Taxes and Teabaggers

The Tea Party enthusiasts held various protests on April 15^th in order to protest the high taxes they were paying. Many different stations on television showed the different protests with various signs being displayed and several choice speakers attempting to rile up the crowd with misleading and often dishonest rhetoric in their attempt to obfuscate the issues and convince the crowd that the facts are not the truth.

To even consider that any American would believe any of it is just plain sad and it makes the rest of us look as pathetic as some of the rhetoric and falsehoods being spouted by the supposed responsible elected officials that take joy in stirring up the crowds.

The most pathetic issue of the teabaggers this past tax day is the fact that most, if not all, of them are paying less in taxes than they have in decades...perhaps their entire adult working life. Federal income tax rates are under five percent for most of America. It almost seems as if these people want to pay absolutely no taxes at all, which means they do not want the benefit of first responders, policemen, etc. because our tax dollars are responsible for paying the salaries of the police, first responders and such. Where were these same protesters when Bush tax cuts handed charity to the wealthy and emptied America's coffers of the badly needed revenue that we relied on to pay the country's bills with?

For accurate facts concerning taxes instead of the tea party's fabricated numbers you can find all the information you need at the website of the Tax Policy Center.

I would also be remiss if I did not mention that polling done during these various protests showed that most of the protesters do not want their Social Security or Medicare to be taken from them, yet they do not want the Democrat administration to pay for entitlements and accuse them of socialism. It is an oxy-moron to continue Social Security and Medicare if you want to completely banish social programs. America has had a certain amount of socialism since the Great Depression because there were no programs in place when the capitalism of America created enough chaos that our country suffered unemployment of over 50 percent. During this latest recession, unemployment was nothing close to the Great Depression and socialistic programs kept many Americans from starving to death. We were lucky...we avoided another depression...but capitalism and the greed that comes with it demands that we implement a certain amount of socialism to insure the health and well being of America's citizens. Like it or not, we need a bit of socialism in our country and it is not going to go away.

I saw one protester's sign that particularly irritated me because it referenced the death panel idea that Sarah Palin started in 2009. When is the lunatic right wing going to stop with the rhetoric that the health care legislation is going to start killing Grandma? Is it truly possible that Americans can be that idiotic? It has been proven to be a lie specifically designed to mislead gullible and partisan people and even condemned by anyone and everyone with any sense at all.

One protester's sign stated "We The People Watch Fox News". I will not attempt to categorize what kind of people watch Fox News but I do not know any responsible people who watch it.. Most intelligent people I know would rather hear facts about any given event and then research it more in order to have all the facts. Fox normally does not give any fact without putting Rupert Murdoch's personal spin (viewpoint) on it, political stories are the worst. Most of us watch the news to hear the news, not to have a partisan opinion attached to it before having that opinion shoved in our face.

The best example supporting the idea that Fox News has a habit of misleading the public would be the run up to the Iraq war. A study by worldpublicopinion.org listed several different news outlets and the percentage of misperceptions that viewers gained from their choice of network news. Fox had the highest rate of viewer misperceptions concerning inaccurate reasons to support the invasion of Iraq. The report showed Fox viewers as having the highest rate of 80%. Misperceptions were also listed from other major news source, including print news.

Many Americans, including myself, stopped watching the Fox Network because of this very reason. I recently was channel surfing and stopped for a couple of minutes on a show with Mr. Hannity on it. It is quite pathetic that a public figure would spout off that Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats spend most of their money on "booze" without offering any proof to such attacks. He seems more of a gossip reporter than a news anchor and it is absolutely pathetic that he will ignore true issues to slander any individual with a D in front of their title. I am not a Pelosi fan but I also have not participated in a grade school equivalent of a playground name calling confrontation in over 40 years, unlike Mr. Hannity. Behavior like that should be beneath all of us. Now that Sarah Palin has publicly made it clear that guns and religion are a big part of her forte`, Fox is only losing more credibility. Intelligent people who enjoy thinking for themselves do not waste their time watching Fox.

Michelle Bachman claimed that the Obama administration is a "gangster government" and is determined to own America while spouting GOP rhetoric against legislative efforts to regulate big banks and Wall Street. Current legislation being formed in no way guarantees future bailouts but the GOP talking points want the unregulated financial dealings to continue as is. If they continue "as is", we take the risk of the same type of fallout as we did in 2008 when the market crashed and if we allow the "too big to fail" banks to actually fail it will create chaos not only in the U.S. but across the world markets. The GOP may want to rethink their strategy because they look like they want the big banks and Wall Street to be allowed to do as they please and risk the savings and livelihood of all Americans. That would not be taking care of their constituents...it would be siding with Wall Street against the people who voted for them.

Idiotic rhetoric that a "communist lives in the Whitehouse" or that half of all Americans do not pay taxes only serve to make tea baggers look and sound as if they have not been taking their meds Claiming that Obama's parents "abandoned" him is proof that he is a communist is beyond the realms of off the wall and just plain rude to say the least. It is beyond reason that the fringe will make up asinine rhetoric to attack someone on a personal level in an effort to hide true intent. Most Americans see this for what it is...anger over the fact that Obama is African American/biracial and the bigots in the U.S. are not willing to accept it.

Not all tea baggers are racist for sure but a good percentage of them most likely could be as demonstrated by recent polling among the groups that showed up for the protests. Many of the tea baggers have never been involved in politics before and many have never even voted. Most of those polled at the tea bagger protest seem to get all or most of their information from the Fox News Channel. As mentioned before, Rupert Murdoch has not made any attempt to base his business on actual news but has inserted partisan opinion in just about every aspect of Fox news programming. Divisive and extremely partisan hosts fill Fox timeslots and it is very unlikely that a person would have a chance to decide for themselves how to feel about the issues when people like Hannity. Beck and Palin purposely mislead, denigrate and even lie about the opposition if they believe it will stir up enough anger against Democrats. Many of the tea baggers that were polled believe that it is acceptable to commit violent acts against the government which should make any reasonable person reconsider associating with tea party activities.

Most Americans are not happy with the state of our country but that does not give us special entitlement or justification to commit violence and/or threaten elected officials. We have the right to peacefully protest but even though we have the right of free speech does that give us the right to demean, lie and/or personally attack and/or threaten other people?

So much for setting a good example for our children and grandchildren...

The legacy of those brave service members who fight, bleed and die to protect our rights have made the ultimate sacrifice for so many who have made a mockery of their efforts.