The PRECEDENT and Congress are committing treason

[Burlyman]

...with their 'super-committee.' Please tell me I'm not the only one who sees this. >_<

[Ferno]

a precedent is a person now?

[Burlyman]

Exactly. Because the Precedent sets the precedent. Now stay on topic.

[BlueFlames]

The President and Congress are committing treason with their 'super-committee.' Please tell me I'm not the only one who sees this. >_<

Based on what I've read, Congress authorized the creation of a committee to make deficit-reduction recommendations. The bill authorizing the creation of this committee specified that if the recommendations pass Congress (via an accelerated process designed to short-circuit the ammendment process), then the debt ceiling will be raised, with further debt ceiling increases being possible if other, longer-term goals are reached, up to and including a Constitutional ammendment requiring a balanced budget. Should the committee's recommendations fail to pass in Congress (or if they are vetoed by the President, I believe), then a sweeping set of spending cuts, pre-authorized by the bill authorizing the formation of the super-committee, will go into effect, and instead of a phased increase of the debt ceiling, only a one-time increase of the debt ceiling will be authorized, smaller than the cumulative increase authorized, should the super-committee's recommendations pass and all of the long-term goals be achieved.

You'll have to elaborate on how this is apparently so treasonous. It's not uncommon for members of Congress to splinter off to work with the President and return with legislative recommendations regarding contentious issues. This is just the first time that the process has been formalized and a set of consequences pre-authorized in the event of the committee failing to reach its objective. The super-committee has no legislative authority, as it is ultimately the full Congress that has to accept or reject its recommendations, and Congress has already approved the consequence that they face, should they reject the super-committee's recommendations. Nitpicking the details, it's unusual for a bill to skip the Congressional committee process and get sent straight to the floor for an up-or-down vote, but there is an established process in both the House and Senate to do so, in the case of bills that urgently need a vote.

Odd? Slightly. Treasonous? Hardly.

[Sergeant Thorne]

Congress has already approved the consequence that they face, should they reject the super-committee's recommendations.

I don't fully understand it, but this part seems out of place to me. It seems to me that congress should only be voting and deciding on issues and consequences that take effect one way or the other directly. I could be wrong, but it strikes me that putting themselves under certain obligations by default should future votes go a certain way is something that should only be done by means of a constitutional amendment. Setting restrictions on congressional activities, it seems to me, is beyond the scope of a congressional vote.

[Burlyman]

Thorne is right. Slightly odd? Are you serious? The people elected the Congress so that it can create proper legislation, not so it can change the way it operates. It's just the next step down a steep, slippery slope of unconstitutional legislation.

[flip]

It's thuggish legislation. Who's to know what this "super-12" group will even recommend. It's worded to sound as if this "Super-12" should have final say and if the majority of Congress disagrees with them, there will be reprisals. Neo is right. The creation of these committees is the first step needed to eventually circumvent majority rule even in the Congress. It's tantamount to the same methods the Oligarchs used to usurp political power in this country. Sign this or else

[null0010]

...Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings...

Unfortunately, as far as I can figure, this "super Congress" is completely legal and constitutional. It's little more than a committee. :-/

[flip]

I'd be happy to have a democratic senate, republican house and independent president. Too much at stake not to at least let them fuckers argue it out real good. Maybe some of their arguments will spill out into the public arena.

[Will Robinson]

There is no difference than when they pass a bill that the says a tax or budget is linked to a moving target like saying social security benefits are to be linked to an index 'cost of living plus 3%' or something like that.

In this case they have simply agreed to the cuts across the board to be a certain number if x,y and z don't occur.

What sucks is letting the date go beyond the election purely for political purposes. If the health of our republic was the priority someone would pass a law saying all these kinds of budget and tax issues MUST be brought up and dealt with within a window of 3 months prior to the next election! Every election!! They need to be made to own their culpability not hide it. Obama's nose should grow a foot every time he looks into the camera and scolds all who came before him with his "Now is not the time to kick the can further down the road..." bull★■◆●.
His ONLY stipulation in the debt ceiling debate, his only 'contribution' to the process was to demand the next round of this debate was pushed down the road past his re-election bid!
Where is the media on that one?

[woodchip]

And the Dow Jones continues it's slide down. While Joe "Flip Lip" Biden is calling anyone who aligns themselves with the tea party as "terrorist" the real terrorist was Harry "Spanky" Reid as demonstrated when Spanky tabled the Cut, Cap and Balance bill passed by the House. I suspect if CC&B was passed we would be seeing the stock market heading upwards.

[flip]

No, what happened was an interim deal to tide over till the next election in hopes that there is a different president to deal with. They all suck.

[CUDA]

They all suck.

FACT

[BlueFlames]

Congress has already approved the consequence that they face, should they reject the super-committee's recommendations.

I don't fully understand it, but this part seems out of place to me. It seems to me that congress should only be voting and deciding on issues and consequences that take effect one way or the other directly. I could be wrong, but it strikes me that putting themselves under certain obligations by default should future votes go a certain way is something that should only be done by means of a constitutional amendment.

There is nothing stating that the content of a bill, once passed, has to take the effect of law immediately. In this case, the authorization of the super-committee took effect immediately, and the across-the-board cuts are waiting for the aforementioned conditions to be fulfilled. Having just reread Article I of the Constitution, there is nothing restricting Congress from writing legislation that takes effect, based on the outcome of a future Congressional vote.

Setting restrictions on congressional activities, it seems to me, is beyond the scope of a congressional vote.

This legislation doesn't set restrictions on Congressional activities, though. All it does is wait for the outcome of a future vote, before taking effect. Congress is still free to approve or reject the recommendations of the super-committee. Neither the body, nor its members will face prosecution or impeachment for voting one way or the other. They just have a Plan B built into the super-committee authorization, in case the Plan A that the super-committee comes up with turns out to be rubbish.

Thorne is right. Slightly odd? Are you serious? The people elected the Congress so that it can create proper legislation, not so it can change the way it operates.

The Congress shall have Power To ... [item 14 in a lengthy list] make Rules for the Government.

Yes, Congress does explicitly have the power to define how it operates. Since 1789, the House Committee on Rules has, on a biannual basis, defined and modified the legislative process on Capitol Hill. Not that this really has any relevance, since, as I've already stated, Congress hasn't modified how it operates. The body still has the power to approve or reject the recommendations of the super-committee, and it was Congress that approved the sweeping cuts to follow, should they reject the recommendations. To look at it another way, you can just as easily say that Congress is going to make a deep, across-the-board spending cut, unless the super-committee comes up with an acceptable alternative.

Again, it is quite common, with contentious issues, for a select group from Congress to splinter off and work with the President to arrive at a compromise for the full Congress to approve. Why is it "treason" for the process to be formalized?

[flip]

Plus all I heard out of this whole debate was where to get the money. The word Entitlement Programs pisses me off because it completely misrepresents where that money comes from. As posted earlier, there is a myriad of places that could be trimmed but instead the debate is whether little old crooked back ladies should have the money they paid in all their life reduced even more or to make the top earners in this country pay more from their profits. I'd be happy if that came just in the form of much higher wages. Well, OUR money got dug into again. Who won? Sure as hell wasn't me.
There is a limited amount of money in existence. Through nefarious means a great portion of that was destroyed and then more was made to replace it. The replacement money went directly into the hands of the ones who destroyed the other. Considering the system we live under, no longer a free republic under majority rule, but one controlled almost exclusively by commerce, the limited amount of money in existence should be proportionately distributed throughout the world.

[CUDA]

well unfortunately the "Plan B" is not a sure thing either. just because the super committee either doesn't come up with a plan OR the plan is rejected is no Guarantee that the mandated cuts will take effect. for those cuts to happen, you need to have one of the Washington Bureaucrats recommend that the cuts take place, so again we have the Fox guarding the Hen-house.

[BlueFlames]

well unfortunately the "Plan B" is not a sure thing either. just because the super committee either doesn't come up with a plan OR the plan is rejected is no Guarantee that the mandated cuts will take effect. for those cuts to happen, you need to have one of the Washington Bureaucrats recommend that the cuts take place, so again we have the Fox guarding the Hen-house.

I was never defending the strength of the legislation, just its Constitutionality.

[flip]

It's the idea and intent that matters when it comes to legislation, not the letter of it.

[BlueFlames]

It's the idea and intent that matters when it comes to legislation, not the letter of it.

Every lawyer I know would disagree.

[flip]

I would disagree in this particular case, but if you don't mind funding long walks in the park and caviar lunches then why should I?

[Ferno]

Exactly. Because the Precedent sets the precedent. Now stay on topic.

Learn how to spell "president" properly and maybe I will.

[BlueFlames]

I would disagree in this particular case, but if you don't mind funding long walks in the park and caviar lunches then why should I?

So are we grinding gears into a discussion about Congressional compensation now, or does this somehow relate to the Constitutionality of Congress forming a committee? Or are you still ranting about this:

Plus all I heard out of this whole debate was where to get the money. The word Entitlement Programs pisses me off because it completely misrepresents where that money comes from. As posted earlier, there is a myriad of places that could be trimmed but instead the debate is whether little old crooked back ladies should have the money they paid in all their life reduced even more or to make the top earners in this country pay more from their profits. I'd be happy if that came just in the form of much higher wages. Well, OUR money got dug into again. Who won? Sure as hell wasn't me.

There is a limited amount of money in existence. Through nefarious means a great portion of that was destroyed and then more was made to replace it. The replacement money went directly into the hands of the ones who destroyed the other. Considering the system we live under, no longer a free republic under majority rule, but one controlled almost exclusively by commerce, the limited amount of money in existence should be proportionately distributed throughout the world.

You offer a lot of passion and rhetoric about the side of the budget debate you don't like, and to an extent, that's fair enough. You have an opinion and every right to voice it. There is a two-fold problem with how you have chosen to voice your opinion, though: While you identify where funds should not be secured for deficit reduction, you don't propose from where they should be gathered instead, and when the majority of Congress, either by principle or compromise, fails to represent your opinion, you assume that they are not representing anybody's opinion and must therefore be up to something nefarious (your word).

The fact of the matter is this: Congress is designed to attract career politicians, and most of the time, this is a good thing. Somebody who has to worry about getting himself reelected every two to six years has to worry about keeping the majority of his constituents happy. If you impose a term limit, you nurture an environment, wherein representatives in their final term have little to no incentive to pay any attention to their constituents, because pleasing their constituency no longer has an effect on the length of the representatives' careers. (As an example, see the January 20, 2001 Clinton Pardons.)

The trouble is that what is popular is not always necessary or correct. With regards to the deficit, people tend to desire robust government services, but not the accompanying taxes to fund those services. I think we all know what it means to pay for something without actually paying for it, and I think we also know that doing that for several decades, unabated, is not the most intelligent course of action. But people want subsidized healthcare and well-maintained interstate highways and a 286-ship navy and an F-22 within five minutes flight time of their town and as low a tax rate as they can convince Congress to give them.

Now that elected leaders have been given little choice but to reduce spending and raise taxes, we run into another problem of representative government. It's not a nefarious scheme to undermine the Constitution. It's not a conspiracy to transfer legislative authority to the President or an oligarchy or a corporation or whatever the theory du jour is. It's the simple fact that not all constituencies are the same. The citizens of Providence, RI have a much different view of our country's problems and the solutions to those problems than the citizens of Knoxville, TN. As a result, it's very difficult for David Cicilline and Jimmy Duncan to see eye-to-eye on much of anything, especially as related to the budget. If Cicilline accepts an unmodified budget submitted by Duncan, he will likely be voted out. Likewise, if Duncan accepts an unmodified budget submitted by Cicilline, he'll be given the boot just as quickly. If they come together for a compromise solution, they'll find that their districts are just extreme enough that they will both lose their seats in Congress for being too moderate for their constituents. The incentive for each of these men is therefore to reject all proposals, except those that are too extreme for the other to support.

That's two members of Congress. When you raise that number to 435 to encompass the whole House of Representatives, you wind up with 435 budget proposals, all of them too extreme or too moderate or too conservative or too progressive to pass. The spending cuts are too deep. The spending cuts aren't deep enough. The tax structure is too progressive. The tax structure is too regressive. Defense spending is off limits. Education subsidies are off limits. Social Security is off limits. Tax increases are off limits. A value-added tax would destroy jobs. Curtailing stimulus would destroy jobs. Everybody, not just the 435 people in the room, but the 460,000 people that each of them individually represent, has something that they want left untouched by an austerity plan, so nothing is acceptable to a majority.

This is where the super-committee comes in. Instead of having a hundred people in the Senate bickering so loud that nobody can hear, or 435 people in the House taking turns lobbing thinly-veiled insults at one another, you have twelve Congressmen and the President in a position where everything may be put on the table, and an alternative is staring them in the face, the whole time they work. They have to come up with a budget acceptable enough to pass a majority vote in Congress, or everything gets cut. Congress is then left with the simpler choice of accepting the budget proposed by the super-committee or accepting the pre-authorized, across-the-board budget cuts.

The super-committee doesn't exist to undermine the authority of Congress. It is there to accelerate the decision making process for an issue that urgently needs action to be taken. Could the need for the super-committee have been prevented? Certainly. At any point from the Truman administration forward, we could have changed our budget policy in any one of a million different ways and had 55 years of growing surplus instead of deficit. A little bit of austerity in the 1950's or the 1960's or the 1970's or the 1980's or the 1990's or the 2000's, be it in the form of lower spending or higher taxes, would have saved us this debate, and we'd probably still be grumbling about whether the healthcare bill did too much or too little. The fact of the matter is, though, that the issue was allowed to reach a boiling point, and now a solution needs to be found within a narrower timeframe than the full Congress can reasonably work.

[flip]

I stand by my statement. Thuggish.

[BlueFlames]

I stand by my statement. Thuggish.

Sure. The next time I use a side-street to bypass a traffic jam, I'll be sure to cast scorn at myself for bullying myself off the highway.

[flip]

You laid out the letter of this process completely accurately. I don't disagree with anything you said, except it is narrowly focused solely on this "issue" and leaves out many other considerations which would broaden the scope of this discussion. I'm more interested in motives than I am in a clinical description of process. The process is as evident as looking at a green car and telling your friend standing next you, "that cars green."

[CUDA]

If the Founding Fathers were to come back, I doubt if they would recognize the United States today. Oh, they wouldn't be surprised by its size or its population or its technological progress. They expected that and encouraged it.

What would disturb them is how fond Americans have become of government. They would be disturbed at how we have allowed politicians and judges to turn the Constitution into an excuse instead of a restraint. They would be uneasy about the large standing army we have maintained since the end of World War II. And they would certainly disapprove of our foreign policy, which can only be described as imperialistic.

The Founding Fathers were suspicious of government and wary of it. They recognized that government is always the greatest threat to liberty. George Washington likened government to fire — "a dangerous servant and a fearful master." The whole purpose of the Constitution they devised was to keep the government divided and weak.

First, they expected the sovereign states to act as a brake against any attempt by the federal government to usurp their powers as defined by the Constitution. Abraham Lincoln nullified that concept with brute force. Under their original plan, U.S. senators were selected by the state legislatures and were clearly intended to act as ambassadors from the states. Later generations foolishly eliminated that safeguard by amending the Constitution so that senators are elected by the people.

Clearly, the Founding Fathers did not approve of the modern concept, imposed by federal courts, of one man, one vote. They designed the House to represent the people, but each state, regardless of size, was given two senators. When federal courts eliminated the states' ability to follow the example of the Constitution, they shifted political power from the rural areas to the big cities. It's been more or less downhill ever since.

The Founding Fathers rejected the parliamentary system, in which the executive and the legislative majority are one. They wanted a House and Senate that were elected independently of the president. They intended for Congress to act as a check against attempts by the executive branch to usurp power, and they intended for the president, wielding his veto, to act as a check on Congress.

The modern two-party system has nullified this safeguard. Both Democrats and Republicans act like slaves to the man in the White House if he shares their party label, thus nullifying the most important of the checks and balances the Founding Fathers built into the Constitution. By acting like lap dogs when their man wins the White House, both Democrats and Republicans have imposed a parliamentary system on us.

Americans, in defense of their own liberty, should make sure that whatever party holds the White House does NOT have a majority in Congress. It is to our advantage and was so intended by the Founding Fathers that the president and Congress be at odds on all but the most important issues.

To ensure an independent judiciary, they made those appointments for life, which has turned out to be a mistake, given how reluctant Congress is to impeach a federal judge. My Confederate ancestors recognized this problem, and in their constitution a federal judge could be impeached by the legislature of the state in which he sat. That would cure a lot of abuses committed by the federal judiciary.

A reading of the Constitution makes it clear that the federal government was designed to be an agent of the states and authorized to act only on behalf of all the states in a few, clearly specified areas. None of those includes education, welfare, medical care, foreign aid and domestic pork-barrel projects.

Future historians, when they come to write the obituary of the United States, will note that we started out with the best system ever devised by man and willingly dismantled it for a bowl of federal porridge.

[Tunnelcat]

Bah! Spoken like a true tea party pooper supporter. Destroy our government rather than reform it to bring it back as the peoples government. And President Dunsel (Star Trek reference) rolls over to give the right wing 98% of what they want in the debt talks, EXCEPT the tea party, who still want more blood.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-a ... share_copy

[flip]

Ok, I'll bite TC. Why did the Founding Fathers draft our constitution in the manner it was written? I'm curious as to what you think the motives were.

[callmeslick]

It's thuggish legislation. Who's to know what this "super-12" group will even recommend. It's worded to sound as if this "Super-12" should have final say and if the majority of Congress disagrees with them, there will be reprisals. Neo is right. The creation of these committees is the first step needed to eventually circumvent majority rule even in the Congress. It's tantamount to the same methods the Oligarchs used to usurp political power in this country. Sign this or else

huh?

[callmeslick]

Ok, I'll bite TC. Why did the Founding Fathers draft our constitution in the manner it was written? I'm curious as to what you think the motives were.

not TC here, but the manner in which it was written emphasizes that it grow, change and evolve with the nation.
I would disagree with CUDA's loony quote piece in another regard: The Founding fathers wouldn't have been able to grasp industrialization, let alone a modern, global society. They did, however, realize that they had no crystal ball so created a Constitution that was quite malleable to the needs as the people saw fit.
They made it slow to change, especially in radical fashion, by design. They created a system that demands compromises be reached frequently. Most importantly, they designed a system that requires an informed, engaged and civilly responsible electorate. We do not, at present have such an electorate.

[CUDA]

Bah! Spoken like a true tea party pooper supporter. Destroy our government rather than reform it to bring it back as the peoples government. And President Dunsel (Star Trek reference) rolls over to give the right wing 98% of what they want in the debt talks, EXCEPT the tea party, who still want more blood.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-a ... share_copy

why would I expect anything less from the forum proponent of "the government can never be big enough". and the Only good Government is one controlled by the Democrats

you make no effort to debate a single point of the article, you OR slick. you just call me a TeaParty pooper supporter. spoken like a true liberal. you Liberals are afraid to call a terrorist a terrorist but its OK to call the Tea part a bunch of terrorists. you bunch of Hypocrites.

John Wayne wrote:
this new Liberal group, they never listen to your point of View. they make a decision to what your gonna think

the Man was right.

[Tunnelcat]

Ok, I'll bite TC. Why did the Founding Fathers draft our constitution in the manner it was written? I'm curious as to what you think the motives were

Oh, I think the 2 party system has destroyed our government, just as the Founding Fathers feared. I also think the the Judiciary has now been corrupted by money interests as well, handing most of the power to those interests. And I think the Presidency has been given too much executive power, especially since Bush and 9/11. Even though the 2 parties are corrupt and inept, I don't approve of the tea party either. They only want to dismantle and destroy, without thinking of the consequences to U.S. society. No CUDA, I don't believe in "Big Government". Even with the best of intentions, sometimes big becomes too big to manage. But we have become dependent upon that government to support many aspects of our huge society. Taking that away suddenly would be catastrophic and detrimental. We need to be weened off gradually to keep stability and most importantly, weed out the money and power players that infest it now. That means prune out all of the branches of government and neuter the military's power within it as well, not chop it down. It's just that I don't see how it's going to be accomplished with an entrenched power base and without hurting the very people that now depend on the government to survive. Tea partiers believe only in getting everything for themselves and definitely seem to lack in compassion for others in their convictions.

The first party that comes forth and states as it's platform that they want to streamline and repair our government and return it to the people and for the people and kick out the money interests, I'll vote for them. I am not fond of the government either, it's become a bloated monster. But with the massive growth in population, technology and capitalistic power in this country, I truly believe we now need a government to protect us from the vagrancies of unfettered Capitalism. I don't think that the Founding Fathers could have even imagined the scope and depth of what they created. We have a massive population base and an infrastructure that didn't exist back then, and the needs of the whole must be ensured to keep a stable, fair and free society. We can't depend on the states to be consistent between each other and if we are to function as a whole, a single nation, we need some consistency. Otherwise we'd be a collection of spoiled brat 2-year old's without a parent's guidance. We have a massive Capitalistic system that, although free in the purest sense, can just as easily lead to poverty, inequity and enslavement. No system is perfect and no system by itself is a solution. We need to find a balance between governmental control and free expression for all.

[Sergeant Thorne]

It's not a conspiracy to transfer legislative authority to the President or an oligarchy or a corporation...

It doesn't have to be. People just have to be naive enough to think it's a good idea to make things just a little more streamline/efficient/productive by concentrating power or retarding the independent thought of our representatives with a stipulation that makes it difficult or inconvenient for them to authentically represent the wishes of their constituents. The current president is on record wishing that he wasn't restrained by the constitution. He was joking, but you don't express such exasperation without there being a glimmer of a wish behind it.

I'll have to look into it more, because it sounds like you're saying that it shouldn't conceivably have any influence at all on their future judgments/votes.

[CUDA]

The first party that comes forth and states as it's platform that they want to streamline and repair our government and return it to the people and for the people and kick out the money interests, I'll vote for them.

well if you were really honest about it, instead of reading all the left wing blogs and you stopped allowing your blind Hatred for Palin and Bachman cloud your judgement, you'd see that's the intent of the Tea Party.
are they the perfect solution? not by a long shot but they have stated their platform which is exactly what you are looking for, and they have stuck to it. and FYI they are right about this nations spending issue. it must be stopped.
I challenge you to actually read something constructive about the Tea party. and to Openly and Honestly evaluate them. I don't think you've got it in you. you've been quite content you use derogatory terms like Tea Baggers to describe them from day one.
and FYI I am not currently a tea party supporter, but honestly I am rapidly becoming one.

1. Eliminate Excessive Taxes
2. Eliminate the National Debt
3. Eliminate Deficit Spending
4. Protect Free Markets
5. Abide by the Constitution of the United States
6. Promote Civic Responsibility
7. Reduce the Overall Size of Government
8. Believe in the People
9. Avoid the Pitfalls of Politics
10. Maintain Local Independence

http://www.teaparty-platform.com/

[flip]

not TC here, but the manner in which it was written emphasizes that it grow, change and evolve with the nation.
I would disagree with CUDA's loony quote piece in another regard: The Founding fathers wouldn't have been able to grasp industrialization, let alone a modern, global society. They did, however, realize that they had no crystal ball so created a Constitution that was quite malleable to the needs as the people saw fit.
They made it slow to change, especially in radical fashion, by design. They created a system that demands compromises be reached frequently. Most importantly, they designed a system that requires an informed, engaged and civilly responsible electorate. We do not, at present have such an electorate.

There is a reason we don't have such an electorate

so created a Constitution that was quite malleable to the needs as the people saw fit

I challenge anyone to demonstrate that we are still truly a democratic republic, in face of industrialization and the huge monopolies that exist now. I got no problem with the way things have evolved, there has been many an unscrupulous and self-serving person who has been elected that realized they could sway things to their benefit, put also over the years of doing that ,they have destroyed key fundamental beliefs in the constitution. We are where we are at because of people making wrong and selfish decisions based in greed and selfishness. There is no preventing that. BUT, let's at least call it what it is and educate that electorate instead of pulling the wool over their eyes. Let's just call a spade a spade.

A question for you Slick:
We now see Globalization as inevitable right? Does that mean that America gets to rule the whole world under the constraints of our own Constitution or will another system of government eventually supersede and take it's place? Globalization is inevitable right? Hell, it's right on our doorstep and reality right now. Why are the people not being told to prepare for this new age and the inevitable and necessary changes that must happen to realize this new oneness we all share?

There is a reason we don't have such an electorate

EDIT: We used to call them "neckdowns" on the job. Some people that couldn't even follow the simplest of directions so you threw a piece of plywood on their backs and pointed them where to take it. I think that's what the "enlightened" ones want, but me, I hate neckdowns. I try to destroy that ★■◆● everywhere I go.

[Tunnelcat]

CUDA, Palin's a greedy idiot and Bachmann is just downright crazy, even if she is smart. Those 2 candidates alone are enough for me to steer the hell away from the tea party. Also, the fact they want to wield an axe instead of a scalpel to "fix" government is another hit against them. They don't even want to touch defense spending. They'd rather spend boatloads of our tax dollars on weapons and intrusive government spying to keep some boogey man in check, then after saying thank you for our tax money, throw those least fortunate, too old or too sick to work anymore out into the streets, just because they didn't work hard enough or weren't lucky or fortunate in life, to end up homeless, starving, sick or eventually as criminals. Hypocrites. They are obstinate, self-serving, self-absorbed, conceited and inhumane in their ideals of what a government should be. They and the Republicans are traitors that are feeding the growing Plutocracy, destroying our nation in the process and wrapping themselves in the flag while doing it. Crap.

Even though I'm somewhat fiscally conservative and not a dyed-in-the-wool liberal commie as you seem to think I am, I don't wish to take things to the extremes the tea party, or the Republicans want to. I still want a government around to protect us from the free market, keep it honest and make them follow some rules, not be just an arm of self-absorbed, greedy, wealthy Plutocrats and global corporations. Besides, I'm far more socially liberal than anyone from either the tea party or the Republican party, and even though they seem to want smaller government, they still want big government meddling in our moral lives. No thanks.

[Will Robinson]

CUDA, Palin's a greedy idiot and Bachmann is just downright crazy, even if she is smart. Those 2 candidates alone are enough for me to steer the hell away from the tea party. Also, the fact they want to wield an axe instead of a scalpel to "fix" government is another hit against them. They don't even want to touch defense spending. They'd rather spend boatloads of our tax dollars on weapons and intrusive government spying to keep some boogey man in check, then after saying thank you for our tax money, throw those least fortunate, too old or too sick to work anymore out into the streets, just because they didn't work hard enough or weren't lucky or fortunate in life, to end up homeless, starving, sick or eventually as criminals. Hypocrites. They are obstinate, self-serving, self-absorbed, conceited and inhumane in their ideals of what a government should be. They and the Republicans are traitors that are feeding the growing Plutocracy, destroying our nation in the process and wrapping themselves in the flag while doing it. Crap.

Even though I'm somewhat fiscally conservative and not a dyed-in-the-wool liberal commie as you seem to think I am, I don't wish to take things to the extremes the tea party, or the Republicans want to. I still want a government around to protect us from the free market, keep it honest and make them follow some rules, not be just an arm of self-absorbed, greedy, wealthy Plutocrats and global corporations. Besides, I'm far more socially liberal than anyone from either the tea party or the Republican party, and even though they seem to want smaller government, they still want big government meddling in our moral lives. No thanks.[/size=12]

Your whole rant on what's wrong with government and Washington is null and void due to your perpetual dogmatic allegiance to the other half of the very group you identify as being at fault for all the problems. You are like a woman in the ghetto complaining about all the bullets from drive by shootings and gang wars that are killing your babies who then goes on to bake cookies for the Bloods and says all the blame goes to the Crips!

[Top Gun]

So if tunnelcat feels that one side happens to be much worse than the other, her arguments are automatically invalidated?

[Krom]

It doesn't really invalidate the argument, its just pointing out the incompleteness of it.

In order to complete the argument you have to realize that the problem is thinking there are sides to them at all. The two major "parties" in Washington are the public face of a puppet which only serves massive foreign and domestic monopoly interests. The very concept of the Democrat and the Republican parties being separate is nothing but a fraud. There are no sides to be worse than the other side because they are both the same organization.

[CUDA]

They and the Republicans are traitors

you just lost all credibility. and showed your True colors.
you don't even know what you believe.

The first party that comes forth and states as it's platform that they want to streamline and repair our government and return it to the people and for the people and kick out the money interests, I'll vote for them.

remember those words? the Tea Party is the first one that came forth with the platform you requested. and I demonstrated that. You just showed that your only intent was to pay lip service. and you didn't mean what you said. you'd make a great Politician. Democrat of course