The Tea Party is just one big, drawn-out tantrum thrown by spoiled children in regards to the results of the last President election which, of course, was “stolen by ACORN.” Conservatives have made the claim- “You guys spent eight years kicking around Bush, now its you turn.” Now its “our turn?” What sort of petulance is that? The fact of the matter is, Americans, for the most part, are gracious losers. If it seems we’ve gotten a fair shake in the deal but come out short, that’s fine. In 2000, the candidate who received the most votes for President somehow didn’t become President. And that’s not me “not getting over it” or “Gore didn’t win Tennessee” or whatever. That’s a simple statement of fact. The candidate with the most votes was denied the White House. A group of nine unelected jurists- actually, let’s make that five- determined the outcome of that election. Simply a fact. How could that possibly be a “fair shake.” It can’t. George W. Bush got handed the White House on the most dubious of possibilities, and preceded to run hard to the right as if he was given a mandate, as if the actual results of the election did not even matter. So, of course we gave him shit. He proved that he deserved all the shit we gave him as well.

Now, here is Obama, who received a plurality of the votes, a decisively large margin of victory in the electoral college, and the other side hasn’t stopped braying about it since November 6th, 2008. The Republicans can’t sign on to anything- not one thing- that Obama supports, because they will be attacked from within their own party and be cannibalized as a result. Perhaps its time to move past the primary system, leave the ballot as wide open as possible with multiple candidates from each party on the general election. Because what this country needs is centrists, and not ideologues. What the current situation is is that we have a centrist in the White House up against a determined pack of ideologues, who would even reject legislation they sponsored themselves if it even looked like the President might be acceptable to it. Over the next twelve months, there is going to be no plausibly rationale, middle-of-the-ground legislation presented by the Republicans, because in all honesty, they don’t want Obama signing something they pass, otherwise they might get cast in a similar light as Charlie Crist who, as a Governor know s first-hand the fiscal plight his state- as pretty much all states- are in, and gave the President a quick hug for the fiscal lifeline tossed to Florida through the stimulus. That hug is now being used by his opponent in the Douchebag, I mean Republican primary. I’ve posted something similar before, but recently my constituional law professor said, “We reward cowardly behavior, and punish principled behavior by politicians A politician can take a courageous, principled stance, and voters will show them the door.” That’s a fact, jack.

Recently, I had a Twitter exchange- you all follow me on Twitter, right?- in which I posted this story about how Colorado Springs, that bastion of conservatism outside of Denver, in which the population adamantly refuses to pay any taxes, needs to match their level of services with their level of revenue. As such, streetlights will be on one-third of the time. Garbage cans will be removed from parks, replaced with signs encouraging people not to litter. Grass in public spaces will be watered every two weeks. Swimming pools and community centers are going to be shut down. I can only imagine how this city will look in six months to one years’ time, how attractive it will be to prospective businesses and homebuyers. As such, whatever small revenue there might be will disappear entirely. In response to this, a tea-bagger posted: “Obama see’s the writing on the wall.He’ll try to screw us as much asHEcan.” Obama did not “do” this to Colorado Springs- Colorado Springs did this to themselves. When I pointed this out, I was met with: “Obamas already got 14,000$$ of our money.His health plan woud have cost another trillion ECT.Wheres the $??TAXES!” Obviously, this indemnity is directed at Obama as he’s the figurehead of the national government, but Obama has not passed through any tax package. In fact, as Nate Silver points out in an irrefutable fact that conservatives ignore, in his first year in office Obama has passed tax cuts for virtually all Americans.

(And never mine the fact that the proposed health-care reform pays for itself, unlike George W. Bush’s 2002 “modernization” of Medicare that is trillion-dollar albatross around our country’s neck. The GOP uses its scare tactics that the proposed health care reforms will get seniors off Medicare Advantage. Well, good. Get them back onto Medicare and drop these super-expensive Medicare Advantage which are private insurance plans paid for with public funds, contributing trillions into our deficit. These plans hide their true costs, and place it back onto the system, making it even more unsustainable and implodes, leaving with nobody to have any Medicare- Advantage or not. Which the GOP should oppose, unless its being disingenuous about its concern about seniors keeping their coverage.)

So, here we are, just barely over one year into his service, and one-quarter of Republicans want Obama to be impeached, despite any note of scandal or Constitutional transgressions. The Republicans and Tea Baggers should realize that having legislation proposed that you oppose for ideological purposes is not grounds for impeachment, but that would involve a rational discussion. All Obama has done is pass a stimulus that has prevented unemployment from being twice its current level, signed into law the Lily Ledbetter Act that allows equal pay for equal work- a law his predecessor refused to sign- and has a 90 percent ratio of campaign promises kept to broken. The Tea Baggers got their beginnings in response to Obama’s mortgage plan- “Why should federal funds go to pay my bailed out neighbor who couldn’t afford the McCmansion everyone else was buying”- not realizing that Obama was using federal funds to ensure that responsible homeowners don’t find themselves on a street surrounded by vacant foreclosures, watching their property values decrease as the amount of crime were to increase. But, whatever- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, right?

There is not a lick of sense or rationality emanating from these Tea Baggers. But, whatever. They’re just like you and me, right? Kind of like Keli Carender, a Seattle hipster, who challenged Norm Dicks to take a twenty dollar bill from her hand? Conservatives might applaud such tactics, revealed in a recent NPR profile. The NPR profile revealed that she works at a local nonprofit, teaching math and resume skills to adults. Her nonprofit is funded by someone else’s dollars- I doubt she was hardly upset about that decision being made. She also performs stand-up at Seattle’s Wing-It Productions, which received $3750 in funding from Washington state. That was $3750 in tax dollars that some “elite” in Olympia determined should go out of other people’s pockets to go towards funding a venue for this Tea Bagger to perform her “hip and funky” improv comedy. The idea that, in a representative democracy, you should be ‘outraged’ because some elected official decides what needs to be done, and then collect revenue to make it happen only give s clout to my assertion of petulance. Of course, such revenues need to be dispersed over as many people as possible, but taxes should also target behavior and groups of people as well. Consider if that Tea Bagger who confronted me was allowed to keep his $14,000 he’s paying under George W. Bush’s tax policy that’s still on the books. Would he have been able to purchase his own roads, street lamps, roads, public garbage cans, community centers, etc? No, of course not. I assume he’s outraged that his $14,000 will be helping his neighbors who have “underwater” mortgages, as his quality of life would be much improved if he was surrounded by empty and derelict housing. The only conclusion that I can come to is that there should be a mandatory Constitution in every household, which is read religiously. It sure would be nice if Americans were more familiar with that document than a book of fairy tales.

Here’s a (long) New Yorker profile about your modern day Tea Bagger crowd, that will only leave you shaking your head in dismay.

George W. Bush | health care | Obama | taxes | Tea party | teabaggers