Since Teh Book Learnin' isn't really high on their agenda, the modern day self-titled Tea Party with their anti-Government, Anti-Tax rhetoric have repeatedly failed to realize that the heart of the original Boston protest - was a Corporate Tax Cut that would have undermined local businesses.
The North ministry's solution was the Tea Act, which received the assent of King George on May 10, 1773.[26] This act restored the East India Company's full refund on the 25% duty for importing tea into Britain, and also permitted the company, for the first time, to export tea to the colonies on its own account.
Even with the Townshend duty in effect, the Tea Act would allow the East India Company to sell tea more cheaply than before, undercutting the prices offered by smugglers.
And one wonders just how they might ultimately react to the British Oil Attack?
The Tea Party has argued for "Personal Responsibility" - yet they've argued against being required to Take Personal Responsibility by paying for your own health care rather than gambling on the public dime. They apparently think being a selfish, lazy, irresponsible prick who cuts their own costs by going without health care voluntarily and then makes everyone else pay the tab when they get hit by a truck - is a "Right". That's "Liberty" and "Freedom".
Even though the final Health Care Bill didn't have Medicare for All, and it didn't have a Public Option, they still call it a "Government Take-Over" when every insurer involved will be a private company - only those companies won't be able to CHEAT their customers, by taking their premiums and then refusing to pay for their coverage via rescission and pre-existing condition clauses. Scamming people with bogus claim denials while taking their money and leaving them destitute with Medial Bills piling up is apparently another aspect of "Liberty and Freedom in Tea Party-ville" as well.
But now... now.. all of a sudden they and their Congressional Cohorts are Clamoring for Government Intervention and a Government Take-OVer.
BACHMANN: The administration, they were hands off. They didn’t do anything. Where were the boats that could have been commandeered by the government to be sent into this region to deal with that oil plume as it was coming up in the water and destroying marine life? Nowhere to be found. Why? The administration was hands off on this policy.
Why were they "hands off" on this policy? Well, beside the fact that the Navy itself IS a major polluter and hasn't shown much ability to clean their own back yard, let along Louisiana, maybe they didn't support THIS kind of "Public Option" either and thought this was BP's Responsibility - not the American Tax Payer's. Taking away the boats of Fishermen, who've already lost their livelihood due to the spill, rather than letting them earn money helping clean it up - is particularly stupid.
I would agree with Bachmann only in one small respect, BP should be providing the funding, but in no respects should they be calling the shots on the cleanup. It's like expecting a murderer to run the CSI investigation, they have every incentive to Cover Up not Clean up. The clean up should be on BP's dime, but not under their command. Maybe Bachmann could be more useful if she did some Congress-in' and came up with a way for EPA and OSHA to hire clean up workers directly as independent contractors - handling their supervision, while ensuring their safety - then bill BP for the costs after the fact.
Of course we're as likely to hear that suggestion as we are of hearing the other portions of the Tea Party who don't want the government to commandeer all the boats to even admit that there is a problem with Oil in the Gulf. In Alabama, they seem to think Tar Balls are the New Slinky. Fun for All the Girls and Boys.
All of these events are linked. From the Housing Market Boom and Bust, to the Financial Crisis, the Health Care Crisis, and now the BP Oil Spill - all of these can be traced to Gross Corporate Malfeasance. These are not Accidents, these are all the result of a bunch of corporate FATCATS Reckless Driving down the roads of our society and paying off the Cops, Regulators and Legislators to let them keep going faster and faster and faster... then comes the CRASh!
It's time we pulled these guys over on the Hell Awaits turn pike, because they're driving all the rest of us right off the road and into the ditch.
Democracy will survive this. Freedom will survive. Capitalism will survive. But only if we start seriously realize that it's out of control irresponsible corporations - like BP, Goldman, AIG, Enron, Tyco, Haliibuton, KBR & Blackwater/Xe - who give good companies a bad name, and are the biggest danger to all the above, not the government. At worst, Government can become their accomplices - at it's best it may be the last (and only) resort in protecting us all.
If we put things in these terms, will the Tea Partiers actually get it?
I actually had a face to face conversation with a Rand Paul Supporting avowed Tea Partier the other day - he got it. If Bachmann, in her own twisted way, is now saying that sometimes the Government HAS to intervene, because the corporations and the "Mystical Magical Market" simply can't do it on their own - maybe there's hope for them yet.
Maybe, if they can scrape off some of teh crazy.
Vyan
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