The Faces of the Teabaggers

[filkertom]

AmericaBlog aims us to a mind-boggling video interview with people at the protest in Washington, DC this past weekend. It's almost ten minutes, but I guarantee you've never seen or heard any compendium of the mindset of these folks like this. The interviewer shows his subjects great respect and lets them speak their minds... and, boy, do they.

ETA: A thing -- the interviewer tells a number of people that the first "czar" in American government was appointed by Reagan. That is not correct: Nixon appointed the first "drug czar", Jerome Jaffe. Some people make the case that you can take it all the way back to FDR.

Comments

[rmeidaking.livejournal.com]

Heh - I just finished saying I wasn't going to talk about visiting my relatives in Missouri. :-)

[peachtales.livejournal.com]

One of the ladies in a group that I hang out with online spouts some similarly idiotic, and scary, diatribe. I just wish people would think and research issues before they mouth off.

[omahastar.livejournal.com]

It's scary that those morons actually believe the talking points they're regurgitating. But it's funny that they have absolutely zero clue WHAT they are talking about!

[caraig.livejournal.com]

If that is the interview done by Radio Free Speech, then the respect the interviewer showed them was most assuredly not returned.

They insisted the interviewer give them her name, so that they could 'find' her if the interview did not paint them in a positive light. Sensing the undercurrent of threat there, she refused. She was hassled through the crowd, then one of the people on a bullhorn said she was with ACORN. They were all but prevented from leaving at this point.

There is a lot of undirected anger out there, and there are a whole lot of targets being painted right now by various pundits and would-be demagogues. This is starting to have a chilling effect on rational discourse -- how do you know that some large, angry mob is not going to take what you say in a reasoned debate, blow it out of proportion, and begin to hassle and harrass you?

[laurel-potter.livejournal.com]

"Never underestimate the power of human stupidity."

It never ceases to amaze me how ignorant people can be.

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

It's all too easy to look at the images perpetuated by the sensationalist, ratings-biased media and write off everyone who criticizes and/or opposes currently proposed health-care reformations as a bunch of paranoid kooks who think the President is some Islamic Anti-Christ from Kenya with a forged birth certificate who wants to enslave the white race and is incapable of human speech when not in the vicinity of a teleprompter...

Like Wyngarde...

But the truth is, the majority of those involved are very much like us, American citizens living in America in an uncertain era of American history. And they have some very legitimate reasons to be concerned;

Increasing an already astronomical deficit? That's a good reason.
Using taxpayer money to aid non-citizens who are here illegally? That's a good reason.
Making the federal government privy to information that should remain in confidence between doctor and patient? That's a very good reason.

These concerns and others like them not only deserve to, but should be brought to the attention of the general public and our elected officials so that they might be acknowledged, recognized and, hopefully, remedied before a final product is presented.

Don't believe me? Then why was President Obama himself willing to mention such concerns during his address to Congress?

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

But.

(And BTW, I disagree with the bit about non-citizens- it'd be more expensive and intrusive to check everyone for citizenship- "Achtung! Show us your papers!"- than to just let illegal immigrants get healthcare and not be plague carriers- but...)

When you look at those rallies, you don't see so much about the deficit. You don't hear so much about tax subsidies to illegal immigrants. You don't hear about privacy.

What you get is, "Obama is a Commie!" Not infrequently the N-word is thrown into the sentence.

What you get is a bunch of people threatening assassination, armed revolt, or secession.

You don't get the issues at those protests, from the people who attend. You get raw, unchecked hatred and fear, with the ignorance that fuels both encouraged by people in authority who ought to know better.

Any reasonable dissent, disagreement or critique is being drowned out by these radicals. And considering that the Republicans in Congress are saying, "Not one vote, no matter what, nothing you do will change our minds, our way or no way," there isn't that much reasonable dissent where it counts, anyway.

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

Any reasonable dissent, disagreement or critique is being drowned out by these radicals.

And that's not very fair at all, is it?

[jcw-da-dmg.livejournal.com]

"Some people make the case that you can take it all the way back to FDR."

GEE, I wonder which end of the spectrum those people are at.

[kengr]

Ah, but you assume they are interested in facts...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-schaeffer/glenn-beck-and-the-912-ma_b_284387.html

[kengr]

See the Huffington Post link above.

[lariss.livejournal.com]

These morons aside, I'm frightened by the fact that this health bill is (and most bills are) comprised of more pages than the "average" American Joe/Jane Schmoe reads in a year.

The issue, IMHO, is this: How do you bring these issues to the attention of the public in an accurate and clear manner when the "public" isn't at all interested in the facts around the issues?
I'd argue that a large portion of "the public" are incapable of understanding the subtleties surrounding healthcare, the deficit, illegal aliens, unemployment and trade.

How many of us here read the bills when their contents become available?

How can a democracy function with such a willfully ignorant public?

[alverant.livejournal.com]

Good question. I've wondered the same thing. How does can a government by the people function properly when there are so many people (ignorant or otherwise)? So many people, so many points of view, so many individual needs, and so on. We tout democracy as the greatest form of government ever practiced because it's what we are and because it we haven't found anything better. But that doesn't mean there's a better way out there. I've tried to come up with one, but every idea I had has a big flaw that leads to exploitation.

We don't elect people on the basis of what is good for the nation. We elect people on how close their views are to ours. We assume we know what's best and as the world grows more complex, that gets harder to do. I don't understand everything about healthcare, etc but I'd sooner trust Obama to handle it than McCain.

[louisadkins.livejournal.com]

We don't elect people on the basis of what is good for the nation. We elect people on how close their views are to ours. We assume we know what's best and as the world grows more complex, that gets harder to do.

This is a good point.

[lariss.livejournal.com]

Every concept of a functioning governmental system I have ever had has to do with exactly this - we live in our monkeysphere, and we really can't handle tribes much larger than 150.

Our brains say so.


It's science. (google monkeysphere)

We need to live in little, interdependent communities of about that size, give or take 100 people.

Problem is, how to keep Monkey Tribe A from beating on Monkey Tribe B to take their delicious bananas?

Gah...we should all just give up thumbs and be dolphins.

[alverant.livejournal.com]

I did google monkeysphere and read a very interesting article on cracked.com about it. With some introspection, I realized much of that is true. There is a point where we stop seeing people as people and start seeing them as two dimensional stereotypes.

I think what we have to do is acknowledge that even if we think about the 15 children who died in a bus accident in New Delhi with less emotion as if our pet died, those 15 kids were like us. A bit of empathy goes a long way. Otherwise we wind up not giving a fuck about anyone else and that means everyone else won't give a fuck about us.

[alverant.livejournal.com]

FYI, this was the article I found
http://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html

I admit, I find the theory has that disturbing ring of truth to it. I wonder how easy it is to move people in and out of your monkey sphere. For example when I work I think of one of our clients more as a person than "someone I have to keep happy". Outside of work, that client is just another person I'd get pissed at if they were blocking me in traffic (particularly if I didn't recognize them).