quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: If any non-zero percentage of a group refers to themselves with an insulting sobriquet, it becomes fair game.
This should be interesting.
I'm not saying that, I'm just pointing out that it's an understandable mistake. Using the name they are calling themselves with out thinking about its implications or realizing that it's only a portion of the group or a subset of it is a perfectly reasonable mistake.
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posted
"Teabaggers" is insulting. "Tea bag party" is just a misnomer. The most common/likely association for "tea bag" is that little pouch of leaves you steep in a cup of hot water.
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Considering how often the media uses the immature "teabagger" epithet as an obvious sexual-based slur, I'm amazed at how many people have assumed that's the legitimate name for the group.
Maybe I shouldn't be amazed. I guess this means the media has succeeded. By exclusively using a sexual slur to describe a legitimate grass roots protest movement, they've got regular people using that same slur in ignorance. As this thread has demonstrated, this makes reasonable discourse between the two groups even more difficult.
Which, I think, is one of the goals of the slur in the first place. To preemptively delegitimize the movement.
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Dan, the term "teabagger" was not introduced into this thread until after you were already outraged. "Tea bag party" might be inaccurate but it's not a "sexual slur."
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quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: I have heard it used as a deliberate sexual slur.
The only way I can imagine that you can be sure it was deliberately suggestive is with additional contextual hints that simply didn't exist in the OP.
(I'd like to know specifically how you knew it was deliberately sexual and insulting, but I figured it would not be appropriate to post. So the above is not so much an unwitting argument from ignorance as it might appear; I just don't know how to hash that out without getting into the unsavory details.)
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Until much later in this thread, after Jim-Me's numerous objections were discussed, I had never seen anyone use the term "tea bag" in relation to the tea party and not intend it as a sexual slur. And I have been following the Tea Party coverage pretty closely. Whether they called them teabaggers or said it was the teabag party or the teabagging party, the intent of the message was always clear. So yeah, I found it outrageously distasteful.
The fact that people in this thread didn't intend it that way is great, but it certainly wasn't apparent to me until it was explicitly spelled out as such.
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I did wince when I've heard the term "Tea Bag Party" used in the media before, but I always assumed the the people saying it were unaware there was any slur going on. I had been under the impression that tea bagging was only a phrase used in video games.
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I'm sure the the folks who started out calling themselves the Tea Bag Party were unaware of its other meanings.
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The first time I heard the term "teabagger" used outside of the "usual" context was when my mother called to tell me that she now considered herself one. I nearly choked.
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I will reiterate that http://teabagparty.org/ is a website that goes to great lengths to point out that the tea bag is the symbol of their protest.
Next I will reiterate that I had never heard, and didn't even suspect that the term had any other meaning than to describe a filter bag with tea in it. It seems to me that it's the teabag party that is making the public aware of it, more so than those criticizing them.
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I guess the takeaway here, for me, is that it's somewhat heartening that nobody watches MSNBC, then. Because every clip and soundbyte I saw them release in the days leading up to and following the 4/15/09 tea party protest were rife with all kinds of thinly veiled sexual innuendo coupled with calling the Tea Partiers "teabaggers."
Conversely, I wasn't aware of that site till you linked to it earlier in this thread, Glenn.
I also think it's worth mentioning that googling "tea bag party" brings up a lot of results and as far as I can tell, aside from the one Glenn has provided, all of them are from extremely anti-tea party groups labeling them the Tea Bag Party. For example, the second link is to an article featuring a photoshopped picture of Sarah Palin dressed as a Klansman. Charming.
I will go ahead and reiterate that I think it's disingenuous to say they call themselves the Tea Bag Party. They're the Tea Party.
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: The first time I heard the term "teabagger" used outside of the "usual" context was when my mother called to tell me that she now considered herself one. I nearly choked.
Yo Mama...I don't know... Posts: 3354 | Registered: May 2005
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Oh, she was thrilled. She was so excited that people were going to show all those know-nothing politicians what-for. And she heard my silence over the phone, and said, "What?"
And I said, "Teabaggers? Really?"
"You know," she replied, "like the Boston Tea Party? So everyone brings a tea bag."
"And they call them tea bag parties?"" I managed. "Not just tea parties?"
"Why is that funny?"
I paused. "When you told me that you'd gone teabagging just now...." I didn't quite know how to break the news. "Teabagging has, um, another meaning."
"Some obscure innuendo, again?"
"I wouldn't call it obscure, per se. There may be a generational gap involved. Do me a favor and promise me that you'll never Google it. But also that you will never, ever, call yourself a teabagger around anyone under the age of 40."
An instant later, I hear typing. Then silence. Then angry silence. And she says, "Why do you Internet people always have to spoil everything?"
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I'm not even sure who I'm rooting for there...my daughter gives me so much crap these days, I almost sympathize with the beleaguered mother...OTOH, she and I are probably 100% diametrically opposed on politics, so, whatever, I'm on Tom's side. Posts: 3354 | Registered: May 2005
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When the Oxford word of the year came out, USAToday's article included the word "teabagger" with a definition of someone from the Tea Party. Ironically, anyone trying to use that word in the comment section got blocked for using inapporiate language.
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My theory is that the teabaggers know damn well the "other" meaning of the term, and this is all just an elaborate ruse for some older folks to have sex parties while they pretend to protest taxation.
Old people are perverts!
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quote:Originally posted by Sean Monahan: I'm not sure that name would go over well. To the younger generation, "Loose" is an alternate spelling of "Lose", and I don't think a party would want that word in their title.
And to some of them, tea bagging means something completely different. Still something I'd be against, myself, but you may not be sending the message you THINK you are with that name/ Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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I'm sure many in the Tea Party movement are embarrassed by things like that, but many of their own brethren are fueling the fire.
This reminds me a of a video I saw from early on in the Tea Party movement(can't find the video at the moment). It was one of the first tea party meetings taking place in some sort of bar. After one speaker finished talking about taxes or spending or something relatively legitimate, another guy got up and started talking about how Obama has put devices in all our televisions(i think it had something to do with the digital switchover) to infect our brains with his socialist agenda(subliminal messages and the like). The problem with the Tea Party is that it has embraced wackos like that.
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Strider, the problem you're referring to has a direct correlation to the fact that the Tea Party started as, and has remained, heavily oriented towards Protests. And as a rule, any time you have a Protest, for anything, you're going to draw a certain percentage of freaking nutballs. And for whatever reason, other people at the protest usually take said nutballs in stride.
This is absolutely not restricted to any political affiliation. Every protest I've ever seen, on any topic, was rife with ranting, nonsensical wackjobs.
I personally think the Tea Party actually manages to have less wackjobs than, say, the Anti-Israel or Anti-Bush protests that were common over the last ten years in my home (the San Francisco Bay Area). But, I'm a libertarian, so there's probably some portion of Tea Partiers you see as nutcases that I actually agree with. Or maybe I'm somewhat blind to nutcases who share my views.
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I'm with Dan on this. I wish there was video of some of the separationists back in 1775, I'm certain they would yell with me, "No taxation without representation!" Then in the very next sentence say something like, "Keep your dirty government hands off my negro!" and I'd be like, "Wuhhhh...?"
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I don't know, when you've got Tom Tancredo getting a large round of applause for suggesting they bring back literacy tests for voting and Sarah Palin and Glen Beck being the most prominent standard bearers, I don't think you can count the nutballs as fringe.
The idea of the Tea Party is very appealing to me. I don't regard myself as actually having actual representation in congress. But the reality of them is that they are way too stupid, manipulated, and bigoted for me. They take issues that I believe need to be held in a complex understanding and turn them into facile emotional arguments that seem crafted towards whatever purpose the people directing them want. The biggest thing they've done is be a significant part of an effort to destroy open consideration of the problem of health care through shouting, lies, and ignorant anger. And this not only hurts me somewhat, it hurts our country and it especially hurts the people who belong to the Tea Party. The rising costs of health care is the thing that is taking more and more out of their paycheck, not taxes, and they are standing directly in the way of anyone doing anything about this.
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quote:I personally think the Tea Party actually manages to have less wackjobs than, say, the Anti-Israel or Anti-Bush protests that were common over the last ten years in my home
We could do a sort of a Wackjob Prominence Index. I saw some pretty nutty BU$$$$H=HITLER puppet shows back when but it is really, really, really hard for me to imagine that the tea party isn't succeeding valiantly in this category.
I mean, this is a movement that would willingly let Tom Tancredo in as a speaker.
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I dunno, I think a literacy test might be fun, it'd have the same problems the last slew had, it would disenfranchise some of their fellow conservatives.
Of course it would take the vote away from immigrants, so I'd never actually approve of it.
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There is a certain amount of irony of them cheering a political literacy test that would likely disenfranchise a significant section of the people cheering for it, and quite possibly their preferred candidate for President (Sarah Palin), but yeah, not only is it a really bad idea, but they were cheering "Yeah, we hate them stupid blacks and immigrants!"
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: I dunno, I think a literacy test might be fun, it'd have the same problems the last slew had, it would disenfranchise some of their fellow conservatives.
Of course it would take the vote away from immigrants, so I'd never actually approve of it.
Part of the problem with the literacy tests is that they were administered at the discretion of the election judges. Not everyone had to take them. White people didn't generally have to take them.
The more I read about the Tea Party movement the more I think we need to get serious about some sort of moderate counter movement. I don't even mean a liberal or progressive counter movement, but a counter movement that focuses on good governance - dialog, discussion, nuanced understanding of issues. Yeah... less with the fire. But when you consider what the other guys doing... that might add some fuel.
The Tea Party is really beginning to scare me. That movement is talking about the federal government as a threat to this society... the irony is, they are probably a much bigger threat!
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The more I read about the Tea Party movement the more I think we need to get serious about some sort of moderate counter movement. I don't even mean a liberal or progressive counter movement, but a counter movement that focuses on good governance - dialog, discussion, nuanced understanding of issues. Yeah... less with the fire. But when you consider what the other guys doing... that might add some fuel.
The Tea Party is really beginning to scare me. That movement is talking about the federal government as a threat to this society... the irony is, they are probably a much bigger threat!
I was actually there for the rally. It was fun. Theatrics abound, but it was largely a coherent push saying that we need more revenue (taxes, I'm not afraid to say the word) and less cuts. It just wasn't a coherent organization. We had unions, colleges, progressive organizations, and others all show up. But being there I can actually attest that yes, the rally WAS quite a bit larger than the Tea Party's that was held shortly beforehand. They may have under-estimated the tea party and over estimated the 'new revenue coalition' but we had an undisputably larger number of people. (Though some of the spin I've heard is that we were just a collection of students, the jobless, and hippies and not real tax payers. But because Washington State goes by a sales tax, I think that argument is largely bunk, being as we do pay for things.)
Anyway, I agree that there needs to be more work done on a movement of nuanced dialogue and understanding. I've gotten involved with some groups that do that, and the difference it makes for the legislators is amazing. The look of relief on their faces as we give them words of encouragement and support is wonderful. They tell us stories of the hate mail and death threats they get (the legislative assistants) and reaffirm how glad they are that they've got some folks out there willing to stick with them through the tough fights. Some of their horror stories are terrible. Tea partiers have stormed their offices, screamed at them, left the vulgar messages, damaged their personal property, dropped wet teabags on their desks, and did other forms of disrespect.
And to be fair, our "side" (Those being anyone non-tea party. Moderate republicans included.) has still been fairly disrespectful. Granted, less disrespectful, but they still come into their offices with lists of demands without alternatives, make careless assertions without a respect for the process, and leave the representatives feeling like they've been put between a rock and a hard place. Either they infuriate their supporters and lose them or they further the invective of the tea party.
So in short, yeah. I'm completely down with a counter-movement.
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The more I read about the Tea Party movement the more I think we need to get serious about some sort of moderate counter movement. I don't even mean a liberal or progressive counter movement, but a counter movement that focuses on good governance - dialog, discussion, nuanced understanding of issues. Yeah... less with the fire. But when you consider what the other guys doing... that might add some fuel.
The Tea Party is really beginning to scare me. That movement is talking about the federal government as a threat to this society... the irony is, they are probably a much bigger threat!
I was actually there for the rally. It was fun. Theatrics abound, but it was largely a coherent push saying that we need more revenue (taxes, I'm not afraid to say the word) and less cuts. It just wasn't a coherent organization. We had unions, colleges, progressive organizations, and others all show up. But being there I can actually attest that yes, the rally WAS quite a bit larger than the Tea Party's that was held shortly beforehand. They may have under-estimated the tea party and over estimated the 'new revenue coalition' but we had an undisputably larger number of people. (Though some of the spin I've heard is that we were just a collection of students, the jobless, and hippies and not real tax payers. But because Washington State goes by a sales tax, I think that argument is largely bunk, being as we do pay for things.)
Anyway, I agree that there needs to be more work done on a movement of nuanced dialogue and understanding. I've gotten involved with some groups that do that, and the difference it makes for the legislators is amazing. The look of relief on their faces as we give them words of encouragement and support is wonderful. They tell us stories of the hate mail and death threats they get (the legislative assistants) and reaffirm how glad they are that they've got some folks out there willing to stick with them through the tough fights. Some of their horror stories are terrible. Tea partiers have stormed their offices, screamed at them, left the vulgar messages, damaged their personal property, dropped wet teabags on their desks, and did other forms of disrespect.
And to be fair, our "side" (Those being anyone non-tea party. Moderate republicans included.) has still been fairly disrespectful. Granted, less disrespectful, but they still come into their offices with lists of demands without alternatives, make careless assertions without a respect for the process, and leave the representatives feeling like they've been put between a rock and a hard place. Either they infuriate their supporters and lose them or they further the invective of the tea party.
So in short, yeah. I'm completely down with a counter-movement.
Just to be clear, Alcon said there needed to be a moderate counter-movement. What you attended could not, by any stretch of one's imagination, be considered a moderate movement. More power to you for expressing your opinion and exercising your right to free speech and public assembly. But it's clearly a progressive/liberal counter-movement.
Whether or not that's actually what Alcon meant, I certainly don't know.
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quote: we need more revenue (taxes, I'm not afraid to say the word) and less cuts.
Would a good way to show you are in favor of higher taxes be to show up with a large amount of money collected from the group and say please take this from us and use it for whatever you want? or even mention a specific program? You would definitely get a lot of press coverage if you did that
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Personally, I'm in favor of higher taxes on the rich. They pay a remarkably small share of their total wealth in tax.
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quote: They pay a remarkably small share of their total wealth in tax.
Yet they pay an overwhelming share of taxes. The top 1% pay 39% of taxes, the top 25% pay 86% of taxes, and the top 50% pay 97% of taxes. How much of their wealth should we sieze and redistribute? Anything above $500,000 should be taxed at 100%? EDIT: and you did mention 'wealth' which is different than income. My parents have owned their home for over 40 years and have set aside a large chunk for retirement. If you consider their 'wealth' then they would be taxed at a very high rate even though their actual income is relatively low.
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quote:Yet they pay an overwhelming share of taxes.
That doesn't matter. If they're paying an overwhelming share of taxes and still pay fewer taxes as a percentage of wealth than the middle class, they aren't paying enough taxes.
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quote: That doesn't matter. If they're paying an overwhelming share of taxes and still pay fewer taxes as a percentage of wealth than the middle class, they aren't paying enough taxes.
You keep saying wealth, do you mean wealth or do you mean income?
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He means wealth. I don't think he's actually done the calculation of what that would entail. He probably also hasn't read the studies of the serious detrimental effects even small wealth taxes have had.
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quote:Originally posted by DarkKnight: Yet they pay an overwhelming share of taxes. The top 1% pay 39% of taxes, the top 25% pay 86% of taxes, and the top 50% pay 97% of taxes.
Your post must have been cut off. Surely you see that those figures make little sense without the percentage of how much total wealth the top 1% and so on have. Surely it must be a technical error with the board, and not you leaving out necessary information.
Because if the top 1% owned 30% of all the wealth, then paying 39% of the taxes isn't all that outrageous. You need to show the numbers where the top 1% only have 5%, or whatever you claim they possess.
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quote: Your post must have been cut off. Surely you see that those figures make little sense without the percentage of how much total wealth the top 1% and so on have. Surely it must be a technical error with the board, and not you leaving out necessary information.
Your tone isn't necessary. I am guessing you mean income, we don't tax wealth. You can be very wealthy yet have a much smaller proprotional amount of income. Such as a married couple, who were middle class their entire lives, saved and invested wisely, own their home, and created a sizable nest egg. They could have a great deal of wealth yet much smaller income.
quote: Because if the top 1% owned 30% of all the wealth, then paying 39% of the taxes isn't all that outrageous. You need to show the numbers where the top 1% only have 5%, or whatever you claim they possess.
I didn't make any claim on how much wealth is in the hands of the top 1%. Wealth is not income.
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No, true. That's why I'd rather tax wealth, to be honest with you. But until we get around to doing that, I'm okay with taxing the heck out of the income of the people with the most wealth.
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quote: Your post must have been cut off. Surely you see that those figures make little sense without the percentage of how much total wealth the top 1% and so on have. Surely it must be a technical error with the board, and not you leaving out necessary information.
Your tone isn't necessary.
Apparently, neither is is sufficient for you to post the necessary information. Your figures are meaningless without the context of how much those top % make. If those top 1% earners earned 40% of all the earnings made by the whole country, would you still say that they should pay less than 39% of all the taxes the whole country pays?
If the number isn't 40%, you have to tell us what it is, so we can evaluate the 39% figure in the proper context.
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I mean wealth, DK. Because when discussing whether it's "fair" to tax the rich at such a high level, the holdings they already have must be considered in such a discussion. As has been noted, direct wealth taxes haven't always worked out well (not least because of rampant dishonesty). But I think using wealth as a measure of affordability when computing a "fair" income tax makes perfect sense.
If the top 1% has 30% of the wealth and paid just 40% of the taxes in 2007 -- just to use some numbers that were thrown out -- I don't see a problem. Especially since the top 1% of earners made 49% of all income in 2007, according to Saez. In fact, that seems a bit regressive for me, given that (as you've noted) that 30% is certainly a larger-than-fair share of wealth when you think about all those middle-class people who've scrimped and saved for years to buy their assets. (Note, by the way, that the top 1% actually have 51% of all non-primary-home wealth, which again doesn't surprise me in the least. No doubt a fair number of those middle-class scrimpers are "millionaires" because they bought a house for $40K and watched it appreciate.) Let's also note that the situation gets a bit more dire when you talk about the top 5%, instead of the top 1%; the top 5% owns 92% of all wealth in the country, makes 65% of all income, and pays just 55% of the taxes.
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quote:Could you outline a little a way of taxing wealth that you think would work?
Sadly, no. If I ever think of one, I'll let you know. In an ideal world, though, that's what we'd tax. Money sitting in a yacht is money that's not doing anything useful.
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