Hypocrisy of Republicans/Conservatives

[Cleo's Mom 257]

I wasn't blaming anyone for the way I post. I was explaining WHY I was posting the word 'hate' when refering to people not liking politicians policies or beliefs or agendas. It was because others here describe it as 'hate' when you disagree with their views. Right, Cleo'smom?

I will answer that question with a this column that says much of what I've been saying but he gets paid for it:

Reg Henry

I'm mad as heck at those who are mad

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

By Reg Henry,

Today's column starts with a confession: I may have to go to anger management classes. I need to manage becoming more angry. It is all the rage, you know.

Just look around. Tea Party folks, politicians and talk show hosts have worked themselves up into a high lather of political indignation. But my problem is that I hate being angry. I think it is a poison for the soul.

Before embracing my inner ranter, I prefer to go through the stages of wrath in the hope of avoiding maximum meltdown. I find that turning the other cheek should always be tried first before ever moving on to mild irritation, medium peevishness, creative sulking, pointed sarcasm, hot and bothered manner and, the last stage, impersonation of Mount Vesuvius.

Unfortunately, many people today are in full eruption, threatening to turn America into a latter-day Pompeii. If this goes on, future scientists will find perfectly preserved bodies of guys in baseball caps reaching out to adjust their talk-radio dials.

The situation in America today reminds me of "Network," the 1976 movie in which a crazed TV anchor tells viewers to throw open their windows and shout, "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!"

Not a good thing. Such unhinged, unfocused anger relieves everybody of the burden of serious thinking. That is precisely the case today. In most cases, people have gone from being flat-out asleep to mad as wet hens in the course of just one year. Gosh, I wonder what happened. Whatever the reason, thank goodness no racism was involved!

The angry ones insist they have good cause for their rage and, of course, they surf the real misery of the Great Recession. But those who complain the loudest seem to be doing very well, thank you very much. Are Glenn Beck and some of the better-fed politicians in the ranks of the unemployed?

It is true that the Obama administration is spending money like a drunken sailor, but much of it has been done to stimulate the economy in accordance with a highly conventional economic theory, without which millions more jobs would have been lost.

Blinded by their rage, the president's critics always forget to mention this last part -- just as many of them at the time forgot to complain when George W. Bush was the toast of the drunken sailor community and finally presided over the ruination of the economy.

(I am forgetting myself. The new Political Correctness insists that it is bad form to give the recent historical context of our current troubles, which makes as much sense as dropping a person on a desert island without food and, when he gets hungry, not allowing him to mention that he was dropped on a desert island.)

In truth, I have become cynical about much of this newly minted anger. You say Obama trashes the Constitution? Where were you a few years ago when Bush and Cheney were up to their mischief? Not a peep of complaint out of most of you.

For the record, my own feelings concerning the previous administration dwelled somewhere between pointed sarcasm and hot and bothered, and I would recommend that to all concerned citizens now justifiably vexed by the Obama administration. Free-ranging hatred, however, is always to be avoided like the plague it is.

How did we get like this? As most of the anger could have been awakened as easily years earlier if the current naysayers were in the mood, the only logical explanation is that a party in power for eight years lost and another took over -- which seemed to some people positively un-American and an excuse for having a fit like spoiled children who did not get their way.

Well, I, for one, have become angry with the newly angry. I am tired of the whole raft of lunacies -- the Birther movement, absurd claims of socialism, e-mails that malign the president on the basis of made-up facts, the whole toxic stew flavored by sheer and unadulterated detestation. I am tired of reading that some loser who crashed a plane into an IRS office is hailed in some quarters as a hero and a patriot. Some hero. Some patriot.

Enough. It's time for reasonable people to take back their country and not let its fate be decided by those who shout the loudest. It's time to close our windows and quietly say in a spirit of good will: I am not going to support such hatred anymore. And do you know why? Because the second part of "United we stand" is "divided we fall."

[BJean 16]

Cleo's: I think that the reason you are so focused on the hyprocisy of Republican politics is because as you've noted above, they get a lot of support from middle America by saying that they hate taxes, hate big government, etc. They are in fact, constantly saying that they hate anything that they think will make them popular with voters. Nevermind that their actions belie their words.

In fact, their behavior is quite different from their talk. That's hyprocrisy.

And now they are screaming quite loudly about the president and "his" trillion dollar deficit, and all the other things that they think will influence the voters. And the irony and hyprocrisy of it is that they created the war in Iraq. And they know that we have to eventually pay for it.

The way they play that game to their advantage is to force the Democrats to on take the responsibility of solving the problem (balancing the budget and paying off the debt) and in so doing the Democrats will undoubtedly have to raise taxes.

Republicans love that because it allows them to scream and holler about how awful big government and higher taxes are which diverts the attention away from their causing the out of control deficit in the first place. And to add insult to injury, when they are in control they make sure that the tax incentives and breaks go to the richest Americans.

So what has happened is that they have caused a hugely significant part of the deficit and they want us middle class Americans to pay for it, instead of the wealthy paying their fair share. So they shout the Democrats down and make accusations and misrepresentations that cause people who are clueless to believe that the Republicans are against taxes and big government and they had no part in making the government big or causing the horrific deficit.

This is not something new. It is just new to some people who haven't historically experienced it. Or people who believe that the Republicans do what they say they stand for. The Republicans have been doing this for decades. Anybody who buys it is either benefitting from it or too stupid to understand what's going on.

You have a more intellectual and sohpisticated way of saying what I did but sometimes people are too dumb to understand big words and real numbers. Some people only comprehend Joe-the-Plumber and Sarah-Palin-speak. Wink, wink... you betcha.

[BJean 16]

Love the remarks from Reg Henry, Cleo's.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

Love the remarks from Reg Henry, Cleo's.

Thank you. My anger is over these phoney protesters and the hypocritical republicans who pander to them. These protesters just hate that Pres. Obama was elected. Period. So they have attempted to use "legitimate" reasons to protest: spending, deficits, taxes. These people are actually paying less in taxes under Pres. Obama but that doesn't matter.

While I understand that with unemployment being high people are hurting, these people are basically middle aged, middle class white people who have healthcare and just want Obama to fail.

And despite controlling the presidency and congress many times over the last 30 years, the republicans have never reduced the deficit or the size of government. The last time we had a budget surplus was under a democratic president.

But the republicans are experts at reducing a message to a single sound bite. The democrats need to do that more.

[BJean 16]

Well yes, in the past it sure has worked for them and the Democrats have been quite remiss in selling their agenda.

However, I have a feeling that the Republicans have finally gone too far with their irrational public displays and biased media reports and Americans are becoming wise to them. I hope!

[phil1336 0]

Tomorrow when they broadcast the live Health Care debate, lets see which of the Republican anti universal health insurance bashers raises their hand to OPT OUT of the Federal Employee Health Benefit Plan. Why should they participate in any form of "Socialized Health Care" when the uninsured an under-insured back in their home districts can`t get the same coverage as their representatives elect to have for themselves and family?

[Cleo's Mom 257]

As a post script to my above post: The teabaggers claim to be about jobs, as are the majority of Americans. That is the #1 issue in all polls.

However, when their newly elected Scott Brown voted ONLY to advance a JOB'S bill for a full vote, he received vicious attacks from the teabaggers. Now, why would that be if they're for jobs?

BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT FOR ANYTHING. THEY ARE JUST AGAINST ANYTHING PRES. OBAMA PROMOTES.

They just are so vehemently anti-Obama that he couldn't even make a "stay in school and study hard" speech to school students without it being attacked and criticized by them. Oh, they came up with their lame reasons which were nothing more than thinly veiled hatred of Pres. Obama.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

Tomorrow when they broadcast the live Health Care debate, lets see which of the Republican anti universal health insurance bashers raises their hand to OPT OUT of the Federal Employee Health Benefit Plan. Why should they participate in any form of "Socialized Health Care" when the uninsured an under-insured back in their home districts can`t get the same coverage as their representatives elect to have for themselves and family?

Press "PLAY" on the republican tape recorder:

1) start over (republican-speak for kill the bill) and if that doesn't work then

2) sell insurance across state lines

3) tort reform

Now, that should solve all the health insurance problems? Right?

[BJean 16]

No, actually those 3 things stop health care reform, not fix it. Which is their goal.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

Republicans, healthcare, reconciliation and the nuclear option.

The nuclear option is actually a procedural plan in the Senate. In 2005, republican senator Bill Frist tried to get rid of the filibuster by using the nuclear option. He tried to do this to keep democratic senators from filibustering bush's judicial nominees. Republican Sen. Judd Gregg defended this nuclear option in 2005 as being a rule of the Senate.

Fast forward to 2010 and the healthcare debate and the lying republicans are saying that the democrats are going to use the nuclear option to pass it. NOT TRUE (but when has that ever stopped them from saying something?)

The democrats are considering using reconciliation as a option to pass healthcare reform. RECONCILIATION IS NOT THE NUCLEAR OPTION. So, if you hear republicans say it is, you will know they are lying.

You will also hear republicans say reconciliation was never and should never be used to pass big healthcare program.

Also false. Reconciliation was used to pass COBRA (the R in COBRA stands for reconciliation).

Reconciliation was used to pass S-CHIP.

In fact, most healthcare bills were passed with reconciliation.

Reconciliation has been used 22 times since 1980, 16 times by republicans, including both of bush's tax cuts for the rich (2001, 2003).

So, when they talk about the nuclear option or against reconciliation, the republicans are either lying or being typically hypocritcal.

[BJean 16]

I posted this on another thread but I guess maybe it fits on this thread even more:

That's the irony of the right wing extremist message to the world. They want us to believe that they are righteous people because they believe they know the exact intentions of God and the Bible, but they are openly scornful of people with whom they do not agree.

These holier than thou self-important fundamentalists often miss the message of Jesus which was love, tolerance, forgiveness, generosity of spirit and the acceptance of all mankind.

Many of them are angry, bigoted, mean-spirited and willing to do harm to others. It is such a strange dichotomy, oddly real and unreal thinking. And some of them have a death grip on the Republican party.

[phil1336 0]

But, despite all that............They Are SAVED!

[BJean 16]

Well I believe you just made their point, phil.

[LeighaMason 19]

So I was watching the health care debate and I am so glad McCain didn't win the presidency. When it was his turn to speak instead of offering his ideas to improve the bill he spends the time listing his grievances of how it was formed. Yes, John we know your grievances, come on with some ideas to make things better that is why we are here, not to whine about the past.

[phil1336 0]

As I watch todays Health Care Debate..........No Republican has come forward an declared that He or She intended to OPT OUT of their Federal Employee Health Benefit Plan! Why Obama or Biden have (not) brought up this matter is puzzling? How can one vote down for his constituency what one has for himself and his or her own family is so hypocritical!