News that makes us laugh, cry, or both

[angelfromanotherpin]

The "movement" is called the "Tea Party" movement.

After the Boston Tea Party.

The original Tea Party was to protest taxation without representation. The US currently has taxation with representation. Thus, using tea is an inappropriate action that accomplishes nothing except pointing out which people are not clever enough to research what they are protesting about.

I also find it amusing that the original Tea Party is known as the Boston Tea Party, but no-one in the modern Tea Party movement calls their supposed predecessor event by that name. Ever.

They were given the name "TeaBaggers" by thier political/idealogical enemies on the Left.

When you go around talking about how you are going to 'tea bag' people, you don't get to complain when people call you 'teabaggers.' That's just how English works; people who swim are swimmers, people who run are runners, people who tea bag are teabaggers.

After the war was over it became apparant pretty quickly that while Americans didn't like Taxation Without Representation, it was mainly the fact that we just don't like Taxation period.

What do you mean 'we,' white man? I like taxation just fine.

But perhaps more tellingly, when the Tea Party protests were at their height, the Bush budget was still in effect. Obama's budget included significant tax relief, and taxes are still as low as they've ever been in 50 years. So... what are they protesting again?

[Clutch9800]

What do you mean 'we,' white man? I like taxation just fine.

I was speaking more to events that occured directly after the revolution. Shays' Rebellion, the Whisky Insurrection, and various other armed protests against Hamiltonian measures to bring in revenue for the federal government.

Even the establishment of the Revenue Cutter Service wasn't without its detractors.

The US currently has taxation with representation...(SNIP)...So... what are they protesting again?

I'm not a member of the Tea Party, but from what I gather they are saying that since thier elected representatives don't seem to listen to the majority of thier constituents, we have a current situation that is akin to taxation without representation. Now, the easy solution to this situation is to get off your dead ass and vote, and that's what they're doing.

If that, or thier protests upset some people, then so be it.

I swore an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States of America, not its politicians.

The Constitution holds that the right of the people to peaceably assemble and petition the Government for a redress of grievances cannot be outlawed.

I, for one, like it that way.

Clutch

[Gelare]

The original Tea Party was to protest taxation without representation. The US currently has taxation with representation. Thus, using tea is an inappropriate action that accomplishes nothing except pointing out which people are not clever enough to research what they are protesting about.

That's a significant overstatement. The case could certainly (easily) be made that the "representatives" who decide on the taxation are so far removed from the constituents who pay those taxes that the representation you're talking about is only nominal.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

The original Tea Party wasn't about taxation at all actually. The East India Tea Company was selling tea to the colonies for cheaper than the smugglers could sneak it in. Not only that, East India Tea was legal. Even with the taxes, it was cheaper to buy legit tea than it was to smuggle it in.

The Smugglers got together and pitched the tea in the harbor to destroy the competition. You know, rather than let the market do its thing or make less profits because someone had a superior product for less money.

So yes, it's the perfect analogy for the modern tea party: Destroy anything that's cheaper for the masses so the bastards who are growing fat on our society can continue doing so.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Huh, I always heard it was because the British East India Company was exempted from the tea tariff, thus allowing it to undercut every other merchant who had to pay it.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

They weren't exempted, they were given a reduce rate. On a tax that no one paid anyway because Britian literally was not able to enforce. the British made little to no effort to actually collect taxes because Americans threw fits over them. Also, the Tea Act repealed all other colonial taxes.

So yeah, the British repealed all taxes except one, and cut the rate of the one that was left, and a bunch of smugglers decided to destroy it because it was hurting their own personal interests.

[Cynic]

I actually received a warning SMS from the government, saying "Remember to stay cool, drink lots and check on vulnerable neighbours", .

Obviously when people in Dallas decide to drink for the heat, bad General Lee imitations take place.

[Crissa]

Little to no effort. Until they sent troops over who squatted in people's homes. Hence the fourth amendment' first segment, and our posse comitatus act later on.

Anyhow, it's a bit difficult to search for just how tea baggers got their name - as they're quite loud and love to change reality - and how their terrorists get less air play than others because media like Newsweek here play with them with kid gloves. Why? Because whatever the GOP whines about is news, period. It's why they have their own news network.

-Crissa

[Crissa]

Senator from Texas, Chairman of Senate Reoublicans[/url]]The fact of the matter was that in 2008, the last year President Bush was in office, the deficit was 3.2 percent of the gross domestic product. Now it's about 10 percent. So it has more than tripled with $2.3 trillion of additional debt.

Look, 2009 was the last budget. You don't pass a budget after the year is over. Second, the GDP hasn't exactly kept up with costs. Third, $1.3 trillion times three isn't $2.3 trillion. Lastly, the expected deficit this year is around $1.5 trillion, not 2.3.

He's the junior senator from Texas, but you'd think he'd have figured this stuff out in the eight years he's been in his seat (he's been re-elected once).

-Crissa

[Psychic Robot]

The media has a conservative bias, am I right?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Tea_Party

[Koumei]

The media has a conservative bias, am I right

If you didn't already know that, then you're actually more fucking stupid than I previously thought, setting a new record and meaning my dog is smarter than you. And the shit he produces when resting his paws on a keyboard includes "dsfsfsfsfsfsfsf" and 4th Edition D&D.

Also, there are some who believe the BP oil spill was intentional: America dumps tea into the ocean to spite the British, Britain now dumps oil in American water. YOUR MOVE, AMERICA.

[Psychic Robot]

If you didn't already know that, then you're actually more fucking stupid than I previously thought

This proves that liberals have a very tenuous connection to reality.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Also, there are some who believe the BP oil spill was intentional: America dumps tea into the ocean to spite the British, Britain now dumps oil in American water. YOUR MOVE, AMERICA.

Britain didn't dress up as Islamic terrorists first; your argument is invalid.

[Username17]

If you want to see whether the media has a conservative bias or, get on TV spouting a completely insane conservative plan with no history of success while a control suggests a moderate liberal plan with a proven successful track record.

Suggestion:

• Conservative Plan: Eliminate all forms of progressive and even proportional taxation. Replace all taxation with a pole tax. Everyone pays the same literal amount, those who can't afford or won't pay go to jail.
• Liberal Plan: Nationalize all the oil resources in the nation. Pay each of the present well owners the value they claim the properties are worth in their own tax documentation, then sell the fossil fuels in-country for a profitable but below-market rate.

The first plan would cause society to grind to a halt and start a civil war. The second would anger some oil companies but has a proven track record from Norway to Saudi Arabia. But seriously, go ahead and try presenting those two views on American TV. You know what would happen.

And thus, you know that the media has a starkly conservative bias. Complete right wing wingnuttery is treated as serious business, but even a slight leftist restructuring plan would get cut off and lambasted before even explaining the whole idea.

-Username17

[Clutch9800]

Conservative Plan: Eliminate all forms of progressive and even proportional taxation. Replace all taxation with a pole tax. Everyone pays the same literal amount, those who can't afford or won't pay go to jail.

Is there a difference between a "Pole" tax and a "Poll" tax?

What about the "Fair Tax"? Eliminate Income and corporate taxes and put a 15% VAT on all purchases. That wouldn't be a "literal" same amount, that would scale nicely based on buying power.

Smuggling would go through the roof, but that's just job security for me.

Clutch

[Username17]

Sales Taxes or VATs are regressive. They don't cover capital gains, travel abroad, investment, property, services, and many other things that rich people spend their money on to a much larger extent than poor people. A VAT of 15% pretty much takes 15% of the income of someone making $5000, but it doesn't even scratch the surface of the expenditures of someone like Bill Gates, for whom the bulk of his income is saved or spent on things the VAT does not cover.

Secondly, VATs act as a defacto subsidy on crime. Anyone who sells under the table without reporting it has an instant savings they can offer equal to the VAT - even with the same take-home on their part. So criminal black markets become more profitable and more attractive to the consumer on the street.

Thirdly, a 15% VAT is a fucking joke. The tax revenues of real countries are way higher than that as a percentage of GDP. Everywhere. Let's consider the lowest tax burden in Europe: Romania. It's basically a Mad Max style hellscape where the government doesn't bother showing up every day and they actually filmed big parts of Borat there because they could find places that operated on the sort of vaunted libertarian "'l'll trade you a goat for some shoes" economy that you get when things aren't bureaucratized. They have a tax haul of about 28% of GDP - even lower than the United States. A 15% VAT wouldn't cover... anything. The US tax burden is thirty-something percent (sorry: he exact number is muddied by our complicated tax structure and people spouting crazy nonsense about it all the time). So how much of GDP do you think would be subject to VAT? Certainly less than 220% of it, because more than 100% isn't even possible. All told, I'm not sure you could raise the required revenue off of a 50-60% VAT - especially once you consider how much shopping is going to be directed overseas or to black markets once the counter price of anything bought legally at a store has a half-again markup (or more) vs. any other kind of purchase.

The "Fair Tax" plan is a classic example of something that should be met by news commentators with laughter so hard that they fall out of their seats. We'd be creating overnight criminal empires who deal in black market Transformers models. We'd be completely paralyzing commerce while enacting the biggest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in living memory. It would be an unmitigated disaster. Seriously, unmitigated.

But the point is that this is treated as a sensible possible option in the media in order to prop up less egregious plans of simply making the tax code less progressive. The media is so conservative in the US that actual trolling from the right is treated as genuine constructive commentary.

-Username17

[Clutch9800]

The media is so conservative in the US that actual trolling from the right is treated as genuine constructive commentary.

They are fiscally conservative, because they're all owned by Mega-Corps, but they aren't all socially conservative.

I do however agree that the News Media in this country leaves a lot to be desired. Most of what they report on is off the hook sensationalized, or just pure fluff.

The bottom line is that for the most part they just play one segment of society off against the other, sit back and watch the hijinks ensue, and then "cover" the hijinks. P.T. Barnum would be proud.

When I watch "The News Hour" on PBS, I get a glimpse of what the news used to be like.

I can remember being little and watching actual combat from Vietnam on the CBS Evening News. I mean actual combat where the reporter was actually there and filming the combat, with a hail of burning hot lead zipping and popping around.

We (for some reason) don't see that from the dusty streets of Abdul Jabbar these days. What we get is promos like "Are deadly rattlesnakes living in your mattress? Find out on the news at 10!"

I for one don't like deadly rattlesnakes that much, so if they're living in my mattress I'd like to know, like, fucking now, not at fucking 10 o'clock.

Clutch

P.S. I don't think too many people in even todays media give the "Fair Tax" much credence. I wasn't trolling, I just wanted to know what your thoughts were on it.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Rattlesnakes are dangerous, but not normally deadly. They are even nice enough to let you know that you're in their area and that they're cranky, which is something I wish more people did.

There's another problem with the "Fair Tax". I didn't make enough money to pay taxes at all to the federal government. If they threw an additional 15% tax on top of all purchases, that would be very problematic for me (The Internet is the only real non-essential expense I have, the rest goes into essentials). The "Fair Tax" would lower my standard of living below the threshold where crime would start to become a superior idea.

[MGuy]

After a discussion with a friend of mine I'm not even sure how our current tax system works. The way it was put to me this weekend while I was offline was some bit about there being some legal snafu that allows people to not have to pay taxes in America.

[Username17]

After a discussion with a friend of mine I'm not even sure how our current tax system works. The way it was put to me this weekend while I was offline was some bit about there being some legal snafu that allows people to not have to pay taxes in America.

Holy shit, you know one of the UTAPers? What a strange world we live in.

The Tax Protester arguments are, to say the very least, comical. It's shit like "Ohio isn't really a state, because people put an extra comma in a document back in the 19th century." But you don't have to take my word for it. Take the US 5th Circuit Court's position on the tax protesters' "legal loopholes:"

We perceive no need to refute these arguments with somber reasoning and copious citation of precedent; to do so might suggest that these arguments have some colorable merit. The constitutionality of our income tax system—including the role played within that system by the Internal Revenue Service and the Tax Court—has long been established... [Petitioner's argument] is a hodgepodge of unsupported assertions, irrelevant platitudes, and legalistic gibberish.

You should film your friend in the wild. It's not a common loon - it's the much rarer self serving conspiracy theorizing loon.

-Username17

[Gelare]

After a discussion with a friend of mine I'm not even sure how our current tax system works. The way it was put to me this weekend while I was offline was some bit about there being some legal snafu that allows people to not have to pay taxes in America.

I can't find a precise figure on how large the U.S. Tax Code is, but the estimates I've come across are between ten thousand and a hundred thousand pages long, so don't feel bad; nobody knows how our current tax system works, not even the people who wrote it.

[Maxus]

The other week, Rachel Maddow was claiming that a couple of oil companies got so many tax breaks that they actually didn't pay any taxes. But still applied for a rebate, and got it.

Take that with how many grains of salt you want.

[Orion]

Here's the only context you need to understand about Psychic Robot:

I am glad I read one of his posts in this thread though purely for the amused bafflement his sig gave me. Doesn't P_R seem likely to be masturbating to Atlas Shrugged? Does he collect insults like trophies?

Actually, I once knew a perfectly charming girl who *literally* masturbated to Atlas Shrugged. She was a lot more fun than any of our resident teabaggers.

[Username17]

Here's the only context you need to understand about Psychic Robot:

I am glad I read one of his posts in this thread though purely for the amused bafflement his sig gave me. Doesn't P_R seem likely to be masturbating to Atlas Shrugged? Does he collect insults like trophies?

Actually, I once knew a perfectly charming girl who *literally* masturbated to Atlas Shrugged. She was a lot more fun than any of our resident teabaggers.

That sounds like the beginning of an installment of I fucked Anne Coulter in the ass, hard. (contains profanity)

-Username17

[violence in the media]

Oddly enough, I was thinking of that exact same thing.