The Tea Party of 1773 and the Tea Party of today

I can see where our differences are in the use of the word "Right" because by analogy it is similiar to the problem with "Theory" when used by creationists. You refer to the common usage whereas I refer to a specific usage. The word "theory" as used by creationists is based upon the common usage of "educated guess" but in the specific usage it relates to a proposition created using the scientific method (i.e. scientific theory) and the same problem exists with the use of the word "Right" in our discussion. I should always clarify that I'm referring to an "Inalienable Right" and not just a "right" such as one granted by statutory law.

The government does have "rights" or "powers" granted to it but the government does not have any "inalienable rights" as the "powers" and "rights" is has are granted to it under the Constitutions (both US and State) of the United States by the People.

I would agrue that people like Madison, Jefferson, Franklin and other founders of America were some of the foremost world scholars at the time.

The largest income earners in America don't significantly contribute to Social Security as there is a cap on Social Security taxes (not Medicare taxes) and investors with unearned income don't contribute at all. Social Security is overwhelmingly funded by those least able to afford the taxation as the tax is based upon the gross income of the workers in America. Even a minimum wage worker is levied with the Social Security tax.

As for the relevancy of the Declaration of Independence I would simply ask of you believe in these words:

Either a person believes them or they don't. It's not a half-way proposition where a person can believe them some of the time and disregard them at other times. They are the foundation of my political ideology and whenever I address anything political or personal in nature these are the guiding ideology I depend upon.

Feb 21, 2014 17:34:48 GMT newsman said:

The original tea party was a protest against multi-national corporations (the East-India Tea company) being propped up by their government and infringing on their local tea growing businesses.

The modern tea party is a fractured, disorganized, partisan group who's only apparently unifying issue is the existence of a black President.

Only partially true. They would support a "Jim Crow" ultra-conservative Republican black president but oppose a moderate-conservative Republican black president or moderate-liberal Democratic black president both of which would supports equal protection under the law for same-sex couples related to marriage under the 14th Amendment and that would also support the Right of Self of the woman related to abortion supported by the 9th and 14th Amendments.

The Tea Party is also unified as an "anti-tax" movement that advocates fiscal irresponsibily by government as they are opposed to the federal government collecting enough in tax revenues to fund the authorized expenditures of Congress.

They are also unified in opposing necessary government spending that benefits the American people, such as welfare assistances to mitigate the effects of pvoerty (they don't propose reducing poverty as a means to reduce the spending) while supporting unnecessary spending such as the $30+ billion to fund the purchase of three new aircraft carriers (this is like a "poor" person buying a new car) so that we can play "World Cop" even though Americans can't afford the costs of playing World Cop in either dollars or in lives lost or destroyed in the process.

There are many other unifying positions such as opposing citizenship for Hispanic immigrants. generally supporting Jim Crow voting laws, etc. but there is no question that they are anti-Amercan in many of their agenda issues.  

Feb 25, 2014 3:40:46 GMT JP5 said:

You DO recall, don't you, that your beloved president....Barack Obama.....just in very recent years changed his mind about his belief that marriage should be between one man/one woman?  So did Bill Clinton, who signed into law, the Defense of Marriage Act......and so did Hillary Clinton support the one man/one woman tradition.  The issues are about politics and not what race someone is.

One of the most admirable traits a person can possibly have is to be willing to say, "I was wrong" and to change their opinion because they were wrong.

Remember that at one time we had politicians that believed slavery was acceptable. We had politicians that believed that a white person should be prohibited by law from marrying a black person. We had politicians that believed the women shouldn't vote. Imagine a nation where no one ever acknowledged that they had a belief that was wrong and never changed their beliefs.

Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and Hillary Clinton still support marriage between a man and a woman. They have not waivered in that support one iota. All they've said is that a same-sex couple also has a Constitutional Right to equal protection under the law and that they should be allowed to also marry under our laws just like a man and a woman are allowed to marry.

By analogy advocating an end to slavery did not imply that the abolitionist opposed the freedom of white men. It merely established that they believed the black man should also be free like the white man.

As a nation we need to move forward to change and progress as a people. Discarding partisan labels we need to be "progressive" and not be tied to the past. Being "conservative" implies being "regressive" because we either move forward (progress) or go backwards (regress) in our beliefs and actions. There's an old saying in racing, "Even if you're on the right track if you're not moving forward you're going to be run over" and the last thing we want to do as a nation is to not move forward or to return to the past.

So I commend Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and all of the Republicans that have also admitted they were wrong by endorsing the denial of marriage equality for same-sex couples. They're not abandoning their beliefs in opposite-sex marriage but instead they are adding to that belief by acknowledging that opposite-sex couple should have the same rights and benefits of marriage that an opposite-sex couple enjoys in the United States.

They're moving forward, they're progressing, and they're embracing the belief that all persons "are created equal and endowed by their creator with certian inalienable Rights" which includes equal protection under the laws of the United States.  

I find this willingness to admit they were wrong in the past and the willingness to change their opinion on this issue very admirable. It's one of the few things about Obama that I do admire because it is worthy of admiration.  

Feb 25, 2014 3:40:46 GMT JP5 said:

As far as our playing "world cop".....Obama is about to fix that real good by cutting the military to the levels not seen since BEFORE WWII.  We'll see how that works out.  And I don't want the libs to come crying to the rest of us when something happens and our country is in jeopardy and cannot act.  We will simply say....."I told you so."

A rather bad analogy. Prior to WW II both Germany and Japan were each spending more (in dollars) on their military budgets than the United States. Today no country even comes close to spending what the United State is spending on our military. We pride ourselves as Americans with being able to do whatever we choose more efficienty than other nations based upon our "capitalistic" economic model except when it comes to our military budget.

In 2013 the US topped the charts with military spending of $682 billion or a whopping 35.1% of general tax revenues ($1,943 billion in general tax revenues est.).

China has the next largest expenditure on it's military spending $160 billion. China, while often considered a political advesary of the United States, has no intentions of ever attacking or invading the United States and doesn't even possess a "carrier" fleet capable of doing so. It has one antiquated carrier, the Liaoning, that is a refurbished Soviet carriers that is a training ship that doesn't represent any military threat to the United States.

Russa comes in third in military spending with about $90 billion in 2013 and even at the height of it's power as the USSR when it represented a "military" threat to the United States it never had any intention of invading the United States. It remains a nuclear threat, as does any nation with nuclear weapons with the capability of using those nuclear weapons against the United States, but the United States has the best nuclear weapons in the world currently and the "nuclear threat" is fundamentally moot. No one wins a nuclear war and all nations with nuclear weapons acknowledge that. Of course even at the height of the Cold War the USSR never represented a threat of invading the United States.

No other nations even come close to representing any kind of threat against the sovereignty of the United States today and combined even China and Russia don't represent any threat at all.

So the real question is, who are we defending ourselves from? No nation or even group of nations represents any threat to the sovereignty of the United States.

Even the political ideology of the international community changed with WW II. Prior to WW II colonialization was an accepted practice but since WW II a new standard was established where "the acquisition of territory by war" is no longer acceptable.

We are not is a position of weakness today but instead we sit atop the world in our military capabilites that are far in excess of any real or imaginable threat. We can maintain that position of military supremacy at only a fraction of what we are spending because no other nation even comes close to us.

Mar 29, 2014 6:59:26 GMT JP5 said:

Most of what has been said here about the Tea Party movement is untrue.    

Well then let's see what is true.

All of us have certain federal expenditures that we oppose but we don't have a say in that. Expeditures authorized by Congress must be paid for, period. The Tea Party opposes paying for the authorized expenditures of Congress because it would require increasing tax revenues. Deficit spending is reflective of fiscal irresponsibility by Congress and the "Tea Party" Republicans in Congress refuse to increase taxation to fund the authorized expenditures of Congress. The "Tea Party" Republicans in Congress are fiscally irresponsible. That is a fact.

"Tea Party" Republicans in Congress oppose eliminating the Capital Gains tax or even increasing it even though the Top 1% of Income Earners, predominately investor where their income is all based upon the Capital Gains tax. have the lowest tax burden relative to income in the United States. A person with identical income that is taxed on "earned income" is taxed at twice the tax rate when compared to the investor taxed based upon "unearned income" under the Capital Gains Tax. "Tea Party" Republicans Congress oppose "fair taxation" where all Americans are subjected to the same tax burden relative to income in the United States. "Tea Party" Republicans have never supported "fair taxation" by the federal or state government.

"Tea Party" Republicans in Congress refuse to reduce welfare spending by reducing poverty. They want to instead cut welfare spending without reducing poverty. In fact "Tea Party" Republicans support the underpayment for labor by employers that actually drives the necessity of government welfare programs.

"Tea Party" Republicans in Congress, and in fact the Republican Party, currently supports Jim Crow voting laws such as Voter ID laws claiming that voter impersonation at the polls is an problem that needs to be addressed. The problem for the Republican Party is that voter impersonation, which would be fraud, statistically doesn't exist. North Carolina and Pennsylvania both passed Voter ID Law (the Pennsylvania law was struck down by the federal court) when neither state could provide evidence of even one case of voter impersonation fraud being committed. Texas passed a voter ID law and can only point to four possible cases of voter impersonation happening over a span of four elections, or basically one case per election cycle. Several top GOP members have admitted that the sole purpose of the Republican voting laws was to suppress the Black vote because African-Americans don't vote for Republicans. 

Tea Party Republicans typically oppose equality of marriage even though federal courts in case after case are establishing that prohibitions against same-sex marriage violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. "Tea Party" Republicans that oppose same-sex marriage oppose the US Constitution.  

"Tea Party" Republican Paul Ryan recently blamed people in the "inner city" (a reference to Blacks) as being responsible for the povery they live in ignoring the fact that there are no jobs. It's akin to blaming a woman for being raped as opposed to blaming the rapist. The problem is a lack of jobs and racial discrimination against blacks that results in poverty for our inner city black communites, not the person that is in poverty because there isn't a job and even when they leave the inner city to find work they are disciminated against in employment.

What the Democrats are doing is irrelevant to what the Tea Party Republicans are doing.