Teabaggers are stupid: this is what I confirmed by attending a Tea Party event on Tax Day in Las Vegas, which I previously wrote about here and here.
They, of course, would react with the usual “What, you think we're stupid because we believe in yada yada yada just because you don't agree?” No, I don't. I think they're stupid because they're stupid. I've no problem with conservatives; I have a problem with people whose entire position is based on lies, lies that could be trivially disproven by a ten-year-old with a computer. I have a problem with them when they refuse to listen to the facts, when they continue to insist, despite all evidence, that Fox News reports the truth.
These people have created a toxic environment in our public discussion, an environment where a politician can say something on television that is empirically, factually incorrect, and when challenged on it by the interviewer, say, “Well, that‘s fine. You and I can have a disagreement about that.” (J.D. Hayworth, running for Senate in Arizona.)
The bank bailout (which, it should be remembered, was a Bush Administration measure) was “more like a trillion dollar black hole” only if a black hole sucks stuff in and then spits it back out with interest. While stabilizing the economy and preventing a depression.
This sign is also adorned with the gratuitous Founding Father quotes the teabaggers love to abuse, trying to appropriate some legitimacy for themselves.
This fellow was entirely too proud of the “clever” discovery that OBAMA can spell out “One Big-Ass Mistake, America.”
But I think the shirt on the left is the most amusing: “Educated Fox News Fan.” I mean, is there such a thing? Can there be? Wouldn't an education help someone see through the lies and the preconceived narrative?
Kenneth Wegner is running for Congress in Nevada's 1st District, which includes most of Las Vegas. Mr. Wegner is not a recent Tea Party invention: he has run for this seat and won the Republican primary twice before.
The 1st District seat has been held by Democrat Shelley Berkley since 1999. Barack Obama took the district by 64% in 2008; Kerry by 57% in 2004; and Gore by 56% in 2000. John Ensign did hold the seat for a while before running for Senate, but the bottom line is that this is not a competitive race and Mr. Wegner is unlikely to win.
This campaign sign is ridiculous: “Put America back to work, Balance the budget, Become energy independent.” That's a list of goals, not plans. If I say “World peace, end crime, eliminate disease,” will you vote for me?
Judging from his website, though, Mr. Wegner isn't completely crazy. By Republican Congressional standards, not very crazy at all (consider Michele Bachmann). I wonder if he's a decent guy stuck in the unfortunate position of needing to pander to the lunatic fringe. In the unlikely event that he ever wins, I wonder if he will stick to his stated support for a two-term limit for members of Congress. The Nevada primary is tomorrow. UPDATE: Mr. Wegner won the primary.
I spoke to this guy at length. He's not very bright: “Jail me for no health care? Change it back!”
Um, no. No one is going to be jailed for not getting health insurance, nor for refusing to pay the fine. It makes a good Fox News sound bite, but it's an outright lie, as the text of the law would tell him if he bothered to look it up.
He also said that he is registered to vote as a Democrat, because when Obama comes to collect up all the guns, they're going to start with Republicans, and he'll have advance warning so he can escape to the hills.
Since becoming president, Obama has done exactly one thing with regard to gun rights: sign a bill expanding gun rights. While it's true that some of his statements prior to running for president are troubling, he hasn't shown any interest at all in pursuing them, nor has Congress shown any interest in going along with him on it.
Remember, back in April, when a bunch of loonies had “armed march” protests where they got as close to Washington, DC as legally possible while openly carrying weapons? They had their little demonstration on National Park Service land, and the only reason it was legal was that Obama made it legal. Before, under the Republicans, their protest would have been illegal. These idiots had an anti-Obama protest in support of gun rights that was only legal because Obama signed a bill expanding their gun rights.
This is the kind of idiocy that bothers me about these people.
This sign doesn't even make sense. I guess the point is supposed to be that global warming is so ridiculous that we shouldn't be surprised if Tipper Gore wants to blame it on rock music.
Younger people might not be familiar with the Tipper reference or the PMRC, but they certainly are familiar with the Parental Advisory stickers that resulted from that whole fiasco.
Note also the tea bags inexplicably hanging from the sign.
The message of this nice fellow's (courageous) costume is that taxes are so high, he can't even afford clothes to wear.
His taxes, of course, are lower than they have been at any point in his lifetime, thanks to Obama's unprecedented tax cuts – but he's not going to let facts get in the way of a good costume. Presumably under Bush and the Republicans his taxes were so high that he couldn't even afford the barrel outfit and thus couldn't leave home to protest without being arrested.
I complimented him on his courage for coming out dressed like this, and he replied that he'd been dressing this way every day since Obama took office. Those lower taxes are just awful, I know.
The iconic image of the poor man so burdened by taxes that he can't afford clothes and must cover himself with a barrel, originating in the early 20th century in political cartoons by Will B. Johnstone, may be unfamiliar to the younger generations, but that's not the target audience for the Tea Party.
These are my favorite pictures from the Tax Day Tea Party event. For the photographers: all were shot on Kodak BW400CN chromogenic black-and-white film, with a fixed-length 35mm f/2.0 lens on a Nikon F100. This was the first roll of BW400CN I've ever shot, and I'm quite pleased with the results. I processed it myself.
Some of the rhetoric is the standard “Throw The Bums Out” stuff. Harry Reid is not only the Senate Majority Leader for the Democrats, he's a senator from Nevada, so he received plenty of attention in that regard.
But look at the sign on the right in this picture. It calls out three “bums” to “throw out”: Harry Reid, Shelley Berkeley (D-NV-1), and Dina Titus (D-NV-3), Democrats all. They apparently don't want to dump Republican Representative Lee Terry from Nevada's 2nd District, nor even Republican Senator John Ensign, despite his ethical and possibly legal entanglements.
The real message: “Throw the Democratic bums out.”