What the ^*@% is WRONG with you people?

Over the past coupla days I had the distinctly unpleasant experience of seeing news footage, still photos and reportage from the various & sundry "Tea Parties" around the nation. I read about the gripes of the "teabaggers", I listened to various people speak and looked at photos taken at these rallies (and yes, perhaps as one of my conservative friends said today, the progressive media got a little carried away with the teabagging jokes) but all I can think of to say - despite the fact that I seldom use this word, at least online is - What the fuck is wrong with you people?

I mean, do any of you know - yes, you, and Michael Steele and Rick Perry and Sean Hannity - even know what the original Boston Tea Party was all about? And I guarantee that prior to yesterday most people would have guessed that it was in 1776, not 1773. "Well, it was about, doh, uh, taxes, huh?" You are partially correct. As any third-grader knows, it was about "taxation without representation". Don't feel like you are represented? That's because your party lost, you moron!

Also, the Boston Tea Party was about way more than taxes, or even taxation without representation. It is indeed such a complicated affair that its impossible to explain adequately in a short blog post. Wikipedia has a pretty good article but even that's a synopsis. Try throwing into the mix Parliament trying to balance the budget, bail out the East India Company and discipline the colonies for previous infractions and you have an idea how politically complex this was. Anyway, that's only my first point. If you want to read more about it, please do. Its a fascinating story.

Which brings me to my next point. What is with you people and President Obama? The man hasn't even been President for a hundred days yet. What is it, eighty-some-odd days as of this writing? You are accusing him of creating this mess we are in? TARP, which a lot of people are angry about, and understandably so, was the brainchild of Bush and Paulson, not Obama & Geithner! Yes, Obama voted for it, but so did John McCain. Don't bother telling me he's not a real Conservative, I've heard it all before. Don't bother telling me that Ron Paul was against it, because you conservatives and Libertarians couldn't even muster enough votes to get him the nomination, let alone the presidency. Coulda woulda shoulda yada yada...

Now Obama has presented us with the Economic Stimulus Package and I can certainly understand your opposition to this thing even if I don't agree with you. But do I have to keep reminding you - like John Stewart does - that you guys lost? You are the minority party now and will be at least until January 2011, so calm down. Obama should have a chance to try things his way, and if it doesn't work, boot his ass back to Chicago in 2012. In the meantime, need I remind you that FDR did the same thing in the 30's? It was called The New Deal. Spare me the story about how the New Deal didn't get us out of the Depression, that WWII got us out of the Great Depression. After all, World War II was a massive federal spending project, as any economist would be happy to tell you. And speaking of economists, are you even dimly aware of the fact that most economists support a stimulus package? The complaint that some of them like Paul Krugman have is that its not big enough!

That brings me to taxes. Taxed Enough Already, you say? Are you aware that we have one of the lowest taxes rates in the developed world? All President Obama wants to do is go back to the tax rates we had during the Clinton Administration. And we all know how the economy sucked back then, huh? It sucked so bad that we actually had budget surpluses. Where did they go, I wonder? Did Obama do that? Couldn't have. He wasn't President for the past eight years.

And if you Conservatives are so brilliant, why didn't you fix this country during the six years when you were holding all the cards, instead of trashing the economy, as well as our civil liberties (the subject of my next post)?

Coming soon!

Hey, friends, neighbors, country-men! I am going to start blogging here occasionally. Why? Because I am just fed up with the amount of disinformation (read: lies) that is being disseminated via talk radio, cable TV email & the internet.

I may not have a Ph.D. in economics and I may not be a talk-show host (read: cross-trained sportscaster or dj) but I know my history and I'm pretty good at pulling the signal out of the background noise. And what I don't know, I know how to find out.

So tune in for my rants. There may be one coming later today, as this whole tea party movement has got me in a surly mood