An Answer For Angelo

I received your e-mail re: 

A "Message for the Tea Party Activists"

Generally, I don't agree. So far, I think the Tea Party is composed of patriotic Americans concerned about the recent left-liberal trend in politics. They are, for the most part, not stupid people. Perhaps Tea Party members are better described as "a loose confederation of politically conservative citizens who believe America would be better off if our politicians honored the founding documents".  These laws, traditions and values have served us quite very well for several centuries. 


And I have a few more specific comments:

(1) Bush/Cheney disaster. I would add Rumsfeld and agree that the troika got many (most?) decisions wrong. I don't know any Conservative that approved the 2nd Bush term. It was a disaster.

(2) Supreme Court /Al Gore Won. This could have gone either way but with hindsight I suspect Gore was robbed. At the same time I have no doubt whatever that electing Gore would have been a disaster. 

(3) Sorry, but I simply do not believe any part of this. Our so called "Energy Policy" presumably including our oil interests, had nothing to do with Bush's decision to start a preemptive war.

(4) No covert CIA operative was "outed". The person referred to was one step above a clerical nobody. Coincidentally, she was married to an anti-American moron.

(5) The Patriot Act called for suspension of several laws. I don't believe it was ever proven effective - or ineffective, but it did reduce several of our freedoms.  It will be difficult to cancel now that it is in place. Not good.

(6) America did not illegally invade Iraq. Iraq openly threatened (and fired upon) one of our staunchest allies, Israel. Iraq widely proclaimed their intention to destabilize the entire region. George W. Bush had a choice to make, and he made it.  

(7) Conservatives I know objected strongly when Bush Jr. ran up the deficit.

(8) What 10 billion disappeared? You must mean the money that was lost during the distribution of humanitarian aid. Poor management, graft and outright theft accounted for nearly all of the missing money, and U.N. agencies were responsible. 

(9) Torture remains an inevitable part of war.  If the information obtained from one enemy can save 100 of our soldiers, it's worth it. 

(10) Bush Jr. never outsourced 6 million jobs. If it happened at all, it was probably caused by free trade between nations.

(11) See Patriot Act (Number 5 above).

(12) Our failure to catch Bin Laden. A very embarrassing fact. We should have located and eliminated him by now. 

(13) See (Number 7) above.

(14) Walter Reed conditions. Conservatives and Liberals both got mad. The deplorable conditions were (are?) a national disgrace.

(15) Failure at New Orleans. No private relief agency coped well, and no local government entity did either. Relief from the Federal government was slow and ineffective. It was a bad show by everyone concerned.

(16) Trillions for the filthy rich. This is a tough one but I suspect it coukd be solved by replacing the existing system with a carefully drawn flat tax. Effectively a line from poor (0%) to filthy rich at (25-40%). No exceptions. No loopholes.

(17) Eight worst years of job creation. The last of the George W. Bush term, plus the Obama term will be the worst years of job creation and the job losses that America has experienced in decades. 

(18)  200,000 U.S. citizens lost their lives because of no health insurance. Not true.  If it was, the logical inverse statement would be that about 99.94% of  U.S. citizens had health insurance - and that is just not accurate.

(19) The Bush Administration caused U.S. Citizens to lose 12 trillion dollars in investments, retirement, and home values. Baloney! George W. Bush, in his second term, tried a stimulus package that apparently had no real impact. Obama threw all caution to the wind and literally threw money at the recession. So far,  it seems that it had impact.

(20) Blame the black man. So all of America's problems are to be blamed on the black man who is our President. Non-sense! Americans have finally realized that the Obama agenda is to destroy our traditional government, it's values, Constitutional laws and so forth. 

Dixon