxes themselves. Government is talking about an ecommerce tax I think too.
This level of spending is not sustainable. The level of interest on the national debt alone is going to grow so large it will consume a huge portion of the Federal budget if they don't stop. That will mean they will have to yank taxes up sharply to pay for it.
And Obama, while trying to hamstring the economy with carbon regulations, higher taxes, and union card check, somehow thinks he'll have the growth to fund things like universal healthcare coverage (which is driving Massachusettes fiscally into the ground right now).
And while the people do have representatives, these tea parties can be a good way to tell their representatives to stop spending so much to the point that they then must raise taxes, and that they're being watched and will be held accountable by a lot of people.
That's why the political Left is so frightened of them. If they were truly insignificant, or if the Left considered them truly insignificant, they wouldn't care. Some senseless right-wing protesters, no more relevant than a high school protest, would be their attitude. But because they deem it might mean an organized threat to their power in government, they are going crazy.
*The only attempts at arms control so far have been in the imaginations of gun-owners. I do find it impossible to buy ammo at Wal-mart, but I have hysterical gun-owners to thank for that, not Obama.
Different areas and cities have different levels of gun control, Washington, D.C. being one prime example. And gun owners have a right to be a little paranoid, as government is always trying to infringe on the Second Amendment in various ways.
The Tea Party was a cute literary device, and not a bad theme for a Conservative get-together (which is what it was before the protest idea took hold - I still get invited; I don't know why). As a serious piece of political analysis, it's laughable. The insinuation of armed rebellion, even more so. As you so eloquently stated elsewhere, crack a book.
So the anti-war protests against George Bush were just "cute literary devices?" As political analysis, they were laughable? The insinuation of impeaching President Bush, even more so?
The basic point of those protests was those people disagreed with the war.
These "tea party" protests were people organizing to tell the government they want them to stop with the out-of-control spending and borrowing, and to some extent, taxation.
And while you can say, "The people elected this government in, they're getting what they wanted," well only by a small majority. Some 48% voted the other way. There are a large amount of people in this country who disagree with what the government is doing.
And you wonder why, with all this invocation of revolutionary rhetoric, DHS might be concerned about a rise in right-wing violence.
You just said these Tea Party protests were "cute." If they were cute, why would the government be at all concerned about "right-wing" violence? I don't think "right-wing" violence has ever been much a threat in this country, or at least not of late.
Could you imagine the uproar that would have ensued if the Bush administration had expressed concern over "Leftwing violence?"
. Just because the guy who you voted for is doing something stupid or that you disagree with does not equate to taxation without representation.
