I woke up and read this in my inbox:
So some republicans are arguing that we should go without raising the debt ceiling as an effort to force the government to prioritize its expenses finally...
So I've been presented an interesting argument too. That Obama is responsible for the problems cause by the tea party. In the same way one might be responsible for gremlin mischief because they were the ones that fed then after midnight
What do you think?
Here was my reply:
First of all, a default would be a catastrophe for the US and the global economy. This is a fact. Aside from a few house republicans and conservative pundits, this is universally agreed - from news sources, foreign sources, financial experts, left wing intellectuals, and even many conservative intellectuals:
Sources:
http://www.businessinsider.com/...
http://www.wjla.com/...
http://www.bloomberg.com/...
http://www.forexlive.com/...
http://www.ft.com/...
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/...
http://www.nbcnews.com/...
http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://www.nytimes.com/...
http://www.fool.com/...
(I can find many more)
Secondly, saying Obama is "responsible" for the tea party because he made them angry sounds like saying a gay guy who was beaten up by a homophobe 'caused' his assault because he he was 'talking so effeminate' and wearing a feather boa in public, which enraged the homophobe. Or a woman 'caused' her rape because she was drunk and scantily clad at a party.
Ann Romney recently said the entire debt limit/gov shutdown was avoidable - all America had to do was elect her husband! No Democrat in the White House, no Republican ransom demands! (Presumably, she's assuming that no Democrat would ever do this to a Republican president).
Many progressive policies anger conservatives, but Obama never even proposed those policies. Example: Rachel Maddow interviewed a group of people protesting Eric Holder's anti-gun policies. When she asked the people which policies in particular they opposed, they said they didn't know. Also tea party members thought Obama had raised their taxes in 2009, even though (1) their taxes had not moved at all and (2) Obama's tax code wasnt in effect, in 2009, they were still paying Bush's tax code and (3) the stimulus lowered all American's taxes, and taxes never went up until 2013, and then only for people whose incomes were over $450k per year.
There were a lot of groups who formed to attack and delegitimize Bill Clinton when he was president, so many that Hillary famously called it a 'vast right wing conspiracy.' Paul Krugman (nobel prize winning economist) has said that the conservative movement in this country won't accept the legitimacy of a democratic president - ANY democrat. And I agree. Is Obama responsible for their craziness because he's a Democrat and he won?
Republican (the ones in office and in the punditry) do not make sense to me. When Reagan was President, they did not care about debt - Reagan tripled the national debt and they responded by making Reagan their hero. When Clinton took office, all they wanted to talk about was debt, saying it was because Clinton was a big spender. Clinton eventually balanced the budget and even made a trillion dollar surplus with his smart policies, but conservatives attacked him then, too - saying that if the budget was balanced and we were finally paying off the debt, then somehow it meant that the American taxpayer had been 'over charged' and were due a 'refund' which meant massively cutting taxes. When Bush was elected, he frittered away the entire surplus with tax cuts, then doubled the national debt. Cheney even said "Reagan proved deficits don't matter" when his party offered to pass the largest deficit in history. Most Republicans said nothing. Now that Obama is president, they are once again making noise about the debt, shutting down the government and threatening default - even though the deficit is falling at its fastest rate in 50 years!
It's insane. It's craziness. This is not mere hyperbole on my part. I'm not the only one who thinks so. Respectable, mainstream news sources are saying the word 'crazy' or 'insane' to describe what's going on the the Republican party:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
http://www.nytimes.com/...
http://www.motherjones.com/...
http://politix.topix.com/...
http://www.ibtimes.com/...
http://www.businessinsider.com/...
http://twitchy.com/...
http://www.truthdig.com/...
http://truth-out.org/...
http://www.businessinsider.com/...
http://www.rollingstone.com/...
http://www.businessinsider.com/...
(I could find more)
Reading all those articles may sound repetitive, but I need to emphasize something - there are reasons why I get so worked up about Republicans - it's not just irrational animus, it's not just that I root for team blue so team red must be bad.
Many of those articles contain some of my reasons. I urge to you read them (and read the book 'The Shock Doctrine' by Naomi Klein) and to do your own research. The next time a right wing idea is mentioned, see if you can challenge it. Do the same with a left wing idea. Keep in mind that a legitimate gripe about a left wing idea may actually be because its not left wing enough, when you dig down.
For example -there are legitimate gripes about Obamacare, but almost everything about it is because it's not socialist enough.
1. Prices are too high - only because it's not completely socialized, you're just buying from insurance companies.
2. Website is buggy - the government outsourced the job of building it to private contractors.
3. Individual mandate forces you to get insurance - only to protect insurance companies from going bankrupt - would not be needed in a fully socialized system.
4. New plans might not fit with 'which network' your preferred doctor is in - if we had Canadian style full socialism, you'd go wherever you want because the government always picks up the tab. Plus the 'network' thing was a problem before Obamacare.
I'm not left wing because i'm ideological, or passionate, or angry. I'm left wing because I'm informed.
Sorry for the deluge of text, but you did ask...