Teabaggers gutted the Town budget this weekend and their reasons

[Raven]

are fascinating. Here are some of them based on a very long discussion I had with one of their leaders today:

government is bad and cannot be trusted

abortion

because "they" took the 10 Commandments out of the schools

That's it folks... now, when I asked the guy how we could maintain public safety services, I was told that Fire would just have to respond to fewer emergencies. I then asked how he would decide who got the EMT's...would we cut responses to people 55 and older on the theory that they had lived a good part of their lives? Would we cut based on income? Would we cut on the basis of religious belief? All of the above, according to him, as long as they responded to his call.

So there you have it. This guy is a community leader and we, as a society, are in real serious trouble. And where are the good, decent, thinking people in Town??? Hiding out...they don't know how to fight this crap...not a clue.

[JoePhilly]

1. "Government is bad and can not be trusted" ...

And this is a "town leader"???

Look, you need to talk to the people in your town and ask them if they would hire an applicant for a job, it the applicant thought that the job in question could NEVER be done well.

Because THAT is what the tea bag candidates are saying. Their position is ... "this job can never be done well, and if you hire ME, I'll PROVE IT!!!"

[Raven]

2. What a good point! I am seeing so much red that I can't see the simple facts.

[JoePhilly]

4. I point this out to every moderate Republican I know ... they have no response to it.

[Lasher]

3. As a town leader, he is bad and cannot be trusted.

Hoist with his own petard.

[JoePhilly]

5. Exactly.

[calimary]

9. Damn. This oughta be a campaign ad.

:yourock:


Short 'n' Simple Sums It Up. Mind if I quote you? Everybody should.

[JoePhilly]

13. PLEASE, feel free to use this line of argument ... I want this stated over and over!!

Why let the people who hate our government run it ... to do so is stupid.

I wish everyone realized this!!!

So yea, spread the word!!!

[du_da]

19. Be careful what you ask for

the obvious answer is that someone is going to hold that job and the only way to ensure its effects on the people are minimized is for someone dedicated to minimal exposure to hold the position.

Once you go down that road you have to resell the idea of government intervention in the first place. I am not sure we want to have to make that argument in this political climate.

[patrice]

20. Why is "government intervention" the only means to enhance "minimal exposure"?

[patrice]

22. Can't an authentic standards-based co-operative market do this? nt

[du_da]

34. My phrasing may be off a bit

I am trying to use the wording they would use, my assumption in that is that government intervention is what they would be attempting to minimize exposure to.

[patrice]

39. My apologies! I was thinking in terms of risk management.

[JoePhilly]

23. I have no fear of that at all.

Their claim is that the government can do nothing well, not to help the economy, not to help people ... it can't do anything well. That is their pitch.

And so, when they are asked the question of how THEY would help create jobs, they have a problem. They have already said that the government CAN'T do anything well. And so, as we see today, he GOP has ZERO plans to create jobs because from their perspective, the government CAN'T help do that.

Of course that is a HUGE LIE ... there are THOUSANDS of Americans employed at defense companies like Lockheed Martin who's employment is totally due to the US government ... but they hide from their LIE, by attacking public school TEACHERS because they also are funded by tax dollars.

See this disconnect? The government, which can never do anything well, can do MILITARY, but not public schools.

Again, the GOP's position is false and easy to refute.

[patrice]

26. It absolutely really is easy to refute. Rotten to the core. Full of mediocrity and dishonesty,

intentional or otherwise, it has lead to a great deal of concrete Fraud, Waste, and Abuse.

[JoePhilly]

28. So let's put the people who hate our government in charge!!!

That's a good plan.

[du_da]

36. From their perspective it is a necessary evil

Keep in mind they see progressives in government positions as letting the wolves guard the hen house.




We certainly don't agree with them. But we don't do ourselves any favors when we are making assumptions and in our glory manage to to not fully understand their arguments and perspective. If they had no sway over the other voters or were such a minority that they could be ignored then things would be different, but they aren't.

[Enthusiast]

51. They are an ignorant minority.

I don't wish to understand their ridiculous arguments and perspective. Their perspective was formulated by Freedom Works, the Koch brothers, the far right and the corporatists of this nation.

[du_da]

35. You are missing the key to their arguement.

It isn't just that the government can't do it but that even if the government could it still shouldn't.

You mention the question of how THEY would create job, their answer is that as a government representitive they wouldn't. As a private business owner they might.


Now as you pointed out the defense industry is certinally an example where government has generated jobs. But again, watch what you ask for we want to reduce that industry not justify growing it.

[JoePhilly]

38. Then why has Boehner been screaming "Where are the jobs!!!" at Obama.

See??

In one breath, the GOP DEMANDS that Obama create jobs ... but then you claim, that the GOP does not think the government can create jobs.

The FACT is that the government creates thousands, if not millions of jobs.

And to prove this simple point ... take a look at the many high paying jobs at Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and all of the other defense related companies, in case you missed it, those jobs exist BECUASE the government funds them.

Its like a recent statement Sarah Palin made. She went on about a donut shop that was doing very well. But she neglected to note that the people who ate there were mostly government employees.

Teachers, police, fire fighters ... GOVERNMENT workers who spend their money in local businesses.

But the government should not do such things.

Let's fire them all ... and then, when the military contractors, and the teachers, road crews, police, and fire fighters are all unemployed, let's see what the economy looks like.

All of these jobs come from the government ... so if the claim is that "the government shouldn't" do this ... our country will be in dire straights.

[du_da]

45. They actually believe that government doesn't create worthwhile jobs.

They are screaming at Obama to live up to his promise to do so because in their eyes it is a win/win scenario, and now that they have a counter balance to dem power via the HoR that they can point to as the "cause" of jobs being created then to some degree they are right about it being win/win for them.

The rest of your post illustrates the problem we have. You are arguing against them from your perspective of their ideals instead of theirs. That is not particularly effective. You have to tackle their views as they present them not how you see the underlying basis of their views. The reason being that those in the middle see the later as disingenuous and it hurts us more than helps us.

So from their perspective all those teachers jobs for example would still be there but they would be funded from private or purely local basis. As for fire and police only the real extreme of them tackle that group so we are best leaving that out of the discussion. The core of their group doesn't follow that path.


What we need to do is to be able to explain why they are wrong, specifically how government involvement can push private industry to create jobs indirectly or how directly created government jobs are worth the investment.

[jpak]

48. Yup - teachers, firemen, police - all worthless jobs

If you follow stupid teabagger logic down their moran rabbit hole

You get what you pay for

Unqualified poorly paid teachers who can't perform, corrupt police officers who supplement their income with bribes and shakedowns, fire crews that cannot and will not make the sacrifices needed to preserve human life - especially when it endangers their own.

Atlas Shrugged

yup

[EstimatedProphet]

52. OK, how about this argument, along those lines

Government is basically a service. The jobs it provides are service jobs. So, let's make them private, where good old competition can work (another sacred cow of theirs):

We now have private sector teachers. As with any other job, they have to perform. Merit-based pay incentives, etc. Teacher A comes up with an idea that is very productive for teaching kids. Their performance goes up. He will be rewarded because of it.

What's his incentive to share his idea? If he tells everyone about it, then he's much less likely to earn his merit pay. In fact, he would risk losing it, because if all the teachers start using his methods, he's more likely to be out-performed using his own ideas, just because of so many others using them too. Now he ends up in a situation where he either has to withhold helping other teachers and let their students suffer, or risk his own livelihood.

The fact is, there are many cases where it is more productive for everyone involved to work together.

[JoePhilly]

53. Then why demand that Obama provide jobs?

If Boehner thinks the government can't create worthwhile jobs (which is a lie) ... why demand that Obama create them.

Of course the government creates LOTS of very good jobs.

Lots of great paying jobs exist thanks to government contracts, in a wide variety of fields.

The reality is that the government often has financed the foundational research and development that companies then get to leverage going forward.

Without the US government, and the jobs it creates, there would be no land line phone, no energy lines or cable lines to rural America, no internet anywhere.

But the GOP's argument is UP a level ... "the government is evil and does nothing well ... so elect me and I'll prove it."

This is a simple message to punch them with, and we should do so over and over and over.

[Enthusiast]

50. The GOP's position is FALSE! nt

[patrice]

29. I mean, aren't you just PROOVING OP's point here by assuming that excellence cannot

be achieved except by external force/regulation?

wow.

[JoePhilly]

30. Nice way to say it .... when the right says the government can't ever work well ...

They don't actually mean that.

[patrice]

33. It's circular logic. Regulations proliferate in order to reduce legal exposure, so get rid of the

thing that protects you from that which is causing the need to reduce legal exposure.

It's treating symptoms as if they were causes in order to justify the cessation of treatment.

It's like saying "Because a particular shade of lipstick is ugly on a cancer patient, chemotherapy should stop. Turn the patient over to the disease and if s/he dies, that's better for all other such patients than trying to get the chemo right, because we'll learn the right shade of lipstick for them."

[Jack Rabbit]

46. "Let the people who hate our governemnt run it"

We just "honored" such a man on his 100th birthday. Pummel people with enough propaganda and a man who sent the national debt soaring, rolled back civil rights, ignored a public epidemic, slept through a national security scandal and had trouble keeping his appointees' hands out of the cookie jar can be seen as a great leader.

I will admit that I think more highly of Reagan now than in the past, but that's because we can now compare him to George W. Bush. Reagan was still a poor president.

[JoePhilly]

54. We (Fox News) just honored the Mythical Reagan, not the Actual Reagan.

[patrice]

15. Absolute fact + "Hire me at six figures a year + expenses, or at least high fives, but

certainly wayyyyyyyyyy more than a lot of people can hope for anymore.

[patrice]

17. An additional point about how "this job can never be done well . . ." is

if someone happens to be hired who does set about to do their own job well, Tea Party-types et al can & will get rid of them, because we have "at will" employment in this country, with NO respect for unions. FACT. Such types are terminated and replaced with anyone who will serve the Tea Party doctrine, too bad if that just oh-so-"accidentally" happens to cost a few 10s of thousand of people either their lives or their well-being.

[Blue_Tires]

41. where i live, it's

"local government exists only to do the business community's bidding and to incarcerate/execute as many nonwhites as possible..."

of course candidates dress up the language a bit during the campaign...

[Lorien]

42. Selfservatives (GOP/ Teabaggers) do one thing well: PROJECT

They're evil, greedy, selfish, hateful people, therefore they believe that everyone else is a greedy, selfish, and hateful person. They mistrust government because they know what THEY would do if given power.

[glinda]

6. Where is this? Yikes!

[Supersedeas]

8. Yeah, where is this....is there a link to the local newspaper?

[Raven]

32. I don't want to say and make things worse than they already are. But

you might find a brief account of this in the Keene Sentinel...Sunday. But stay tuned, it will be a bloodbath. Oh, and BTW, none of these eople will ever say in public what they have told me in private...they know how whacked it is.

[bluestate10]

7. I can imagine.

A wife desperately calling the emergency services for the town.

Wife: My husband is on the floor, looks like he is having a heart attack.

Dispatcher: How old is your husband?

Wife: 56

Dispatcher: Good luck. The phone-line: click, naahhhh.

As insane as the above sounds, that is what people in your town will be facing if this so called "community leader" gets his way. Call his ass out, become an activist. Go door to door explaining what is happening. Get on radio and local television. The man can either be stopped now through the democratic process, or the damage will be so severe once he is voted out that your town will cease to exist. Given what you know, the choice of what happens is yours.

[patrice]

10. The entire concept is to get people into positions of power everywhere so that they can then prevent

us from spending our pooled tax dollars how we decide we want/need to spend them, while WE pay them with those same tax dollars, or, if they're a private entity, with tax-break subsidization of their business costs.

[patrice]

11. P.S. I'm living where this is NOT a theoretical concept. I have experienced it directly and concrete

ly myself.

[Raven]

37. You hit the nail on the head...gut public works and then give me

the plowing contract. This is all about these people lining their pockets...in the name of some god.

[randr]

12. When the town faces the inevitable lawsuits ask him

if he is prepared to put the money where his mouth is.

[Vinca]

14. Wow - I knew your neck of the woods was a hotbed of Republicans,

but I had no idea the crazy teabaggers had taken hold. I'm actually a little worried about Chesterfield. I went to the town offices a couple of days ago and spotted that Thomas Paine "Liberty Tree" poem they're always parroting framed and hanging on the wall. Maybe we should pack up and move to Vermont.

[mrcheerful]

21. The only difference between a tea bagger and a repuke is the tea baggers say what they are

for while the repuke pretends to be for middle class while on the campaign trail then once in office screws the middle class who were dumb enough to believe what they said. That was how Reagan won and it is how every R won since Reagan, say they are for helping the middle class, then throw them under the bus to help their buddies who run corporations. The sad part is the middle class who vote R vote that way for one reason, to stop someone else they feel is under them from getting a share of the pie.

[patrice]

24. 1+ This and a certain tendency toward Populism are 2 reasons I think we should go after

Tea Partyers BIG time. Take them on, be rhetorically aggressive, REALLY proactive on the pragmatic issues. I'd be willing to bet that we'll get "converts".

[cali]

16. I am so glad I live on the other side of the river. condolences.

[Motown_Johnny]

18. You should already know that it is the lower income neighborhoods that won't get service

Why even ask?

[jsamuel]

25. They are what they hate.

[Generic Other]

27. A h the good old days when small towns held a lottery in June

to cull the herd...

:sarcasm:

[Sentath]

43. John Barleycorn

Must die?

[KamaAina]

31. (sigh) New Hampshire used to be such a model of old-fashioned Yankee values

this bunch seems to have taken the self-reliance thing to a terrifying reductio ad absurdum. :scared:

[Lasher]

40. Is there a travel agency that keeps track of these little Somalias?

Maybe AAA or somebody else? That way I could do my best to avoid these libertarian tourist traps where I might find street lights turned off, rest stops closed, and aggressive policemen who would charge me a fee for his 'services', above and beyond the tickets he hands out.

[Kablooie]

44. So his government will provide for young, rich, Christians only.

When teas run government they ensure that the government they run is bad and cannot be trusted.

[jpak]

47. Small town politics, small teabagger minds

When the first teabagger house burns, cuz the FD did not respond - they will change their tune.

yup

[Enthusiast]

49. Incredible! nt