"We've come to take our government back" Rand Paul

[madanthonywayne]

In a speech made after easily defeating establishment candidate Trey Grayson in the Kentucky Republican primary, Rand Paul applauded the Tea Party Movement and had this message for Washington:

"I have a message, a message from the tea party, a message that is loud and clear and does not mince words: We've come to take our government back."​

Mr. Paul went on to say:

"this tea party movement is a message to Washington that we are unhappy and we want things done differently."​

and

"The tea party movement is about saving the country from a mountain of debt that is devouring our country and that I think could lead to chaos,"
​

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/37414.html#ixzz0oKuGC17a
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/

 

[Bells]

In a speech made after easily defeating establishment candidate Trey Grayson in the Kentucky Republican primary, Rand Paul applauded the Tea Party Movement and had this message for Washington:

"I have a message, a message from the tea party, a message that is loud and clear and does not mince words: We've come to take our government back."​

Mr. Paul went on to say:

"this tea party movement is a message to Washington that we are unhappy and we want things done differently."​

and

"The tea party movement is about saving the country from a mountain of debt that is devouring our country and that I think could lead to chaos,"
​

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/37414.html#ixzz0oKuGC17a
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/

Hmmm..

And this guy is bringing his guns and pitchfork!

Ah yes.. the tea party movement. Speaks volumes..

Time to reclaim the Government and put back whitey back where he belongs!


And seriously, what is it with conservative members and bright blue bolded writing on this forum? Are you trying to defeat the liberals in discussion by blinding them first?

 

[Tiassa]

Rand Paul is no ... um ... I don't know, Steve Largent?

My only question is how they're going to save the country. I mean, kudos to them if they can pull it off, but one of the things they might want to start discussing, instead of vague rhetoric, is where Americans are expected to scale back their dreams and reduce their standards of living. I mean, Rand Paul can't possibly be selling a bullshit fantasy, right?

I think when people find out that it's nothing more than the old, "Let America itself rot while we pay for a bunch of wars" song, they're not going to be nearly so anxious to dance like monkeys for the organ grinder. But good luck to him. There's always hope, when we hear of a suave young politician rising quickly on a sketchy platform amid an anti-incumbent backlash that he will actually keep his principles about him when he gets to Washington.

 

[Bells]

My only question is how they're going to save the country. I mean, kudos to them if they can pull it off, but one of the things they might want to start discussing, instead of vague rhetoric, is where Americans are expected to scale back their dreams and reduce their standards of living. I mean, Rand Paul can't possibly be selling a bullshit fantasy, right?

I think when people find out that it's nothing more than the old, "Let America itself rot while we pay for a bunch of wars" song, they're not going to be nearly so anxious to dance like monkeys for the organ grinder. But good luck to him. There's always hope, when we hear of a suave young politician rising quickly on a sketchy platform amid an anti-incumbent backlash that he will actually keep his principles about him when he gets to Washington.

And that's the thing, isn't it?

They aren't offering any real solutions. It's just anti-Obama rhetoric that has attracted a lot of the racists and ultra right. For foreigners looking at this from the outside, it's just a lot of racist protests that we're seeing. Not really a good look to be honest.

He's just told them what they want to hear. Whether he'll be able to do something substantial and real about it is another thing altogether when he gets into power. Obama inherited a disaster from Bush and if someone else wins in the next election, they'll be inheriting the same. There is no quick fix. So people have to either learn to be patient and weather the storm or try to patch up the one hole they can see while ignoring the fact that the damn wall is crumbling around them.

 

[pjdude1219]

once again the right wing and its most rabid and delusional groups shows how they think only they should be allowed to rule. they just need to learn that america doesn't want their shit. they need to quit fear and hate mongering and get some new ideas. their ideas didn't work 30 years ago and they don't work now.

 

[Cowboy]

once again the right wing and its most rabid and delusional groups shows how they think only they should be allowed to rule. they just need to learn that america doesn't want their shit. they need to quit fear and hate mongering and get some new ideas. their ideas didn't work 30 years ago and they don't work now.

How interesting that you're able to speak for all of America, claiming that its citizens don't want Rand Paul's "shit" even as he handily won in this primary. Obviously some people want his "shit".

 

[pjdude1219]

How interesting that you're able to speak for all of America, claiming that its citizens don't want Rand Paul's "shit" even as he handily won in this primary. Obviously some people want his "shit".

primary voters tend to be the most extreme so thanks for proving my point. and I don't speak for america but I can read the trends.

 

[Cowboy]

primary voters tend to be the most extreme so thanks for proving my point. and I don't speak for america but I can read the trends.

Please explain how your point was proved. Thanks.

 

[Tiassa]

The Prophecy, Retold?

And that's the thing, isn't it?

I would say so, but obviously my right-wing neighbors would disagree.

Rand Paul, though, faces exactly what recently-deposed Utah Republican Sen. Bob Bennett expressed in the waning days of his campaign: "Number one, you're either going to be totally ineffective. Or number two, you're going to have to change your position on everything you're talking about. Now, which will it be?" (Brundin)

This point is as old as American politics, at least. Strangely, though, as apparent as it is, many of my American neighbors routinely seem to forget about such reality.

They aren't offering any real solutions. It's just anti-Obama rhetoric that has attracted a lot of the racists and ultra right. For foreigners looking at this from the outside, it's just a lot of racist protests that we're seeing. Not really a good look to be honest.

November will be the Tea Party's first real test. Special elections here and there haven't given us much to go on, other than an inkling that many incumbents are probably going to have to put in a real campaign, if they can even remember what that's like.

But as the GOP struggles within itself, the interesting question will be whether or not the Tea Party has staying power. That is, many Republicans might rally behind a DeMint or Bachmann, who would purify the party against reality, but the ultimate test comes in November. Bennett had an excellent chance in a straightforward primary election, but that's not the Utah way. Instead, they went with a caucus to filter candidates: GOP uber alles, including its own rank and file. Utah GOP delegates just traded a reliable workhorse who can garner 70% of the vote. This is how they do it, this is what they want.

But the underlying question of November looms large. Utah Democrats opted to challenge Congressman Jim Matheson, a moderate or even conservative Democrat aiming to be the state's first U.S. Senator from the party in over thirty years. And, of course, a GOP consultant is apparently encouraging his fellow Utah Republicans to register to vote as Democrats in order to throw the primary, though Washington Post reporter Dave Weigel suggests the showdown between Tim Bridgewater and Mike Lee for the GOP primary will demand conservative voters' attention more than screwing with the opposition.

The Tea Party can win at the Utah caucuses, and probably the Beehive State's ballot box in November. Rand Paul can win in Kentucky, especially with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell having led the conservative establishment so near to ruin. But can they do it nationwide? What can the RNC expect with such prospects as having to trash Mitt Romney° in order to appease its outsized fringe element? Can the Republican Party carry a strong November showing into 2012 if that outcome depends on further appeasement of the Palintologists, Beckwards, Dittoheads, and other disconnected, possibly sociopathic, freak blocs in shaping and voicing the platform? That is, can the Party move that much further to the right in 2012 and expect to win?

Amazingly, the new Republican analogue to the Blue Dogs is ... a conservative bloc. We've long known, as Krugman reminds, that they exist, but their rise is counterintuitive; quite clearly the GOP has much to learn from Bill Clinton and Barack Obama about the need to drive slowly down the middle of the freaking road in order to get anything done.

The difference, in populism, between a trend and a movement is whether the trend carries on long enough. As Erica C. Barnett recounted of trends last year:

Trends inevitably go through their phases—early adoption, buzz, general excitement, overexposure—and bacon is in its terminal stage, clinging to relevance, grasping at any opportunity to cash in on its dwindling cachet as its 15 minutes come to an end.​

The upshot of the waning bacon trend is that right now restaurants around Seattle are serving better bacon. The downside°, of course, is the bacontini, or the bacon cupcakes, or the new, Kraft Bacon Cheddar.

Can the Tea Party not only grasp at its opportunities, but also cash in with somthing better than pre-sliced cheese laced with bacon bits?

Well, that is the question. We know plenty about what they stand against: taxes, uppity black people, &c. But we know so little about what they actually intend. The Tea Party is a reaction to conditions, real or imagined. What can it do to move forward, and seize initiative?

At that point, of course, they sound like normal Republicans again. Almost. Well, normal Republicans of twenty years ago. Only crazier. Isolationist, belligerent, greedy, and paranoid—squared, at least.

He's just told them what they want to hear. Whether he'll be able to do something substantial and real about it is another thing altogether when he gets into power. Obama inherited a disaster from Bush and if someone else wins in the next election, they'll be inheriting the same. There is no quick fix. So people have to either learn to be patient and weather the storm or try to patch up the one hole they can see while ignoring the fact that the damn wall is crumbling around them.

To the other, we don't know what their ideas are, only what they aren't. Of course, therein lies the catch, for them. By recording their ideas for posterity, they put their reputations on the line, just like any other politicians, voters, interest groups, &c. And once they win a few elections and find out the ballgame isn't played their way, by either Washington or reality itself, they'll repeat Bob Bennett's warning to their successors, and pretend they're being original about it°.

They're lost in a delusion; any outcome will validate their martyr complexes because that's how this dysfunction works.

It is tragic, indeed, when the newcomers and idealists discover that Washington doesn't play that way. But the Tea Party is not the solution. These new idealists will either adjust, and become the new face of the Republican Party, only slightly more vicious than their predecessors; or else they will fail to adjust, and die believing they were the last good souls in America. When they fail, the only people whose fault it cannot possibly be are themselves. And the battle lines will be redrawn, and we'll go through this all again.

This is how American culture lurches about the political spectrum. It seems to be getting worse with age. And it probably will, as long as we all give over to the need to be polite, and pretend there's nothing wrong with the cousin sitting in the corner, rocking quietly in his own arms, sweating and murmuring while nobody reminds him to take his meds.

Strangely, the one thing we don't do in all of that is make any real progress. I mean, really, you'd think probability should suggest that every once in a while, we get something right.

How long has it been?
____________________

Notes:

Mitt Romney — Who oversaw Massachusetts' adoption of a health care plan startlingly similar to the widely-denounced "Obamacare". Or, as Paul Krugman put it:

News organizations have taken notice: suddenly, the takeover of the Republican Party by right-wing extremists has become a story (although many reporters seem determined to pretend that something equivalent is happening to the Democrats. It isn't.) But why is this happening? And in particular, why is it happening now?

The right's answer, of course, is that it's about outrage over President Obama's "socialist" policies — like his health care plan, which is, um, more or less identical to the plan Mitt Romney enacted in Massachusetts. Many on the left argue, instead, that it's about race, the shock of having a black man in the White House — and there's surely something to that.

But I'd like to offer two alternative hypotheses: First, Republican extremism was there all along — what's changed is the willingness of the news media to acknowledge it. Second, to the extent that the power of the party's extremists really is on the rise, it's the economy, stupid.​

° The downside — But we'll always love things like the bacon bras, the BA-K-47, or the inimitable bacon explosion

° pretend they're being original about it — A human process, and not one for which they should be especially faulted. "Each age", writes Clive Barker, "will want the tale told as if it were of its own making. Thus the pagan will be sanctified, the tragic become laughable."

Works Cited:

Brundin, Jenny. "Utah Sen. Bennett Battles For His Political Life". All Things Considered. May 7, 2010. NPR.org. May 8, 2010. http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=126610449

Weigel, Dave. "Tim Bridgewater 57, Mike Lee 43". Right Now. May 8, 2010. Voices.WashingtonPost.com. May 18, 2010. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/right-now/2010/05/tim_bridgewater_57_mike_lee_43.html

Krugman, Paul. "Going to Extreme". The New York Times. May 17, 2010; page A23. NYTimes.com. May 18, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/opinion/17krugman.html

Barnett, Erica C. "The End of Baconmania". The Stranger. May 5, 2009. TheStranger.com. May 18, 2010. http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/the-end-of-baconmania/Content?oid=1509727

Barker, Clive. Weaveworld. New York: Poseidon, 1987.

See Also:

Ben. "10 Weird Bras". Listicles. February 2, 2010. Listicles.TheLMagazine.com. May 18, 2010. http://listicles.thelmagazine.com/2009/02/10-weird-bras/

Shatkin, Elina. "BA-K-47: America's No. 1 bacon-based assault rifle". Daily Dish. May 18, 2009. LATimesBlogs.LATimes.com. May 18, 2010. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/dai...n-that-will-revolt-and-defeat-terrorists.html

O, Kelly. "Flickr Photo of the Day". Slog. November 6, 2007. Slog.TheStranger.com. May 18, 2010. http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/11/flickr_photo_of_the_day_13

Bertolet, Dan. "Um, Excuse Me, But There’s Bacon In That Cupcake". Huge Ass City. September 21, 2009. HugeAssCity.com. May 18, 2010. http://hugeasscity.com/2009/09/21/um-excuse-me-but-theres-bacon-in-that-cupcake/

Wegman's. "Kraft Deli Deluxe Cheese Slices, Bacon Cheddar". (n.d.) Wegmans.com. May 18, 2010. https://www.wegmans.com/webapp/wcs/...toreId=10052&productId=687678&catalogId=10002

 

[786]

I believe they are offering 'solutions'. But for big government interventionists you won't see any 'solutions'. Because for you 'solutions' means government doing something. While their solution is government cutting back and doing nothing. Fundamentally the question becomes -is 'government the solution', and they say no.

Since government is the 'problem' the solution clearly then becomes the reduction of government size. Is that hard to follow?

Peace be unto you

 

[clusteringflux]

If all the tea party supporters were rabid racists Obama would have never been elected. The proof is the political spanking the democrat party is now in fear of.

It's not race, folks. It's a government that has too long ignored the will of the people on both sides. And of course, the economy (stupid).

I.e.: Even most democrats realize that social programs, for instance, can't operate very long if there's more money being spent than is being taken in. The models of CA and MI are living (or dying) proof. We can't have a federal gov like that and survive very long as a nation.

 

[Buffalo Roam]

I believe they are offering 'solutions'. But for big government interventionists you won't see any 'solutions'. Because for you 'solutions' means government doing something. While their solution is government cutting back and doing nothing. Fundamentally the question becomes -is 'government the solution', and they say no.

Since government is the 'problem' the solution clearly then becomes the reduction of government size. Is that hard to follow?

Peace be unto you

A very apt assessment of the liberal mind set.....

big government interventionists you won't see any 'solutions'.​

They will not see any solution that doesn't come from their liberal cradle to grave agenda.

Because for them 'solutions' means government doing something, anything everything, no matter what the cost to the Constitution, no matter what the cost to the Country.

Trillion Dollar deficits as far as the eye can see..........

In the next year the Debt will exceed the GDP being 101% of the GDP, with the hope that it will fall below 100% in 12-13, I will love to see the smoke and mirrors necessary to get that number by the Democrats.

 

[ElectricFetus]

In the next year the Debt will exceed the GDP being 101% of the GDP, with the hope that it will fall below 100% in 1213, I will love to see the smoke and mirrors necessary to get that number by the Democrats.

Aaaaaah what? 1213? I would like to see that even make sense.

 

[joepistole]

Aaaaaah what? 1213? I would like to see that even make sense.

I think he believes in time travel or maybe he's been into too much of the "liberal mind set" this morning

 

[joepistole]

"I have a message, a message from the tea party, a message that is loud and clear and does not mince words: We've come to take our government back."​

And then what will you do with it? Will you double the debt as did the previous "conservative" administration or will you cut Social Security and other federal entitlements like retirement packages? What will you do if and when you take back government to solve our problems?

Mr. Paul went on to say:

"this tea party movement is a message to Washington that we are unhappy and we want things done differently."​

and

"The tea party movement is about saving the country from a mountain of debt that is devouring our country and that I think could lead to chaos,"
​

Again, what will you do should you and yours gain control of government? Will you open the federal coffers to special interests so that they can drain the coffers dry like your predecessors? Will you raise taxes? Where is your program to restore fiscal responsibility? How does it differ from the current administration? What makes you think it will work? Where is the evidence that says it will work? And what will you do should your agenda fail? Will you take responsibility or will you create a new movement....say Tea Party II?

 

[spidergoat]

I believe they are offering 'solutions'. But for big government interventionists you won't see any 'solutions'. Because for you 'solutions' means government doing something. While their solution is government cutting back and doing nothing. Fundamentally the question becomes -is 'government the solution', and they say no.

Since government is the 'problem' the solution clearly then becomes the reduction of government size. Is that hard to follow?

Peace be unto you

The phrase "big government" is meaningless. This is conservative code for reduced regulation so that their corporate sponsors can continue to rake it in and keep the cycle of corruption going. Doing nothing got us into the current financial crisis, and it caused the collapse of US industry. We need government that works for the people, and it should be as powerful as it has to be to stand up to corporate power, which is tremendous.

 

[clusteringflux]

I think he believes in time travel or maybe he's been into too much of the "liberal mind set" this morning

Or maybe he just missed a hyphen?

In the next year (10-11) the Debt will exceed the GDP being 101% of the GDP, with the hope that it will fall below 100% in 12-13, I will love to see the smoke and mirrors necessary to get that number by the Democrats.

 

[Tiassa]

This and that

I believe they are offering 'solutions'. But for big government interventionists you won't see any 'solutions'. Because for you 'solutions' means government doing something. While their solution is government cutting back and doing nothing. Fundamentally the question becomes -is 'government the solution', and they say no.

Since government is the 'problem' the solution clearly then becomes the reduction of government size. Is that hard to follow?

Peace be unto you

The sarcastic wink at the end should only serve to remind people that this is all a con job.

I believe they are offering 'solutions', you state. But what is being solved? What does the solution accomplish?

So what is it about conservatives that when faced with a complex discussion of ideas, they just reassert an idiotic talking point and call it a contribution? Really, that's just disgusting. Embarrassing, really. Do you look at yourself in the mirror with those lying eyes?

Or maybe you might tell us what those solutions actually are. Oh, right, you don't want to, because as we found out from Rand Paul, those "solutions" are just more of the same blind, idiotic madness that got us into this situation in the first place.

After all, the "solutions" are so obvious that you shouldn't have to put any effort into it. Why not skip to the chase and denounce with contempt everyone who doesn't look out at the world and see what you see? After all, if they did, you wouldn't even have had to write those pathetic paragraphs; we would have all just known, y'know?

So tell us, 786, what, exactly, are these solutions? Or are you just huffing and spewing vapor like the rest of the Tea Party movement?

• • •​

If all the tea party supporters were rabid racists Obama would have never been elected. The proof is the political spanking the democrat party is now in fear of.

If the Tea Party is so noble and good, why do you and so many others have to lie in order to present them as such?

Tea Party arguments:

"It's not race, folks!": Whatever you say.


Say What?": If calling Obama "Hitler" doesn't
work, accuse Democrats of being Jews.​

This is such convincing evidence that,

It's not race, folks. It's a government that has too long ignored the will of the people on both sides. And of course, the economy (stupid).

Sorry, Clusteringflux, but on the merits of the evidence I've witnessed over the course of the last year and a half simply doesn't support your fallacious, paathetic excuse for an argument. Seriously, thanks to the Tea Party and its advocates, we're finally, over a century after Plessy, and fifty-five years after Brown, getting around to having a discussion about what constitutes black. Of course, we're only doing that so Obamanoiacs can deny that the U.S. has finally elected a black president.

Beyond that, of course the movement is popular with the stupid. I have a friend who lives out in the middle of nowhere, and does the whole, "I'm not racist, but I just hate Obama's black ass," routine. We're not offended, of course, because this sort of detour is what we expect of a guy we all know and love for being the whacked-out, drugged-up, hallucinogenic fiend he is.

Did you ever see the long-running comic strip LuAnn? There was a classic, years ago, with the girl talking into her tape-recorder diary: "Why can't my parents understand that all I want is for them to take care of me and leave me alone?"

So let's see, here: Rand Paul would spend even more on "defense". The Tea Party would eliminate things like the Department of Education. They make all sorts of short term promises that, quite simply, add up to, "Let America itself rot while we pay for a bunch of wars".

In other words, they seem to want to go back to the days of the Cold War.

I.e.: Even most democrats realize that social programs, for instance, can't operate very long if there's more money being spent than is being taken in. The models of CA and MI are living (or dying) proof. We can't have a federal gov like that and survive very long as a nation.

And most Tea Party advocates should be smart enough to recognize that we could have paid for health reform and more had we not run off to a fancy, unnecessary war in Iraq. Rand Paul would blow even more money on military adventures, though.

One of the basic presuppositions necessary for the Tea Party argument to make sense is that the United States will always and forever be at war. How quickly the allegedly "anti-government" Tea Party that despises "a government that has too long ignored the will of the people on both sides" has become accustomed to perpetual warfare. Apparently, that is their sort of governance: perpetual wars, warrantless espionage against American citizens, and such; just don't ever do anything "socialist" like try to force banks and other financial institutions to operate in good faith. How dare the government insist on honesty! And how dare the government "control our lives". The Tea Party would much prefer that large corporations control their lives.

Again, we're back to the GOP of 1986 or so.

Look, the Tea Party's way has already been tried. And the United States blew it. But, as things like facts and results have no part in the Tea Party's melodrama except to be excoriated and exorcised, they've taken on the disgraceful role of recalling American history. They didn't bother to protest when it was the white guy taxing them too much, but put a black guy in the White House who actually lowers their taxes, and they're "Taxed Enough Already".

So tell us, Clusteringflux, what do the people want? If the problem is a government that has too long ignored the will of the people on both sides, what do they want? More wars? Stronger, larger corporations? That people should exist for the sake of private institutions?

There is no consistency about the Tea Party's argument except for their constant and often contradicting anti-identifications. However, to resolve that problem, the Tea Party is actually going to have to put forward something affirmative. And so far, that something would appear to be a revival of the Reagan fantasy. You know, the one that finally failed in 2008 when the economy broke? But the only solution, according to the Tea Party's anti-identification is more of the same shit that got us into that mess.

So help us out, Clusteringflux: Is it that we're all supposed to do the Tea Party's thinking for it? Is it up to everyone else to resolve for the Tea Party the obvious contradictions and inconsistency about its rhetoric? Is it everyone else's responsibility to believe they're noble patriots, so that they don't ever have to change their racist, hateful rhetoric? I know, the general rhetoric sounds attractive to folks like you, 786, or Buffalo Roam, but the devil is in the details, and apparently those should never be scrutinized. At least, not when it's the Tea Party. Democrats? Republicans? Sure. But the Tea Party? How dare we oppress them so!

So, sorry, man, but you're way out on a limb with that one, and disbelieving the law of gravity doesn't mean you won't come crashing down when the bough finally brakes.

Of course, when that happens, you can always blame it on everyone else. That, after all, is the Tea Party way.
____________________

Notes:

Pargon. "Teabonics". Flickr. March 28, 2010. Flickr.com. May 19, 2010. http://www.flickr.com/photos/pargon/sets/72157623594187379/

Sanders, Eli. "Is That a Yarmulke on Sen. Patty Murray? And Did That Guy Really Just Say That About Hitler? Yes, Yes, and More from Yesterday's Tea Party Rally in Yakima". Slog. April 11, 2010. Slog.TheStranger.com. May 19, 2010. http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/ar...es-yes-and-more-from-yesterdays-tea-party-ral

Press Release. "Rand Paul: A Strong National Defense and a Pro-American Foreign Policy". Rand Paul U.S. Senate 2010. February 25, 2010. RandPaul2010.com. May 19, 2010. http://www.randpaul2010.com/2010/02...al-defense-and-a-pro-american-foreign-policy/

 

[joepistole]

That guy with the sign, is an embarrasement. Does he not know that the Ethopia was one of the first countries in the world be become a Christian country? And does he know where Ethopia lies in relation to Kenya? And does he not know that President Obama is of mixed race. Obama shares some of his same blood?

None of that matters, President Obama looks different.

 

[John99]

Joe, lets not forget that Obama is the President. Seems like people want to change the old guard.