This tea party is the gift that just keeps giving. Holy Cats! Who has scared these people? Glenn Beck for president? Oh dear Lord. NOOOOOOOooooooo. How terrifying.
Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck at the helm? Please, bring back Richard Nixon.
Where are all the interviews with people who at least have a clue what the issues are?
If you ask me, Jimmy Carter’s the gift that keeps on giving!!!
Yea but there is only one of him. There are about 1.7 million (sic) of those guys. (if you believe their numbers vs the DC Fire Dept)
Oh, the news said there were only a couple of people (and by people, I mean racists, of course). Nothing to be worried about!
I am not certain that Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin could do any worse than the incumbent!
I certainly don’t want to put that to the test. Let’s give the incumbent a chance. Does he no longer have a name?
Slow, you throwing that racist crap at me again? Have I EVER accused you of racism? Have I EVER defended you?
I don’t know how many times I can keep saying that I’m not referring to you, Moon-Howler with these comments. Surely you HAVE to know that. In case you haven’t been paying attention, it’s chic these days to refer to anybody who disagrees with Obama as a racist.
The other night MH mentioned that the constitution should be viewed as a living, breathing document, because the framers could not imagine the complexities that exist today. I did not have a chance to respond then, but the discussion seems to fit somewhat in this thread.
I disagree that the constitution should be viewed as a living, breathing document that can be twisted to find new meaning or new rights. That viewpoint allows the constitution to be twisted for a particular purpose so that no one knows what it means any more. For example, a bad actor could use such an argument to limit political speech during campaigns (oh wait, that was already done by McCain-Feingold). The framers recognized that they could not conceive of future changes in America, so they invented a way to alter the Constitution — it’s called the Amendment Process.
A perfect example of that is the controversy concerning “a woman’s right to choose.” There is nothing really in the Constitution that requires women to have the right to have an abortion. The Constitution is mute on the issue, so it is really up to the States to decide one way or another. The federal government has butted its way into that issue, because liberals think that it should be there even if it’s not. The same goes for the current health care debate.
If proponents really believe that abortion or health care should be guaranteed constitutionally, then they should get these rights ratified as amendments to the Constitution. Much of the animosity and polarization between right- and left-wingers would go away if the government would strictly adhere to the constitution as written.
Yes — I do have a couple of patents. I am not sure why that is relevant.
Well, the Constitution can be amended to account for an increasingly complex nation, that’s one of the things that makes it an enduring document. Fundamental truths last a whole lot longer than 200 or so years, though.
I think my favorite line was “I want a Christian in the white house”. Ruh Roh, I guess Joe Lieberman is out then. Ignorance abounds!
Kelly,
Let me help clarify why Roe V Wade is important. The premise has nothing to do with a “requirement” (odd terminology) to have an abortion. It pertains to the “right to privacy” actually. It is not necessarily Constitutional but more relevant to the Bill of Rights.
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/rightofprivacy.html
There are lots of places where the Federal Government has inserted itself. I don’t see education in the Constitution or Bill of Rights, but it is common sense to ensure an educated population. Health Care may not be in the Constitution, but common sense and social responsiblity dictate that a nation cannot function if its society is doomed to suffer and die due to treatable illnesses.
Cry baby Glenn Beck? THAT Glen Beck, really? You think so, he couldn’t do any worse?
Y’all should get a kick out of this….it’s a survey done in NJ. Check out question 11. Hilarious!! The survey responses for Q11 are on page 6….8%!!
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/PPP_Release_NJ_916.pdf
Kelly, I was just trying to remember if I had the right person in memory and I don’t remember what I was thinking when I asked.
There are implied rights. Not everything is spelled out. If it were, there would be no reason to even have a Supreme Court. There are basic truths but….truths are interpreted differently over time.
Additionally, we are too large of a country, too inter-dependent, to have to deal with a patch work of laws.
Ok, Slow, I am going to take that as a forever answer. Sorry.
Slow,
Not Sure was 13%! This country really is in trouble and that isn’t funny!
17 amendments since the Bill of Rights doesn’t make for a strong argument for change. Of course, I am opposed to frivolous amendments to the Constitution.
Our forefathers did not have the consensus nor the courage to end slavery in the Spirit of ’76. And, if the decision to declare independence from Mother England had been a contentious one, the ratification of the Constitution was not much easier. Many Americans considered the Constitution to be a contract with the very tyranny we had fought a war to escape. Trying to end slavery while ratifying the Constitution would have been a death knell for our fledgling nation.
The Framers, in particular the Federalists, had learned the need for a strong central government during the War of Independence, in which the weakness of the Articles of Confederation nearly starved the Continental Army and cost us the war.
Southern states were dependent on slavery. We knew no other way. Delegates from the northern states found slavery to be abominable, but the sad truth is that neither independence nor ratification would have been possible if they attempted to end slavery in the process.
Thus, the question of slavery was ensconced, implicitly at times, and explicitly at others, in the fight over states’ rights vs. federal authority. The Constitution was ratified with these questions still in the air.
The Civil War, of course, resulted from bitter disappointment and feverish rage over the results of a Presidential Election. The southerns states left the Union because they did not want Lincoln to lead them (not because Lincoln planned to end slavery, but because he wanted to stop it from spreading into new territories and new states). It was states’ rights vs. federal authority, and the issue was equality.
During the Civil Rights Era, also, the federal government and federal authority were vilified by those who opposed desegregation and opposed the end of Jim Crow. Again the issue was equality.
Today, the inheritors of this legacy are adjusting to the fact that the face of the federal government is African American. As ever, the question of federal authority is fundamentally related to the question of equality.
Seeing the anger, the disrespect, the racism. Seeing the talk of secession, and the homogeneous palate of faces at these rallies, I can’t help but feel that President Carter is right.
Why not accept the fact that our nation has returned to a crossroad that we did not expect to revisit? The path we will take is a foregone conclusion, but, it is taking some of us longer to accept that path than others. But if we confront the truth, I submit we will be one step closer to a peaceful and positive resolution to this crisis of national identity.
Just LOVED the guy who said: “Glenn Beck is such a logical thinker.”
BTW, there seemed to a lot of open space considering that some say here was a million people around.
I’ve got an idea, how about that same person interview members of congress by asking them about details of the health care bill. The responses would be equally entertaining I’m sure!
Always a deflection. I too would like to know the details of the health care bill. Too bad we can never hear the answers over the din.
2nd Alamo, you aren’t like these people in this video. How do you explain them? At first I thought that those interviewing picked out every knucklehead they saw but I think the interviews are more random. Are they editing out people who seem to make sense?
I know that many people in the Virginia blog world do as I do, and re-read the Federalist Papers annually. I am in the midst of that process now. I was thinking today as I read Federalist 10 that those guys were assuming that future generations of citizens would be well educated in matters relating to public affairs and would be resistant, if not impervious, to the kind of demagoguery that preys on ignorance and that can inflame mobs to hateful, emotional responses to complex public issues.
Ooops. Publius, we’ve got a problem.
Wasn’t the first ‘czar’ appointed by Tricky Dick? Energy Czar?
These people are so ignorant I fell out of my chair laughing at them. Is there really a politician alive who wants to claim these people as their voting base?
…Are they editing out people who seem to make sense?…
Probably not. It’s pretty easy to tell the whackos just by reading the signs. They only went after the worst signs they could find and avoided the others that didn’t fit what they were trying to do. It does not matter which side you are on, it’s not hard to believe that this clip was manipulated to make all of the people involved look like extremists. I’ve seen people on the right do the same thing. I guess it’s human nature to cheat if you have to to “win”, disgusting but done every day.
I saw someone used the word “homogenous” when describing the crowd. That actually makes some sense. Remember, blacks and hispanics are a lot less likely to be republican or even independent, but there were some in the crowd. My guess would be maybe 5 to 10% from all of the pictures I have seen.
…it’s chic these days to refer to anybody who disagrees with Obama as a racist….
Ain’t THAT the truth. To bad too because that is exactly what is setting racial progress back 20 years. For a long time it was just people like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Rev. Wright doing it. Now even old Jimmah the peanut farmer is doing it.
I say to hell with the Teabaggers. They are irrelevent.
The fact of the matter is that we Democrats control the Congress and the White House. We have the votes to pass healthcare reform. If that angers these idiot right-wingers, let them get mad and deal with it.
I don’t know what it’s called, but I call it “selective reporting” or “selective journalism”. In a crowd of 70,000 people it’s not hard to find some nuts. You interview the nuts only. The journalist can create an impression that might not necessarily be representative of the crowd as a whole. It’s done all the time.
Sure it’s tailored to throw a bad image on those protesting, but that is how the political game, and court cases, are played. Anyone who ever dealt with statistics knows that you would need a larger percentage of the crowd population to be interviewed to make any kind of accurate analysis. If anything I get the impression that the nut cases were few and far between, otherwise the interviewer wouldn’t keep coming back to the same small number of people. Take it for what it is, an extremely biased video intended to degrade the entire crowd.
It probably is human nature to pick out the rotten apples to illustrate the whole bunch. And usually the most extreme are the loudest. (or most visual)
Actually I feel better since asking my question. I do feel that I am on ‘the other side’ by default. Not because I agree with the administration health care plan, HB3200, or like Van Jones. I feel like I am on the other side because I don’t agree with the signs and people I see in the videos or being extremists at town hall meetings.
I want Obama to be successful because I am an American. I wanted Bush to be successful also. Same reason. I think we need health care reform. I don’t think that all govt involvement is socialized medicine. Most Americans love their medicare, for example.
I am glad that Bush and Obama infused fed money into banks and the auto industry. The alternative was depression. Did they do it right? Who knows. History will sort that out. Everyone I have talked to on the subject who has a lot more money that I will ever have has said it had to happen or we would be in full depression. The auto industry has so many different tentacles that had it just failed with no ‘bailout’ we would be looking at 25% unemployment or worse. Sounds like the great depression to me.
I never hear anyone talk about the what-ifs from that perspective. I guess it doesn’t make good copy.
All I know is, unlike most of the people I have heard and seen in video and on TV, I don’t know all the answers but I am glad that the free fall into economic disaster was stopped. I am glad my investments free fall has turned around. The stock market has been on a good run since March which is an indication of confidence. I prefer the optimism.
SA, outliers make the best video material. I agree.
I go back to slowpoke’s NJ poll report. I saw over 50% of the respondees considered themselvs moderate. 20% liberal and 30% conservative. (I rounded the numbers) Conservatives tend to push the moderates into the liberal category each and every time, then wonder why moderates hate them. I suppose I don’t like being lumped in with people I consider extremists on the liberal end just to make someone’s point.
Conservatives do not reach out to moderates unless they want something, from my point of view. I mainly feel insulted because I get thrown in with those with whom I don’t agree.
Can someone explain why Carter is so bad?
Hmmh, this is an interesting conversation. The first thought that comes to mind is you don’t want to generalize an entire population based on a few bad apples. The few bad apples being the obviously uneducated interviewEEs in the clip. I would then exptrapolate, you can’t condem ALL undocumeneted immigrants for a few that actually committ serious crimes, you condem ALL of ACORN based on a few bad apples, wow, I could keep going on and on.
Conclusion: One should not generalize an entire group based on few small outliers, unless and until the outliers become the core group. Seems to me, the moderate republicans are at risk of becoming the outliers.
ACORN is an organization, and is presumably headed up by someone. The fact that upper level management evidently were at the very least unaware of these activities, says the whole organization is bad.
It is comparing apples to oranges – you can’t compare the actions of people in an organization to just random groups of people. The management at the top of the organization (ACORN) should be seeing to it that the people who report to them don’t engage in these activities.
Carter – while he used to be a friend to Israel – no longer is. That is just one reason why Carter is so bad, not to mention he was a terrible President.
Now, he is somewhat retracting many of the statements he’s made in the past few years concerning Israel – from an article the other day:
Former President Jimmy Carter said Tuesday that his own comments concerning Israel to President Barack Obama during a speech last week was an act “based on racism” and rooted in fears of a Jews.
“I think it’s based on racism,” Carter said at a town hall held at his presidential center in Atlanta. “There is an inherent feeling among many in this country that Jews should not have their own country. .”
The Georgia Democrat said his own outburst was a part of a disturbing trend that has included demonstrators equating Jews to Nazi leaders.
“Those kind of things are not just casual outcomes of a sincere debate on whether we should have a national program on health care,” he said. “It’s deeper than that.”
Carter called his past comments about Israel “dastardly” and an aftershock of racist views that have permeated American politics for decades.
Not everyone hates Carter. He is a good and decent human being, which is probably why he will not go down as one of the greats in the presidential field.
He came along in those post Nixon years when everyone needed a good dose of nice. Americans got over it real fast and elected Reagan.
Tonight’s random Federalist read is even more on point. Try no. 63, folks. Be ready for a quiz in the morning.
Ready to fail the quiz.