The origin of the teabagger

[God Emperor Baldur]

This default is ridiculous. No, it's not ridiculous, it's ******** nuts insane what these people have done. Not only to the US, but to their own party as well. If there was no resolution to this default, the implications would have devastating effects. For one, the faith in the dollar as the trade currency would have been dropped. Already China and even the UK are questioning its stability. If that was dropped, we would have seen a devastation to our economy and that's ignoring the layoffs from various branches including the military, Air Traffic Control, policing, health and safety, everything. That in turn would have caused a world economic disaster and maybe even a collapse. Either way, the US would have been ******** from rich to poor if this went through. And yet in the house, 144 Republicans voted against funding the government, completely dedicated to letting this happen.

That is the Tea Party for you. Completely willing to ruin the world to repeal Obamacare. To understand why, you need to understand how they work. There is one definitive belief that these people share in common. And that is Anti-Obama. Completely, 100% Anti-Obama. No matter what the cost, not matter what he says or does. Go to War? Obama's bad. Don't intervene? Obama's bad. Support a bill that the GOP introduced? Obama's bad. Regulate the usage of toxic pink slime in foods? Obama's bad. That's all. It's completely one dimensional. Their only goal is to remove Obama and everything else is secondary. Nothing else matters and it must be done no matter how high the price. Jesus ******** Christ. These people are so extreme and so absolutist, that they make the Imperial Inquisition look sane.

You heard me. The Ordo Hereticus: The people who could very well be more evil than the daemons they kill


are more sane than the Tea Party


But there has to be a reason. There has to be a reason why this is happening under Obama, but never happened during Clinton. Sure the obvious thing to come up is race. Sure it can be part of it, but it's deeper than that. I think the cause is almost solely on Fox News. Think about it. The GOP has went out of favor of hardlined republicans, it's at its lowest approval rating ever recorded and not even big business supports them. They are now trying to find ways to cut the dead flesh from the GOP thanks to them. What do they have left? Who is the only entity standing by them? Fox News. Sure that is circumstantial, so we have to look back to before they were formed to see what caused this. The Tea Party was formed in early 2009 as a protest to Obama's tax reform which was ironically lower than Bush's taxes. So we know it was formed out of misinformation. Of course, conservatives were crazy before then. They really started back in September of 2008. During that Election season, Barack Obama and John McCain were campaigning for the presidency. When Sarah Palin was selected, she actually benefitted McCain to the point where he gained the lead. Then the markets fell hard and the polls switched to Obama's favor. That is when Insanity really came about. Fox News at that point was doing damage control as were many of their followers.

If you think they weren't insane back in 2008, then I give you this lady.


There were so many conservatives overreacting to this, there is no other cause aside from the media. Don't believe me?


Having people fear the US turning into the Soviet Union is enough for many to resort to such measures. Sure there is the internet, but the internet has been vastly liberal with a hint of outspoken libertarianism. Either way you cut it, the core is always there. The only question that does remain is "Why?" Why have they gone so far as to create their own destructive puppet? The answer is probably Youtube. It's an odd coincidence that the Bush Administration ended up on the bad side of the American people the same year Youtube came about. But it's very evident that the ability to broadcast to everyone and show the mistakes of the politicians is powerful. It was so powerful, the Democrats won the house back in 2006 because of it. Evidence of that shows the frequent attack on the internet. We had SOPA back in 2012 and that happened during an election year and was designed so that Youtube would be the first to shut down. Quick way to Censor. We also had COPE. A bill introduced in 2006 that would allow ISP's to slow down and completely block websites of their choice. It doesn't take a genius to see that the influence of Youtube and the Internet all together has changed the game and this is Why Fox News is going to the extreme. They are losing their influence. So like the Ying Yang, the more they are pushed, the harder they push back.

[azulmagia]

You could go a lot further back than that. The impeachement of Clinton. Or all that sucking up to Pat Robertson - even after he published a book on the New World Order and the Jews behind it.

[God Emperor Baldur]

azulmagia

You could go a lot further back than that. The impeachement of Clinton. Or all that sucking up to Pat Robertson - even after he published a book on the New World Order and the Jews behind it.

Even with that bullshit going on, they at least complied with Clinton. With Obama, we have seen that they will not comply under any circumstance.

[Legato of the Night]

Hi, Michele! I didn't vote for you, but thanks for robo-signing that piece of paper congratulating my graduation from high school because you represent the district I live in. I guess you're useful for something after all, besides making comedians funnier.

[azulmagia]

OK, if you want to understand the basic nature of the Tea Party, the essential go-to book is Michael Lind's Up From Conservatism. It was published in 1996, but the framework is still applicable. The main thing that dates it is that it obviously can't discuss the Fox News noise machine, which has mad a bad situation even worse. Basically, the underlying fact can be summarized in one word: Southernization. The process began with Goldwater, and continued on with Nixon's Southern Strategy. The turning point seems to have been the creation of Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition. Like the Tea Party movement, the religious right in general is not a genuine grass roots movement. It was engineered from above by usual-suspect right-wing activists like Richard Viguerie (who was a Catholic) and Howard Phillips (a Jew). Lind doesn't it mention it, but the specific "grievance" that was the original catalyst was the fight against the ERA back in the 1970's. The Christian Coalition was also engineered from above - Lind mentions that it was started with seed money from the Republican Party, and its membership basis was the direct-mailing list from Robertson's 1988 Presidential bid. The Tea Party also falls into the same pattern. It usually is held to date from an angry speech by Rick Santilli (I think that's who it was) on the floor on some Stock Exchange, but the website actually pre-dates it by a few days. I need hardly say why these efforts must be top-down: if the people were allowed to formulate their own agenda, it would deviate from conservative ideology and might actually reflect the interests of ordinary wage-workers. The same thing applies in Canada, in the formation of the predecessor of the present Conservative Party, Preston Manning's Reform Party.

The tipping point in Southernization came with the 1994 Congress, where for the first time since Reconstruction, the Republicans gained a majority of southern seats in both houses of Congress. As well, the percentage of states with Republican governors was the highest since Reconstruction. Southernization also means the extension of the particular political culture of the South. This is dealt with in more detail in chapters on the revival of racism (including eugenics), and the revival of Confederate, Ant-Federalist notions of the Constitution, like states rights, the monomania against "big government", Second Amendment fanaticism and apologias for the militia movement and David Koresh. And while it's not really discussed, opposition to the Federal Reserve and central banking in general is also as Southern as pork rinds, as evinced by the policies of Andrew Jackson. Pat Robertson of course gives the Federal Reserve a key place in his crackpot conspiracy theories.

Now, there is an entire chapter in the book devoted to Pat Robertson and his theories - which incidentally, paraphrase passages from overtly anti-semitic works to the point of plagiarism - while excising overt references to Jews. Lind asks the question, Why were the Birchers repudiated back in the 1950s and early 1960s, while "moderate" Republicans are sucking up to and apologising for Robertson? Answer: the John Birch Society's membership never exceeded the tens of thousands. The Christian Coalition alone has over a million adherents.

There is also predictably a material base for this movement outside of the demographics of elections returns: The repudiation by the national business class of the high-wage, high-public investment model in favour of the Southern model of low-wages, low taxes, and low public services. They "pin their hopes on export markets abroad - and slaver at the thought of transferring industrial production or even routine service jobs to low-wage workers without unions or civil rights in Third World countries. Industrialists who teamed up with industrial workers at the expense of southern agrarians, who paid the costs of protectionism for U.S. industry, have now switched sides. A new, free-trade coalition - visible in the vote on NAFTA and GATT - allies multinational industry and finance with export-oriented agriculture in the South and West against industrial workers in the midwestern industrial heartland." (p. 133)

The big downside of the book is its etiology of the fall of the New Deal Democrats. Lind blames it on the left-liberal wing associated with George McGovern. He gives the list of New Deal liberals on page 63: FDR, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, and Martin Luther King, Jr. One of these things is not like the others, see if you can guess which one. More realistically, the fall of the old-style New Deal Democrats is a self-immolation, occuring on the fields of Vietnam, and also resulting from the inadequacies of the Great Society. You could also blame the Civil Rights movement if only for the sake of consistency.

[Project 429]

God Emperor Baldur

This default is ridiculous. No, it's not ridiculous, it's ******** nuts insane what these people have done. Not only to the US, but to their own party as well. If there was no resolution to this default, the implications would have devastating effects. For one, the faith in the dollar as the trade currency would have been dropped. Already China and even the UK are questioning its stability. If that was dropped, we would have seen a devastation to our economy and that's ignoring the layoffs from various branches including the military, Air Traffic Control, policing, health and safety, everything. That in turn would have caused a world economic disaster and maybe even a collapse. Either way, the US would have been ******** from rich to poor if this went through. And yet in the house, 144 Republicans voted against funding the government, completely dedicated to letting this happen.

Is this a troll thread? Russia and China have been moving away from the dollar for a long time now - default or no default. Also a refusal to raise the debt ceiling =/= a default.

Before you write a conspiratorial hit piece/circlejerk, at least get the facts straight.

[Jom Note]

God this ill informed suburban teenager living off food stamps is what the world as come to, this is America now. Democracy dies in rounds of applause with every new bill passed and all who oppose are racist. Including me and my black wife apparently.

[The Herald of War]

Jom Note

God this ill informed suburban teenager living off food stamps is what the world as come to, this is America now. Democracy dies in rounds of applause with every new bill passed and all who oppose are racist. Including me and my black wife apparently.

I always have to wonder... Do you idiots also think that anyone married to a woman can't be sexist towards women?

[Jom Note]

The Herald of War

Jom Note

God this ill informed suburban teenager living off food stamps is what the world as come to, this is America now. Democracy dies in rounds of applause with every new bill passed and all who oppose are racist. Including me and my black wife apparently.

I always have to wonder... Do you idiots also think that anyone married to a woman can't be sexist towards women?

who are you idiots exactly? I'm assuming you mean tea party activists because I'm not, I just don't like Obama or republicans tbh. Second your example is poor, racism is the alienation of race versus sexism is the anienation of a srx with regards to race. So don't sand in your v****a and start getting pissy because I disagreed with someone who isn't you. I don't like Obamas white half either.

[God Emperor Baldur]

Project 429

God Emperor Baldur

This default is ridiculous. No, it's not ridiculous, it's ******** nuts insane what these people have done. Not only to the US, but to their own party as well. If there was no resolution to this default, the implications would have devastating effects. For one, the faith in the dollar as the trade currency would have been dropped. Already China and even the UK are questioning its stability. If that was dropped, we would have seen a devastation to our economy and that's ignoring the layoffs from various branches including the military, Air Traffic Control, policing, health and safety, everything. That in turn would have caused a world economic disaster and maybe even a collapse. Either way, the US would have been ******** from rich to poor if this went through. And yet in the house, 144 Republicans voted against funding the government, completely dedicated to letting this happen.

Is this a troll thread? Russia and China have been moving away from the dollar for a long time now - default or no default. Also a refusal to raise the debt ceiling =/= a default.

Before you write a conspiratorial hit piece/circlejerk, at least get the facts straight.

Actually yes a refusal to raise the debt ceiling in time would have resulted in a default and a default would have resulted in a world economic collapse. Besides China and Russia, the UK and Germany also contemplated the abandonment of the US Dollar.

[Project 429]

God Emperor Baldur

Project 429

God Emperor Baldur

This default is ridiculous. No, it's not ridiculous, it's ******** nuts insane what these people have done. Not only to the US, but to their own party as well. If there was no resolution to this default, the implications would have devastating effects. For one, the faith in the dollar as the trade currency would have been dropped. Already China and even the UK are questioning its stability. If that was dropped, we would have seen a devastation to our economy and that's ignoring the layoffs from various branches including the military, Air Traffic Control, policing, health and safety, everything. That in turn would have caused a world economic disaster and maybe even a collapse. Either way, the US would have been ******** from rich to poor if this went through. And yet in the house, 144 Republicans voted against funding the government, completely dedicated to letting this happen.

Is this a troll thread? Russia and China have been moving away from the dollar for a long time now - default or no default. Also a refusal to raise the debt ceiling =/= a default.

Before you write a conspiratorial hit piece/circlejerk, at least get the facts straight.

Actually yes a refusal to raise the debt ceiling in time would have resulted in a default

www.forbes.com/sites/brianjacobsen/2013/10/15/debt-ceiling-deadline-to-default/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/16/oct-17-is-the-debt-ceiling-deadline-but-its-probably-not-the-day-we-default/
http://reason.com/blog/2013/10/16/raising-the-debt-ceiling-still-has-nothi

[God Emperor Baldur]

Project 429

God Emperor Baldur

Project 429

God Emperor Baldur

This default is ridiculous. No, it's not ridiculous, it's ******** nuts insane what these people have done. Not only to the US, but to their own party as well. If there was no resolution to this default, the implications would have devastating effects. For one, the faith in the dollar as the trade currency would have been dropped. Already China and even the UK are questioning its stability. If that was dropped, we would have seen a devastation to our economy and that's ignoring the layoffs from various branches including the military, Air Traffic Control, policing, health and safety, everything. That in turn would have caused a world economic disaster and maybe even a collapse. Either way, the US would have been ******** from rich to poor if this went through. And yet in the house, 144 Republicans voted against funding the government, completely dedicated to letting this happen.

Is this a troll thread? Russia and China have been moving away from the dollar for a long time now - default or no default. Also a refusal to raise the debt ceiling =/= a default.

Before you write a conspiratorial hit piece/circlejerk, at least get the facts straight.

Actually yes a refusal to raise the debt ceiling in time would have resulted in a default

www.forbes.com/sites/brianjacobsen/2013/10/15/debt-ceiling-deadline-to-default/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/16/oct-17-is-the-debt-ceiling-deadline-but-its-probably-not-the-day-we-default/
http://reason.com/blog/2013/10/16/raising-the-debt-ceiling-still-has-nothi

Oh great. A link From Forbes, a company that basically funded the tea party, A Washington post article which says we would have been doomed but at a later time and a free market nutjob website.

[God Emperor Baldur]

Jom Note

God this ill informed suburban teenager living off food stamps is what the world as come to, this is America now. Democracy dies in rounds of applause with every new bill passed and all who oppose are racist. Including me and my black wife apparently.

An ad hominem occurs when the person arguing has run out of resources to properly argue. Nevermind the fact that I run a computer repair business and drive a BMW

[washu_2004]

It will be the undoing of the GOP if they continue down this path of obstructionism.

They are already beginning to feel the effect with drops in popularity in reputable and independent polls such as Gallup. And should they continue this trend can only be expected to increase.

Ultimately we may soon see the libertarians or the greens taking their place as the second party in the two party system.

[N3bu]

Project 429

www.forbes.com/sites/brianjacobsen/2013/10/15/debt-ceiling-deadline-to-default/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/16/oct-17-is-the-debt-ceiling-deadline-but-its-probably-not-the-day-we-default/
http://reason.com/blog/2013/10/16/raising-the-debt-ceiling-still-has-nothi

That is correct.

To clarify for others, Default will only occur if the United States cannot and chooses not to pay either it's debt repayments or it's interest on debt.

Debt is primarily used as means of on-time spending, since taxes won't always come in when spending needs to go out, however when taxes go in they often pay off those temporary lending measure, except where spending exceeds taxes.

Thus usually, to pay interest, the US government borrows money to do so, unless it has tax revenue on hand I suppose. In addition the Treasury has a number of limited "extraordinary" measures it can take to provide funding for a very limited time, outside of the purview of congress.

Thus, with the prioritization of debt repayments, the treasury could avoid default for some time if the debt ceiling wasn't passed.

Conventional wisdom however points out that if the debt ceiling is never raised then eventually the US government will be forced to default.