These tea party people....

[Hassled]

Nutters? In this BBC blog, one woman says "This progressive agenda (Obama's economic policies) has progressed to the tipping point in the United States, where we either stand up for the constitution of the United States or we accept socialism, tainted with Marxism."

How can she interpret Obama's policies as socialism tainted with Marxism? Is it just down to lack of education? I really, genuinely, don't understand. I don't understand the fear they seem to have. And they're doing well - they've got the Delaware Senate nomination, NY, Nevada, Colorado, Florida, Kentucky and Alaska. Meanwhile they're being funded by billionaires who clearly have a vested interest keeping the focus on tax cuts for the rich.

I don't know what my point is really - I get that many people want smaller government, lower taxation, less govt spending etc, but that view is already well represented. I don't get this extremism.

You keep on insulting me and ascribing views to me which I don't hold, such as supporting the Saudi regime. So I can only surmise that you are starting to lose it and your anger is making you irrational.

Yes I want the UK to buy Saudi oil, but that doesn't mean I support what the Saudi regime does. I want us to buy oil to keep our economy moving, to keep our people employed and to pay for our health service and other services that we have. I don't believe in cutting off my nose to spite my face.

Claig's posts make perfect sense.
I don't agree with much of it, but saying they don't make sense is patronising.

Which is why so many are turning from the Labour party. They are sick of being patronised and ignored with a 'we know best' pat on the head.

But you have held the Saudis up as a really good place to buy oil from. Trading with a country, giving them money = supporting them.

Why not invest in alternative energy solutions and reduce the need to give money to corrupt, dangerous and unethical regimes, and spend it instead within our own economy, stimulating all sorts of sectors and providing lots of employment.

But they don't make sense.

How can trading with a country and giving them money possibly be interpreted as not supporting them?

How can looking after the human race be squared with polluting the environments of the poorest of them?

How can anyone think that it is better to drill for oil in a unique national park, than try to reduce dependence on oil in the first place?

"you have held the Saudis up as a really good place to buy oil from"

I don't recall saying that it is a "really good place" to buy oil from. It is the world's largest oil producer and I believe that the United Kingdom needs to keep on buying oil, so that is why we buy oil from them.

I don't believe that alternative energy sources (apart from nuclear power as advocated by James Lovelock) can replace oil for our economy. But I am in favour of scientists trying to find other energy sources and if they succeed, then all well and good.

Litchick Claig has said that I am deranged. Hardly superior debating technique

I have to go out now.

Claig when I pointed out that many countries with oil are unstable etc you held up Saudi as a shining beacon in the oil producing world. When I pointed out their regime is appalling you commenced furious back-pedalling.

Why don't you like nuclear power?

ISNT, to me it is not a case of "superior" debating technique. I am not trying to score points.

No it's a case of explaining why the poor of this country, and the wider world, should suffer in order to support the lifestyles of the "deserving" few. It's a case of explaining why beautiful unique landscapes should be ruptured in order to fuel an endless and ever increasing dependence on fossil fuels. It's explaining why people should turn their backs on compassion, and stop looking for ways to build a healthier environment for everyone.

It's a thoroughly uplifting story.

And before you say "I didn't say that"" - you support the conservative party and sarah palin, and approve of the tea party. All low taxation parties = little or no welfare state. There can be no misunderstanding where you stand on these matters.

Thanks for pointing out that teh Saudi regime is appalling. I didn't know that. I don't think that the Saudi regime is particularly unstable, in fact I think theat the West intentionally props up its leaders against the interests of the Saudi people.
I am not back-pedalling, I think teh Saudi regime is appalling, but I don't think it represents any threat to the stability and continuity of our oil supplies.

I am not convinced about nuclear power because of the health risks to people and to future generations. I care about the environment and human beings more than I care about the energy needs of this generation. I care about radioactive waste and the effect on marine life and human life. I sympathise with the Irish government and people who were worried about pollution in the Irish Sea and were worried that increases in childhood leukemia and lymphoma might have something to do with it.

ISNT, you obviously think you are "superior" to "repulsive" old me, who doesn't make any sense. You think you are full of "compassion" and that conservative voters aren't. But your "compassion" doesn't extend to courtesy.

It obviously makes you feel good to think that you are "compassionate" and that millions of other people - conservatives, Tea Partyers, Sarah Palin etc. - are all uncompassionate, heartless individuals.

As Litchick says, this is why people in their millions turned away from the Labour Party.
'They are sick of being patronised and ignored with a 'we know best' pat on the head.'

You see, people like me and Sarah Palin and David Cameron and millions of others support Tory policies because we care for the country and the people. We believe that they are the best policies for the country as a whole. We believe that the progressives have the wrong policies and have ideas that will eventually bankrupt and harm the country and its people. We believe in a better future, not in "building a progressive future". We have seen the progressive past and we don't want to go back there. Fortunately, the British people agree.

I think there's a fundamental difference in the understanding of the term "fair" between the USA and Western Europe.

"Fair" as claig describes it further up the thread and as expounded by the Tea Party is "If I earn it I should be able to keep it".

"Fair" As I, many others on this thread understand it and as practised in Western Europe is "If you earn more you should contribute more to the upkeep of those less fortunate than you"

While both understandings of the term are technically correct, they are fundamentally at odds with each other. The Tea Party version of the belief in fairness relies on those with more wealth to be philanthropic, the Western Europe understanding of the term requires them to be.

Without wanting to sound patronising, isn't sharing something we teach our toddlers to do? Perhaps this is why the Tea Party version of individualism is so abhorrent to so many in Europe.

It is about fairness. It is about elites and fatcats awarding themselves huge salaries out of the public purse. It is about a public body like the BBC paying many of its presenters over £1,000,000 a year and Jonathan Ross, who was paid in the region of £6,000,000 a year, while pensioners, who had paid all their lives, were going blind due to lack of medicines costing in the region of £10,000 a year. Is that fair?

Is it fair that people should die because of the postcode that they live in and the fact that this determines whether they can get life-saving drugs, while millions of taxpayers' money is wasted? Sir Philip Green has said that he will be able to save £20bn and not axe a single job, by reining in government waste. Is it fair that nanny state bureaucrats should have wasted taxpayers' money in that fashion?

We all want more spent on health and education, but we want the waste reined in, the fatcats cropped, the bloated bureaucrats reined in and the peoples' money spent wisely and in the interests of the public. There is a lot of talk about spongers, but little is said about the sponge of big government and how they soak up taxpayers' money and waste it.

We need effective management of public bodies and we need people like Sir Philip Green to review wasteful expenditure. The people count and it's only fair that the peoples' money counts.

We saw the cavalier way in which MPs spent the people's money on porn movies, bath plugs, home flipping and kitchen refits. That wasn't fair. We need accountability and transparency. We are all for sharing with the people, but not for sharing out huge portions to fatcats.

The Tea Party don't trust their fatcat elites, straight out of Harvard, followed by jobs at think tanks, to appreciate and spend wisely the money that they take in tax. That's why they have huge support, because millions agree with them, they think that they are Taxed Enough Already.

Well said, Slug.

Slug - I also think the Americans in general cleve far more to their ingherent freedoms than we do as a nation.

Even a very ordinary person with no real day to day interest in politics in the States seems to hold certain freedoms very dear.
They want to raise thier families, educate them etc as they see fit.
Even leftish leaning politicians don't seek to undermine a family's right ot self determination.

We are far more state centric here. For example, I have heard so many people ask if Home education is legal in the UK. As if this is something only the state should be allowed to do and they can't quite believe some parents are allowed to take a different course with their own families.

Whern Ed Balls began his attack on HEers, most of the country just shrugged. The fundemental right to educate your own child seemed of little interest to them.

Ah, but Litchick, you should read the American anti-vacc boards, where Americans have to fight with their schools as well as their paeds about not having to get their kids jabbed.

Or Yanks who have to fight to be allowed to hang their washing out (see Riven's thread).

I couldn't register for Uni classes in California until I got a measles jab.

And you try being a leading American politician who is also openly gay. The Land of the Free is not half as free as they think they are...

That is exactly why the Americans fight for freedom and the right to home educate and all the other things they fight for. They know that big government wants to jab their kids. If there was nothing wrong in America, then the Americans wouldn't fight and there would be no need for movements like the Tea party.

Oh I don't doubt it.
I just think that culturally, the Americans are more hard wired to question state interference, whereas we seem to expect, nay, demand it.

The attack on Home Education summed it up for me.

Slug gave two definitions of 'fair'

"If I earn it I should be able to keep it".

"If you earn more you should contribute more to the upkeep of those less fortunate than you"

Why is the debate so polarized? I find this in real life. Do I support the tories (well the coalition) in encouraging individual enterprise but shrinking the state massively with the problems that brings, or labour who want a huge welfare state that provides for all whilst removing individual self determination and the incentive to work hard? I wish there was a party that would claim the middle ground.

I'm with Litchick on wanting individual freedoms but I'm willing to pay my way in taxes, and I would absolutely hate to lose the NHS but I'd be happy to see some of the functions that the state provides less effectively be privatised. Sorry to go off on a tangent...

'I wish there was a party that would claim the middle ground.'

It sounds like you are 'for a fairer Britain'
and have had enough of 'playground politics'. I think you should look at the policies of the leader who promised 'four steps to a fairer Britain'.

He's honest as the day is long, fair as the moon is bright, he's Nick Clegg alright.

www.libdems.org.uk/news_detail.aspx?title=Four_steps_to_a_Fairer_Britain_says_Nick_Clegg&pPK=800fa58c-5bc9-45d3-8b58-32b93d5c2e96

LibDems used to represent the middle groung Claig, but TBH I'm not sure what they stand for any more.

Why do you think I think I am superior. I am nothing of the sort. I just don't want to see the welfare state smashed so that children suffer, and the NHS privatised at huge cost and slowly dismantled.

There's no going back from what is going to happen to the NHS, I think we need to say goodbye. I think we also need to say goodbye to the notion that children in the UK should have a minimum standard of living, and a whole raft of other things.

I find the whole thing so utterly depressing it makes me cry. All this triumphant gloating over the removal of benefits from the poorest in society, the calls to tax less and cut even further, move to an american system where many millions are without even basic healthcare provision.

Continue to support all sorts of regimes around the world who torture their citizens daily, so that we can profit.

There is no compassion in extreme right wing politics. It's a harsh regime of sink or swim, and no-ones going to offer you armbands. It's what we have coming in this country. I honestly believe that families will be on the streets and people will die because of what the government are doing, and I know that many of you will be filled with a sense of utter self-satisfaction when that happens.

I don't vote labour BTW I don't know why that has been asserted on here.

'I honestly believe that families will be on the streets and people will die because of what the government are doing, and I know that many of you will be filled with a sense of utter self-satisfaction when that happens.'

Are you talking about Iraq? Does your compassion extend there?

Anyone who thinks government supporters (who elected the Coalition into power) "will be filled with a sense of utter self-satisfaction" when "families are on the streets and people die due to government policies" has a very low opinion of people, and believes that these people have no compassion, and that compassion is a quality that only they themselves possess.

The government will not let that happen, they are good people. They have ringfenced health and they will support the vulnerable. they are not the inhuman, uncompassionate monsters that progressives like to portray them as. They gave the people their civil liberties back (which were taken away by the progressives) and they will sort out the financial crisis.