I know I'm a language geek, but really - that whole memo needed a [sic] stamp on it.

That's good advice, but on the other hand Sean Hannity is reinforcing the TeaBaggers' role as " Tim McVeigh Wannabees ".

http://www.dailykos.com/tv/w/002641/

Just sayin', with so many conflicting instructions, it must be tough being a TeaBagger these days.

Hey, at least he's making an attempt to reign in the crazy and to try to make things a little more civil (no derogatory language, etc.). If I were in charge of the Tea Party folks (ha!), I would definitely be sending out a memo like this (albeit with better grammar). Someone must have noticed that they have a bit of an image problem these days, what with all the stories about how Tea Partiers behaved at the health care protest in DC (and, um, this...)

I love whoever coined the word for misspelled teabag protest signs:

TEABONICS

Because descent is the greatest form of patriotic, you morans!

"then to have to remind your folks to not let their young children carry signage around that drops the F-bomb on the President"

Would've been nice when Bush was President also.

I like the sign that reads "secession now!" from your link, Carla. How exactly is the teaparty supposed to pull that one off and what would that map look like?

Not much different than hanging GW Bush and Sara Palin in effigy, showing portraits of Bush with a gunshot hole in his head, smashing the windows in the Multco Republican headquarters, and on and on and on...

Would've been nice when Bush was President also.

When they did that in FL, a 16 yr old got arrested.

story

Chicken and egg, Kari and Carla. You have idiots in your party and so do I. That defense is just as weak when we use it, as it is when you do. Our parties are both less concerned about improving our public image than we are about justifying it by pointing fingers. Deep down, we know that self-righteous anger can be harnessed and used to move the ball down the field. We turn a blind eye, rationalize when we can...and distance ourselves when it hits too close to home. That's the ugly side of politics and it certainly isn't the sole property of either party.

In regard to the posted memo, you castigate the writer for admonishing the attendees to behave decently and to not embarrass the group. That doesn't play into your agenda (that would prefer republicans act as awful as possible) so you criticize that such a memo would even need to be written is proof that people participating are anti-social hooligans looking for a building to blow up or an effigy to ignite.

Criticize, justify, rationalize away....but you know I'm correct.

Carla:

I think we both live in glass houses.

The diff is the dems in congress didnt ID with the lefty lunatics like code pink the way the GOP IDs w/tea baggers.

Also Bush had anyone who looked like an opponent expelled from his rallies....

A couple of interesting Washington Post columns---finally, Republicans have decided that serious looks at the current situation are in order.

Dan Quayle on Tea Party:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2010/04/01/ST2010040102187.html?sid=ST2010040102187

The tea partiers are concerned, above all, with fiscal matters and national security; they are not focused on the social issues that bring together other parts of the Republican coalition.

This was written by a couple of Reaganites:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/31/AR2010033102630.html?sid=ST2010040102187

To the contrary, as the chief political architect of the Bush presidency, Rove was instrumental in directing an administration most notable for its enormous expansion of national government.

The Tea Party and the Obama/Democratic "health care reform" have something in common. Both are fundamentally flawed. The difference is that there is some chance, slight though it be, for the latter to be reworked into something halfway decent; whereas, there is little prospect of anything worthwhile coming out of the former. This is not to say the Tea Party will go nowhere. Hitler was once considered some kind of crackpot when he was ranting and raving in the streets of Vienna and Munich, and you know what happened there.

Mike H.: why do you describe Code Pink as lunatic?

There've been a couple of programs this week (Tavis Smiley Weds. night on PBS; Per Fagereng's "Fight The Empire" yesterday on KBOO) which told of the issues and advocacy that MLK Jr. was taking up in his last couple of years- I'd say Code Pink takes the same types of positions, albeit with a different style of advocacy.

And the gathering in D.C. which really scared 'em was the prospect of the Poor People's Campaign in 1968- scared them so much that the U.S. government did not let MLK Jr. get out of Memphis alive.

How would you like it if I called you a cock sucker? Show some respect and drop the teabagger line and refer to them as the tea party!

There is always an attempt here at to make a false equivalence between the tactics of the fascist right and the insurgent left.

After Obama, weak as he is, has stolen two elections, run roughshod over the fourth amendment to the extent of the previous administration, normalized torture to the extent of the previous administration, and transferred money from the middle class to the elites (OK, I'll give you that one) . . .

then you can start logically comparing the tactics protesting war criminal Bush to the tactics protesting weak tea Obama.

Until then statements like, "well, we both have loons in our respective parties" are laughable. They are like relentless Berserkers talking to Christian Democrats. It's a nutty comparison, not a comparison at all.

Sure there are crazy people on both sides. I've been to Anti-War rallies where VP Cheney had snipers protecting him and state troopers went around shooting footage of the crowd. Guess what, no effigies of anyone hung or burning nor was there any violent rhetoric whether visual or spoken. No one carried guns, accept those pointed at the protesters. Sure there were members of congress their like Dick Durbin. We all shared the same message that we didn't like the Iraq War. It should be noted that I am no pacifist, I embrace the second amendment, and neither were a bulk of the people in the audience. We were just responsible adults voicing disagreement.

Then we look at the teabaggers getting egged on from the balcony of the US Capitol. People spitting on members of congress and yelling baby killer from the floor of the house. It hearkens back to when there were crazy violent liberals in the late sixties and early seventies. Unlike now when the Teabaggers and GOP embrace, they weren't friends of the Democratic mainstream. Now though it seems like the right wing wackos are friends of the GOP mainstream and are part of their message machine.

I went down to a GOP candidate forum last week and I have to say the wingnuts are being embraced. The John Birch Society, a group that GWB senior repudiated in the 70s, was a sponsor. The inflammatory rhetoric of secession and revolution was there. Then I have to look at the bodies that have been piling up. From George Tiller to the Knoxville Unitarian Church the right is pretty good at killing liberals. The guy who just flew a plane into an IRS building was surely expressing that he had been (T)axed (E)nough (A)lready.

So don't try and tell me that there is moral equivalence with a straight face.

"So don't try and tell me that there is moral equivalence with a straight face."

Spoken like a true fanatic who believes the end justifies the means and that the transgressions of one's enemy are far worse than the measured and morally superior reactions from themselves.

As long as you continue to believe that your opponent is morally bankrupt and far worse than you are, you can justify anything you do in response. As long as you kill just one person less than your enemy, steal one less dollar, or tell one less lie...you can claw your way to the moral high ground victoriously unimpeded by reality.

Hey Dan and Mike - feel free to post a comment when:

-- A liberal walks into a church and opens fire on the congregation because they're all a bunch of conservatives and he wants to kill as many right-wingers as he can.

-- A liberal walks into another church and shoots a doctor in the head.

-- A liberal shoots three police officers who come to his door because he fears the president is going to take his guns away.

-- A liberal walks into the Holocaust Museum and shoots a guard because he hates Jews and believes it's time to start a race war.

-- A liberal walks into the Pentagon and opens fire because he believes the government is plotting against its citizens.

-- A pack of gun-loving liberals forms a plot to kill law-enforcement officers and start a revolution.

@#$% hypocrites.

Carla: Just wondering, with your well known proclivity for such behavior, you thought it would be appropriate if perhaps we used a sexual reference when referring to you in writing - "Carla the cocksucker."

Would that be OK? Would that be much different than how you refer to the Tea Party crowd?

I know you think you are damaging them in some way by doing this, or that you are getting under their skin in some way. But you really only make yourself look like a very shallow dope.

And with all the examples of protests by the left getting way out of hand and violent, perhaps your side might want to send out similar pre-protest instructions.

Scott in Damascus...you just proved my point. It could not have been done any more succinctly or earnestly. Although you left out Tim McVeigh. I can only assume you got a bit frothy at the mouth and it shorted out your computer.

It's not like we republicans have a secret underground lair with a shrine to these murderers and criminals...any more than you have a shrine to Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot and the millions that were slaughtered in the name of communism and socialism.

I'm not sure why anyone should consider "cocksucker" as an insult.

If the Tea Party crowd is ashamed to be called "teabaggers", they should be angry at the founders of their movement for choosing that name, not Carla.

You liberals amaze me. You can send your mindless zombies to G8 summits, burn half the town down, and it's just a "peaceful" protest. Tea Party Patriots rally together in DC, Searchlight NV, and suddenly it's Tim McVey. Well, just a few fun facts about liberals. 1. Have you ever noticed how after a TPP rally, we leave the place cleaner than it was before? Don't believe me? Well, check out the sets of pictures from after your "Dear Leader's" swearing in. http://goodsensepolitics.blogspot.com/2009/09/compare-garbage-after-tea-party-vs.html

2> Your "intelligent" liberal "profit" Al Gore, aka "The Goracle", did you know he's big buddies with Fred Phelps. You know, the Fred Phelps, of the Westboro Baptist Church? It's true. They were such good buddies, that The Gore's went to private fund raisers the were help at the Phelps house! Heck, Fred Phelps attended the 93 & 97 Clinton/Gore inaugurations at the private invitation of Al Gore himself! They campaigned for Al Gore & was his personal delegate in Kansas! Want to know why Fred Phelps LOVED Al Gore? Because Al Gore hates homosexuals so much. "Phelps supported Al Gore in the 1988 Democratic Party primary election. In his 1984 Senate race, Gore opposed a “gay bill of rights” and stated that homosexuality was not something that “society should affirm”. Phelps has stated that he supported Gore because of these earlier comments. According to Phelps, members of the Westboro Baptist Church helped run Gore’s 1988 campaign in Kansas. Phelps’ son, Fred Phelps Jr., hosted a Gore fundraiser, which Al and Tipper Gore attended, at his home in Topeka. Fred Phelps, Jr. served as a Gore delegate to the 1988 Democratic National Convention" One last little thing. Fred Phelps is a REGISTERED DEMOCRAT! So, you see, Fred Phelps is a LEFT WING NUT JOB! And you thought he was a conservative. Learn something new every day. http://fredphelps.com/ http://www.lcrga.com/news/Fred-Phelps-Al-Gore-Westboro-Baptist-Church-God-Hates-Fags/200010251159.shtml PS Take a look at the picture of the Phleps & the Gores all huggin & chummy. Gotta love that liberal love. Chew on that for a while, you "useful idiots". (Look up the term, then look in the mirror.

I recommend that Dan E. take a political science class. There's a huge difference between European-style socialism and the policies of Mao, Stalin, or Pol Pot.

Public schools, fire departments, Medicare, Social Security, public libraries, the post office--these are all "socialist" institutions. A little bit of socialism is not a bad thing.

Luckyjoe, have you ever seen a mainstream Democratic politician address the anti-globalization anarchists you are referring to? Let's think for a moment, who was president back in 1999 when the massive protests occurred in Seattle. I'll give you a hint: his wife is the current secretary of state.

Fred Phelps might be a registered Democrat, but that doesn't mean much, since it just means he checked a box on a form. I'm not terribly interested in debating the position of a former Democratic politician in 1988, but I would note that Fred Phelps protested the Clinton-Gore ticket in 1992. (I think it's clear that Mr. Phelps's views have, shall we say, become increasingly extreme as the years have passed.)

If he protested it, why was he personally invited by the Gores to attend to inaugurations? You haven't mentioned about the way you Earth loving libs left the DC mall strewn with mountains of trash? Why do you want to hurt the Earth so much? Also, where was your outrage when Obama's personal army of goons, The "purple shirted people beaters", aka SEIU, savagely beat an innocent black man and called him the "N" word at a town hall meeting in St Louis last summer? Where was your cries of racism then? Your outrage at the violence? You have none, because Obama's SEIU army was doing exactly what it's supposed to do, beat down & shut up anyone who dares defy "Dear Leader". And hey, they beat up a conservative black man, so that makes it cool.

"Beaverbrook", in Vancouver, is talking about taking his "Bring Back Dueling" campaign nationwide. Does anyone here (besides Sal) get it yet?

Hint: it answers every point raised. What a coinky-dink.

Posted by: Rulial | Apr 2, 2010 2:11:46 PM

I'm not sure why anyone should consider "cocksucker" as an insult.

Or douchebag. Perhaps the resident expert can explain. Or Lenny Bruce.

Hey, hypocritical dickheads, wake up! I've posted it here at least 10 times now, but you can't get logic the nice way, can you? You are the centrist party of political speak that has been policing everybody for the last 2 decades to make sure that language hurts no one's feelings. You have killed inspiration with abandon in the name of PC correctness with glee. "Teabagger" is an insult because they say it is. That is the world you created. Sucks, don't it? Maybe think next time you realize you have enough in numbers in the herd to trample something, just to prove you can.

A lot comes down to character and personality. Took Pat and I about one discussion to improve our language. 4 months later Kari, Carla and the trolls are still flinging poo at each other. Grow up or get real. Guns, not poo. Or you could live with the policies you've thought were so good for the rest of us. Fucking hypocrites. Almost ruined my favorite moment of the year. 3pm Good Friday. So joyful.

Carla: You really got the Beckites stirred up with this one.

Luckyjoe is full of bullshit!

FALSE CLAIM: There's video evidence of SEIU members beating Gladney from the town hall meeting.

Fact: It was an SEIU staffer --a disabled minister--who was assaulted. When the video begins, the Reverend Elston McCowan is already on the ground. Rev. McCowan is also seen clutching his shoulder, which was dislocated in the fall, once he is finally able to get up after the attack. He also sustained a chipped bone during the fall.

FACT: Even Gladney, in the video, doesn't claim this happened. He only claims his hands were "hit"--which has been disputed--and he never claims that this took place before the disabled Reverend was hit.

FACT: Videos taken that night, edited and unedited, do not support Gladney's claims. In fact it's pretty obvious that the person who has been pushed to the ground -- on his back -- is a wearing a purple SEIU shirt--and is not Kenneth Gladney. Teabaggers have consistently confused Rev. Elston McCowan with Gladney, a conservative activist who has said he was attacked by some of those arrested as he handed out yellow flags with "Don't tread on me" printed on them.

Fact: Newspaper reports from that night cited no witness accounts of the incident, only Gladney's story.

FALSE CLAIM: Gladney was rushed to the hospital after the alleged 'attack'.

Fact: Gladney left the protest upright, walking and talking--and conducting live television interviews.

Fact: Luckyjoe is a lying tool.

Carla...I don't excuse anything. In fact, I'm probably more critical of those things done by conservatives because they reflect poorly on me as an individual. So you are stereotyping. Own it.

You don't see me trying to split hairs between Bill Ayers and Pol Pot. Or saying that a library or fire station is inherently socialist...and therefore socialist systems and socialist leaders are excused because to disagree with socialism is to hate libraries and fire stations.

No excuses. We have shitheads in both our parties. When will we get to the point when we clean our own houses instead of looking for a worse example (and we will ALWAYS find it if we look hard enough) to avoid the hard work that comes with introspection?

You are the liar. Just like a typical lib. Faced with facts, they lie. Six people arrested in August outside a raucous town hall meeting in south St. Louis County have been charged with misdemeanor ordinance violations.

Six people arrested in August outside a raucous town hall meeting in south St. Louis County have been charged with misdemeanor ordinance violations.

"The six, including a Post-Dispatch reporter, had attended a demonstration outside an Aug. 6 forum called by U.S. Rep. Russ Carnahan, D-St. Louis, at Bernard Middle School in Mehlville to discuss health care reform.

The charges were filed Tuesday by the St. Louis County counselor’s office, which prosecutes misdemeanor ordinance violations in unincorporated areas. All are to appear in court Jan. 21.

Elston McCowan, 47, of St. Louis, and Perry Molens, 50, of De Soto, each were charged with assaulting a person and interfering with police. They are accused of scuffling with and injuring Kenneth Gladney, a demonstrator with the Tea Party, a group generally opposed to Democrats’ universal health care proposals.

How about this story: "Two and a half months after 39-year-old Kenneth Gladney (right) was beaten in St. Louis by SEIU thugs outside Bernard Middle School, charges have finally been filed against six individuals, according to an article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The charges come 15 days after I asked the question, Why No Charges in Kenneth Gladney Beating Case? and mentioned the fact that the police report had already shown up at BigGovernment.com.

Notable among those charged by St. Louis County Counselor Patricia Redington is Post-Dispatch reporter Jake Wagman. Rather than being charged with assault, however, Wagman stands charged with failing to obey commands by police officers on the scene “to leave the site of an ongoing disturbance.”

Wagman is joined on the charge sheet by the following, according to the Post-Dispatch:

* Elston McCowan, 47, of St. Louis, and Perry Molens, 50, of De Soto, were each charged with assault and interfering with police;

* Javonne Spitz, 51, of O’Fallon, Mo., and Brian Matthews, 34, of Glendale, also were charged with interfering with an officer; and

* Cheryl Johner, 55, of Arnold, was charged with assault and destruction of property.

Why would the DA make up a lie just to cover little ole me? If it didn't happen, why are they charged? Liar. Just a plain ole garden variety liar. Sucks to me you.

PS Did you see that your poor sick "Reverend" Elston McCowan was one of the arrested? God, you're an idiot.

I like that they use the term "teabagger" I hope they use it more. Notice the echo chamber here? It's because the site is only relevant to the hyterical hate machine, you know why? Because they don't respect anybody. The more they use derogatory language to insult, the more folks they turn off -- you can't take them seriously because the first thing out of their mouth is hate and vitriol.

No witnesses? http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/08/eye_witness_to_st_louis_scuffl.asp Every lie you spread, I will back up with facts. I can do this all day. You're just another lying "useful" idiot. Look up the term & look in the mirror.

Keep it coming Carla, give in to your anger and hate. We love it.

You can cite whatever articles you want. You can cut and paste until your fingers are sore. It doesn't change the fact that you are stereotyping that republicans don't care what their own party does.

It doesn't make me angry. It just makes you look one-dimensional and unable to function in a rational, normal atmosphere. Blind rage and hatred is ugly no matter whose party it supports.

Feel free to reply that you only behave that way because republicans are so (insert horrible and shocking example here).

Here's a nice poster for everyone to denounce:

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/03/31/18643470.php

It reads "Cops Under Control or Cops Under Flowers?"

anon -- unbelievable. Have you ever looked at modern Anarchist ideology? It is both left and right -- they push for a sort of socialist ideology but, without government to "regulate" it. Weird, scary stuff.

Or saying that a library or fire station is inherently socialist...and therefore socialist systems and socialist leaders are excused because to disagree with socialism is to hate libraries and fire stations.

But that's my point. The "socialism" the Tea Party folks are complaining about is no more socialist than public libraries, public schools, or public fire departments. To compare an extremely moderate, Mitt Romney-style health care system to Pol Pot or Stalin is about as idiotic as claiming that 9/11 was a Bush conspiracy.

Kurt, sorry to ruin your Good Friday. I try to avoid using the word "teabagger" because it sounds like a petty insult. But it's not. The reference to "teabagging" is one they came up with themselves, and then later decided they didn't like.

Here are pictures from 2/27. Here is a post on Salon from 4/14, quoting Tea Party activists as wanting to "tea bag Obama".

To say that "teabaggers" is a liberal insult is a revision of history. And I hate it when people try to revise history.

Rurial wrote:

To compare an extremely moderate, Mitt Romney-style health care system to Pol Pot or Stalin is about as idiotic as claiming that 9/11 was a Bush conspiracy.

What makes you think 9/11 was not a Bush conspiracy?

It seems it would be very difficult after reading the above comments from supporters of the Tea Party to come to any conclusion other than they are truly gentlemen (and ladies?) endowed with the finest breeding. Their abhorrence of profanity and other forms of crude language is truly admirable as is the courtesy they have shown to the people they disagree with. Such eloquence and elegant prose. Undoubtedly graduates of the finest schools. Surely, others outside the party will come to the conclusion they will need to reconsider their opinions of the party's membership.

Posted by: Redneck Teabagger | Apr 2, 2010 3:31:49 PM

Keep it coming Carla, give in to your anger and hate. We love it.

We thought Lord Vader had gone with Cheney...

To say that "teabaggers" is a liberal insult is a revision of history. And I hate it when people try to revise history.

Then, by all means, clear up a point of confusion. When does history become concretized in its "correct" form? History is a science like any other, and its assessments are revised as theories are replaced. History doesn't happen, it's an interpretation of events. THAT'S what you mean (giving you credit). To say the holocaust never happened isn't actually revisionist history, it's denying events. That's an entirely different kettle of fish.

You miss my point, though. I happen to agree with you. But then you and I wouldn't bring the language up as a major point of discussion, would we? As you say, as I was saying, we deal with it an move on to the point. What I was saying is that the people that want to make it a big hairy issue are the very ones that are always the "who feels it knows it" theory of PC correct speech. By their principles, they are being hypocrites. Or the "N word" is OK, because some blacks use it to refer to themselves.

Posted by: Carla Axtman | Apr 2, 2010 10:08:25 AM

Idiots abound. The difference is whether or not you choose to associate and defend your group's idiots.

And let me be the first to say that Carla doesn't suffer her side's idiots gladly!

Carla...baby...your strained and tempestuous relationship with facts has been well-documented on this site for a long time now. I'd hate for you to hurt yourself. Like water into wine, just believing and wanting something hard enough doesn't transform opinion into fact. It makes a nice story, and fun hyperbole on a blog....but your foray into journalistic objectivity was eerily similar to the Vatican's response to the charges of sexual abuse.

Have a Happy Easter. :)

Got to love the hypocracy of you Progressives. Rightfully so, you would call out anyone who used a demeaning, denigrating term for a minority, woman or group. However, when it suits your purpose you gleefully engage in the use of a demeaning and denigrating term merely because someone has different political idealology. Hate-mongers.

Anytime anyone is forced, under threat of imprisonment, to pay a portion of the earnings from their individual labor to the government, it is slavery. If you pay 25% of your labor earnings, you're a 25% slave. 40%, 40% slave. The founding fathers never intended Americans to pay taxes on the wages/earnings from their labor. Congress was only authorized to lay and collect taxes on commerce.

Kurt: You made that same argument on other threads. It was senseless there and its senseless here. Repeating it doesn't change a thing.

More senseless than every dittohead you have to engage? It's a straight-forward proposition. You refuse to address it because that's the way you handle issues like that. "I've ignored you before on this". Seriously, that's an answer?

Off-topic comment deleted--Editor

Awwwww...don't be like that, Carla. I know it is a staple of liberal rationalization, but try to grasp that anecdotes are a poor substitute for reality. Your articles are anectdotes. If I posted articles to "support" my position, they would be anecdotes too...and you would rightfully discredit them as such. Any third-grader can formulate an opinion and search the internet for an article to support their position. Compounded, anyone with an internet connection can write and post an article to be instantly parroted around the globe by people seeking to bolster their position.

Why are so many of the 'baggers so damn FAT? Is it the result of sitting around watching Faux Noise all day and stuffing their faces with Doritos?

These people are going to be a serious drain on the health care system in a few years, if they aren't already. We should adopt the public option and encourage as many of them as possible to OPT OUT.

@diamonback(sic) "Anytime anyone is forced, under threat of imprisonment, to pay a portion of the earnings from their individual labor to the government, it is slavery."

Carly, Kari, you know I have said this before, but I told you so. When you feed the witless trolls, this is where it inevitably devolves. I simply wish that you would live up to the mission statement that you yourselves created, that this would be a place for progressive discourse, rather than having to forever play whack-a-mole with such juvenalia.

Carla - Kurt: You made that same argument on other threads. It was senseless there and its senseless here. Repeating it doesn't change a thing.

Kurt Chapman - Like YOU Carla? you appear to be the Queen of Spades when it comes to senseless, inane repetition of statements merely to make them "correct".

See Carla (you community builder, you), unlike you I am able to admit when I have been wrong. Case in point the Social Security Trust Fund.

I WAS WRONG. I had posted that the Social Security Administration had lowered the date upon which the Trust Fund would be dipped into down to 2016. You facetiously denied that and drummed up internet hperbole in "support" of your incorrect assertion.

WELL I WAS WRONG - The Trust Fund wil not be dipped into in 2016. It is will dipped into in 2010. According to published reports late last week this year the Social Security system will pay out more in benefits than it takes in. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/business/economy/25social.html?hp

Off-topic comment deleted--Editor

I agree with Joe Hill. This site now rarely resembles the "place for progressives to gather round the water cooler it once was." For the kind of trollish asshattery I've been seeing around here lately (and I've been around for a while even if you've never seen me comment), I'd rather take myself to the cesspool that is the Oregonlive comments section.

Off-topic comment deleted--Editor

So, in an attempt to keep from getting deleted 3 times in a row ( none of the previous 2 comments deleted had profanity in them:

The uber left makes fun of the Tea Parties and minimizes them at their peril. I don't agree with many of their beliefs or tactics. I do, however listen to them as I believe our country is at an impasse similar to that of 1854. That was when two parties were unable to maintain enough respect for each other to prevent Harper's Ferry, senatorial beatings (by each other) and eventually a War of Secession.

I wonder how the Tea Partiers would handle the fact of Noam Chomsky having some sympathy for their movement?:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2zYaKXeyXE

Noam, with his usual degree of thoughtful analysis, understands from whence the anger arises.

Too bad Chomsky will never be a presence in most media (and not only because he's very old).

"The difference is whether or not you choose to associate and defend your group's idiots."

YOu mean like Charlie Rangel not paying his taxes, RObert Byrd being a KKK member, Tim Geithner running the IRS while not paying his taxes, nominating Daschle as HHS head while he's lobbying for the big pharmaceuticals and about every other sentence out of Joe Biden's mouth?

I

Calling people who disagree with your socialist ideas "teabaggers" is a disgusting sign of disrespect. Being a conservative I had to look up the reference, but liberals all knew the slang right? You will never get any respect from me until you treat others with opposing ideas with respect.

You liberals should be ashamed of yourselves for a number of reasons, but that was a really good example of liberal "progressive" moral values. Sick perverts.

Posted by: Carla Axtman | Apr 3, 2010 12:48:00 PM

"Kurt H": Had I "ignored" it before, then your point would make sense. It's been addressed on other threads. I see no need to do it over and over again.

No, you didn't. And "over and over again" can't be a mistake. You are simply lying to make a cheap point. That's where I part company, and that's where you'll find your karma in dodgy condition.

Posted by: Carla Axtman | Apr 3, 2010 1:34:40 PM

Joe Hill:

You're right. I have been feeding the trolls.

Feeding? You've managed to BE one. The first word in the title is designed to elicit an emotional reaction- trolling- but you won't discuss that.

And while we're on the subject of things you won't respond to, are you EVER going to address the way everyone associated with the TEA movement is a "teabagger", yet the casual observer is NEVER to infer that the trolls, ads for illegal drugs, services and outright fraud that shows up on BO has anything to do with BO?

Posted by: Kurt Chapman | Apr 3, 2010 3:34:37 PM

So, in an attempt to keep from getting deleted 3 times in a row ( none of the previous 2 comments deleted had profanity in them:

Better yet, could we have a little text in the sidebar that tells who the editor of the day is? I suggested to Bill B. a few months back, and it is painfully obvious now, that not everyone exercises the same standards in editing that Kari has over the years. To date, Carla's edits always seem to be spiteful and petty, while allowing all manner of spam. Off-topic only gets deleted if its about the topic she raised but won't discuss. Truly off-topic slides by every time, particularly if there's a link on it to Turkish porn.

Posted by: Kurt Chapman | Apr 3, 2010 3:00:43 PM

Off-topic comment deleted--Editor [paste "editor's" typical diatribe about "anonymous cowards" which obviously doesn't extend to editing]

Posted by: Stephen Amy | Apr 3, 2010 6:57:48 PM

I wonder how the Tea Partiers would handle the fact of Noam Chomsky having some sympathy for their movement?:

That probably depends a lot on how much one is thinking and how much one is barking like a rabid mongrel that someone strange is on the property.

Congrats. You've achieved your ideal audience. A few party loyalists, and some far right clowns to make it all seem logical. You really should go to hard clad- I mean BO issued- IDs. Surely 50 would suffice. There could be a parallel blog for the rabble, and, if we're really, really good, one might be selected as a notable comment.

I tried, now I'm cashing out. Have a better one.

To me there is a fundamental difference between derogatory terms that refer to a person based the color of their skin, or some other immutable trait, and making fun of them because of an ill-considered self-description based on affiliation. Teabaggers were perfectly content to be known as teabaggers until they realized the dual meaning of their self-description. Now they express moral outrage when people they have no problem insulting return the favor. And the folks who've made a career of critiquing our culture of victimology and political correctness suddenly find these codes useful when they are the targets of satire. The Republican Party has embraced the teabaggers because they don't have anywhere else to turn. They had their shot, twelve years of control of Congress, eight inthe White House, and their brand was so damaged that one of their own aimed that if they were dog food they would have been recalled. So they have rebranded.

I'm offended by Glen's faux outrage.

"You will never get any respect from me ...."

And yet, somehow, I'm still able to sleep at night.

Kari, thanks for the reply. I respect your limited time and the fact that Blue Oregon has limited income.

What I have seen implemented on some other boards is the individual option to ignore an individual. That would do it for me. It's not a matter of someone having a contrasting opinion, for me, as someone being so factually clueless (I gave an example above that is typical - very often people are quoting from the "founding fathers" when their last history course was as a sophomore in high school, and their immediate sources are Glen Beck and Regency imprints) as to be not worth the electrons needed to discuss.

I'm all about discussing whether Wyden can be moved to the left or if Kitzhaber can be made to explain his curious silence on measures 66 and 67. I'm not arguing for a particularly narrow ideological rigidity. I just think that when you get an onslaught of people from the right trying to hijack the dialogue and adding nothing to the dialogue except what can be found on the Fox empire, then Blue Oregon is loses its appeal for me as a place where I can discuss questions that are interesting to me with people that are interesting to me.

Thanks for listening.

As the grandchild of an elected official, I must say it is wrong to threaten anyone. As I understand it, a threat to an elected official is a crime. It certainly should be. Period.

Not only that, it looks like sheer mob mentality rather than any sort of positive political movement.

But maybe that is the point--people who want to live in a world where everyone is a fitting target to racist and other insults, spitting, physical assault.

It was wrong for anti-war protesters to blow up ROTC buildings to "protest the Vietnam War". Such people deserved to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Also true with any violence, vandalism, etc in 2010.

Namecalling is juvenile, so is spitting.

Anything which causes any onlooker to say, "Gee, I know teenagers more mature than that" does not advance anyone's political agenda.

It just looks like a temper tantrum.

Citizens have the right to expect a certain level of civility and protest any attempt to disrupt that civility.

All the people who attempted to shout down Cong. Schrader in his Salem Town Hall meeting may have created the unintended consequence of "re-elect Schrader --cast a vote to oppose such rudeness".

If people feel that way, blogging won't change their minds!

"To me there is a fundamental difference between derogatory terms that refer to a person based the color of their skin, or some other immutable trait, and making fun of them because of an ill-considered self-description based on affiliation."

The one thing they do have in common is the inability of the attacker to address an issue on the merits - On either side of the issue.

Okay, for everyone that was worried about having Healthcare shoved down your throats (as I was) go read page 340 of H.R. 3590.

At least for individuals, we won't have anything to worry about for now.

Okay, for everyone that was worried about having Healthcare shoved down your throats (as I was) go read page 340 of H.R. 3590.

At least for individuals, we won't have anything to worry about for now.

Sorry but you should check the meaning of a "TEABAGGER". You libs disgust me.