2011-07-30, 17:30 | Link #15261 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Philadelphia, Pa
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The tea party views are not in themselves racist but the party tends to attract a fair amount of racist people because of their views. Their dislike of social programs attract those that hate programs designed to help blacks and immigrants in the past few decades to rise up. Now their is some disagreement on how much its helped but before such social programs most blacks lived in abject poverty with almost no education and that's not the case now. I know these programs aren't perfect but the belief that they've held the blacks back seems a bit absurd. They'll always be people who try to game any system but
The main issue with some low class whites I feel is that even if they receive some form of government assistance themselves they feel that if it wasn't for immigrants taking money from them or affirmative action taking jobs from them then they wouldn't be on it. Also Sackett, I don't necessarily agree with all your views about what the tea party views are. Many of those rants many of us might agree with but the tea party main problem is the wanting to throw the baby out with the bathwater. This programs do help people out, not necessary them but we live in a society. All this talk of me, I is the exactly why the tea party is so unlikable in my mind. They only care about themselves not the country. Also pity is a good way of show the view of the tea party towards blacks. It points out Vexx point of need to view someone as less than them. It shows exactly how they tend to look down on blacks for not being them its not like a good majority of them have ever needed government help, I bet they have. Its not sympathy or empathy towards there situation, its their higher than thou views. Their own inability to see outside of themselves.
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2011-07-30, 17:32 | Link #15262 |
blinded by blood
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Exactly. This "SCREW YOU, I'VE GOT MINE" attitude is why we're in a corporatist cyberpunk dystopia right now, and the Tea Party is just perpetuating that horrifyingly selfish and unnatural ideology.
Humans are social creatures. We need each other to survive. It's that simple.
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2011-07-30, 18:14 | Link #15264 |
Gamilas Falls
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Republic of California
Age: 46
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The middle ground is generally the correct answer in politics. The trouble is that the two main parties are the middle ground. Everything else in this country is extreme, either in views (libertarian), or on major platform issues (green). Neither is taken seriously on the national level....or at least enough to matter.
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2011-07-30, 18:18 | Link #15265 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Sep 2008
Age: 38
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Fixed that a bit. |
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2011-07-30, 18:22 | Link #15266 | |
blinded by blood
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I can respect libertarians, they have a lot of good ideas. I can even respect anarcho-capitalists a bit, even though they live in a hopeless dreamworld. However, the Tea Party's original ideology was thoroughly hijacked and destroyed by a Glenn Beck/Sarah Palin/Michelle Bachmann breed of Faux News zombies who are basically Republicans who are too right-wing for the GOP. Libertarians and anyone who believes in smaller, less-intrusive government would never advocate banning gay marriage. Instead, they'd advocate removing all the legal aspects of marriage altogether. Libertarians would never shill for big corporations, because one of the central tenants of libertarianism is that only individuals have rights--organizations do not. The current Tea Party is not the original Tea Party. Instead, they are a bunch of soulless old losers who can't get over the fact that it's not 1954 anymore.
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2011-07-30, 18:35 | Link #15267 |
Gamilas Falls
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Republic of California
Age: 46
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Unfortuately, they are the middle gound in US politics. Not "suppose to be"...are. Everything else is more left or right of the two main parties actual work (not the bullshit you hear out of their mouths, what they actually do.)
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2011-07-30, 18:56 | Link #15269 | |
Knight Errant
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Age: 35
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I think the reason you hold your views are correct, but what you aim at is wrong. I think that government funding of pensions or healthcare with no preconditions (bar citizenship), can actually free you. Universal Healthcare is the best example. With Universal Healthcare you don't need to worry about your healthcare at all. You don't need to be imprisoned by decisions you may (or may not) have made 10 years before. You don't need to worry about whether your health insurance company will uphold it's end of the bargain. You just walk into a hospital/GP and make an appointment, and later you get it at a low (or minimal) fee. That's it, no paperwork involved. You're free to move anywhere, do whatever you want, safe in the knowledge that you don't need to worry about it. That's independence. Furthermore it's a more efficient way to fund and organise it, and like free education it benefits everyone for healthcare to avalaible to all and high quality. It improves productivity and quality of life. Furthermore in our lifetimes we'll likely all end out spending more or less the same amount on healthcare. Why not allow you to more easily anticipate that spending by paying out of tax? The main counter-argument there is that some may jeopardise their health with bad habits, well perhaps they should have to pay a tax to compensate the health service then...
It gives you more control of your life as it frees you from corporate interests defining what service YOU get. Instead the healthcare establishment (Doctors) decide what is feasible to provide for all. They know what is best for your health. If you want you can still go outside the system and buy quack medecines, but you're only harming yourself. On taxes, the main issue is that the wealthy pay less in tax then us, the working class. Why should we be protecting their tax dodging? Let them pay tax like the rest of us. It's not about stealing from the rich, it's about getting them to pay their fair share to support the government. Quote:
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2011-07-30, 19:08 | Link #15270 |
blinded by blood
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Relevant personal anecdote: my teeth are basically ruined. They're broken, full of holes and two of them have snapped in half. I already can't eat a lot of foods, and soon I'll be able to eat even less when more teeth inevitably break off.
I can't afford to get them fixed in America, even if I saved every ounce of income, I would still not have enough (forget the whole rent, bills, groceries part too). My teeth's sorry state are not my fault. I inherited a genetic condition from my father. We have extremely weak enamel that will demineralize at near neutral pH. My father, one of the most anal persons about dental hygiene you'd ever meet, lost all of his top teeth when he was thirty-two. I can't get them fixed here. In a country with universal healthcare, I'd be able to get them fixed. But I can't do it here. It costs far too much. There's no way I can do a thing, but live with shattered and broken teeth, until I'm in a position where I make enough money to pay the dental bills. "Pull myself up by my bootstraps" how? I went to the dentist--paid out of pocket for it, too, which I really could not afford--due to crippling tooth pain when one of my shattered wisdom teeth abcessed back in 2008. The dentist gave me the full extent of the damage. The cost to repair my mouth is just under twenty thousand dollars. And that was back in 2008. Obviously, more cumulative damage has accrued since then. The two center top incisors have already lost almost half of their original mass. Eventually, they will break off, and then how the fuck am I supposed to eat? I won't even be able to bite food anymore.
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2011-07-30, 19:52 | Link #15271 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2009
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As a result in my country libertarians ended up moving more and more to the right the last two decades, though they still voted in favor of gay marriage ten years ago. Only the parties of the religious right were against, but lacked the numbers to hold it off anymore, their voting base is dying off from old age. |
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2011-07-30, 22:03 | Link #15272 | |
Obey the Darkly Cute ...
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Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: On the whole, I'd rather be in Kyoto ...
Age: 66
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My problems aren't as bad as yours.. .but I have a lesser degree of a similar tendency to demineralize. Years of fillings, fractures, and recently a back upper molar just giving up because it was vastly more filling than tooth.
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2011-07-30, 22:21 | Link #15273 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Asuki-tan Kairin ↓
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Fürth (GER)
Age: 43
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Is this your rational speaking or just anger?
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This sort of argumentation doesn't prove or disprove anything... it is basically useless. Quote:
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Today, its just luxury lamentation... (learn to complain, without suffering). Quote:
This is just going to create more crime. Of course there will be people who want something like police state then, or fence themselves in - in higher class enclaves - that are basically like luxury prisons... I don't know if this flavor of "independence" is really preferable. Quote:
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Actually that sounds more like a tea party line to demonish the concept of a shared burden. They like to paint things in black and white. Ideally everyone should contribute to the system according to how much he/she benefited from it and his/her capability to contribute. How this is exactly done in fair and competitive as well as socially healthy way is a matter of debate though. Quote:
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Yes... I am pretty sure it is. Quote:
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I must admit no matter what you say, I trust my knowledge of human nature to agree with Vexx on this matter. There may be exceptions, but for many (more than just a minority) of the tea party supporters it is certainly true.
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2011-07-30, 22:24 | Link #15274 | |
books-eater youkai
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Betweem wisdom and insanity
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Six killed in China's Xinjiang after explosions
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...76U0AD20110731 Quote:
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2011-07-30, 22:50 | Link #15275 |
Komrades of Kitamura Kou
Join Date: Jul 2004
Age: 39
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To clarify my comment on the noblesse oblige, I preferred it because it worked if you were willing to disregard the self-righteous moralism that came with it because it worked, and it kept local communities working/operating. Even if the elite placed themselves in a plane of existence above and beyond the peasantry, at least they were involved enough to keep the peasant world afloat.
The noblesse oblige of these days is an even greater corruption of that self-righteousness now as Vexx says, where the elite force the rest of humanity to abide by their rules and their rules alone. They now believe in a philosophy of absolute lordship now, where their noblesse oblige is to lord themselves over the rest of the people and are "obligated" to "rule" than to "support".
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2011-07-30, 23:36 | Link #15277 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Suburban DC
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I mean I admire the bootstrap mentality.
Generally it's just good practice to live by, but I think sometimes we think we invented such a mentality and that no one else lives by it. What's more it's easier to do the bootstraps when you could work in a factory for good money or college didn't require to sell your organs just to pay for books. It's too expensive these days for a lot of things. Some times people do need help and welfare keeps them from dying in the streets or hospital beds at any rate. I'm worried about just dismantaling of such programs leaving a large amount of people to fend for themselves in some social darwinist nightmare. |
2011-07-31, 00:23 | Link #15279 |
Gamilas Falls
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Republic of California
Age: 46
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Well one thing we can see here is there is a vast difference in opinion about how things work and what should be done. So it is no different than on Capitol Hill. It is all a matter of perspective. What one person sees is not what another person sees....and for that reason, we are Human. For if we all saw things the same...what would be the point?
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2011-07-31, 00:51 | Link #15280 |
Kurumada's lost child
Join Date: Nov 2003
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Forgive me to be so blunt and bold, but anyone who agrees with the tea party is completely out of touch with reality. The core belief of the tea party is the privatization of every asset. They believe that businesses can take care of all human needs in better than than any government can. This belief is completely deluded, while it is ok to make a business out of many goods and services in society, it is not ok to make a business out of essential goods and services, because the need for profit will always overwrite the concern for society's well being.
Why did the US suffer the big depression in the 1930s and again in 2008? Simple, profit was more important than ethics. Regulations are codes of ethics; but we all know that ethics and profit do not mix. Why do we incarcerate so many people in the US more than anywhere else in the world? Simple, the prison system is being privatized. Why is the level of education system failing for minorities and poor white Americans? Simple, money isn't being channeled into public education and schools are being privatized at an increasing rate. Why is the infrastructure of the country crumbling and staying outdated? Simple, American construction companies are making a killing in developing countries where hiring workers is way cheaper and does not require benefits. Why are more than 50 million people uninsured? Simple, the healthcare system is private and the drug industries make record profits every year in the US. I could go on and on... It is ok to have a business as long as profit doesn't get in the way of human development. The fact that there are people who embrace the beliefs of the tea party worries me a lot because this shows how individualistic and egocentric we are becoming. Edit: Since we are talking about safety nets and the role of government in the system allow me to link a video about Norway, which will make my rant above much more clearer. (Yes, yes, Michael Moore is the director so time to freak out!) Last edited by Sugetsu; 2011-07-31 at 01:16. |
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current affairs, discussion, international |
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