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How come today's Boston Tea Party isn't being held at the harbor?
By adamg on Wed, 04/15/2009 - 9:14am
Was the entire Harbor already reserved? In any case, if you want to see Republicans party like it's 1773, head to the Common between 10 and 4 today.
Rob Sama will be there:
... You cannot tax your way into prosperity or spend your way out of debt. You don't need a PhD in Finance to understand that. And yes, it really is that simple.
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Comments
10 to 4?
Way to freeze out the people with jobs, i.e. taxpayers.
Looks like capital-letter Conservatives and Libertarians
I'm curious how that will be spun. Speakers will explain how Big Government is making them unemployed?
Absolutely!
MSNBC liberals like Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann have been having a field day with this, especially because the Tea Party organizers (with huge dollops of help from FOX News) have been unwittingly calling themselves "tea baggers," leading to some of the most hilarious double-entendre commentaries I've seen on TV.
It is, sadly, entirely
It is, sadly, entirely intentional. I've seen signs saying "Tea Bag Liberal Dems Before They Teabag You."
Funny, the extra $9 in my paycheck doesn't FEEL like Obama's putting his testicles into my mouth repeatedly. Maybe it's foreplay.
No exclusivism for teabaggers!
Just because people aren't paying taxes shouldn't stop them from protesting them. It's "no taxation without representation," not "no representation without taxation!"
Raising taxes on people making over $250K a year is horribly unfair - even socialistical - especially for people who have nothing better to do during the day than teabag each other in the common.
I'm all for it, because they sure do bring the funny!
Full of Errors!
This post is so full of errors it's not even funny! Taxes are going to skyrocket because this country has elected the most liberal person in the Senate to be the President. Your children will be paying off the TARP funds for generations. That's the real reason for the protest.
And I'll be there! And if you're man enough, I'll be the one in the striped pants handing out leaflets.
Point out the errors then.
And TARP was intiated by Mr Bush and Mr Paulson. And we got to this point because of deregulation which has been championed by conservatives for a generation. Your people got us into this mess and rather than admit your philosophy has been a disaster you are having a tamptrum and blaming all those who tried to warn against what your side has been advocating. Pathetic, the lot of you.
"Your children will be
"Your children will be paying off the TARP funds for generations. That's the real reason for the protest. "
And TARP was put out under which President again?
Remind me here. I'm having trouble. Starts with a B...
My problem with the teabag movement is that it's got nothing whatsoever to do with actual tax policy (I doubt one in five could tell me a damn thing about either Bush or Obama tax policies; hell, I care and I'm barely versed in it myself) and everything to do with being sore losers. Republicans just don't seem to be able to stand it that their guy lost, after eight years of telling everyone to shut up and deal about their guy winning.
Also, striped pants? Don't make yourself into an Internet Tough Guy and then mention you dress like a clown.
"socialistical"? Is that
"socialistical"? Is that Unglish?
Answer
Because you can't be as big of an attention whore at the harbor as you can at the Common.
Oh, sorry, was the title rhetorical?
Other Answer
Because the only place that the people who argue for the privatization of public parks could find to stage their protest was.... wait for it... a public park! EPIC IRONY.
So they're protesting against Bush?
I'm confused. Why did they wait until he was out of office to protest against huge deficits and unresponsible budgets?
I don't know
It is strange that it was so easy to go along with Bush telling us everything is great and believe him before. Darn Obama for coming out and telling the truth about the situation.
I have no idea.
I have no idea.
Why would you even believe this graph?
Guess where those projected numbers came from
It's amazing how they can magically project a dramatic increase then drop in the deficit that will somehow surge again after 2012. Last time I checked the 2019 budget wasn't out yet.
That right-wing rag The
That right-wing rag The Washington Post (21-Mar-2009), that's where. Whatever WSJ article it was that your link from the Huffies was going on about with projections 70 years in the future, it was something altogether different.
That's awful!
If Obama borrows 9.3 trillion over the next decade, he'll double the national debt.
That's just so much worse than what Bush did!
Because Griffin's Warf has
Because Griffin's Warf has been a landfill for over a century.
Ugh
Exhibit A for why I am no longer officially involved in the Libertarian Party.
(I was State Chair at one time.)
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Tax to prosperity? Spend out of debt?
It's easier done than you think. Here are two examples:
Example #1 -- Taxing myself to prosperity: You are prosperous. I am allowed to tax you. I tax you at 100%. I am now prosperous. QED.
Example #2 -- Spending out of debt: I have a job that pays my minimum living requirement but no extra. I have $5000 of past personal debt. I take out a loan for $25,000 more. I spend that money getting a college education. I get a better job that pays my minimum necessary and $2000 extra each month. I pay my total debt off in 15 months. QED.
I love mythbusting nonsense.
Ace Teabagger US Rep. Michelle Bachman
Courtesy of J.L. Bell's Boston 1775 blog post: The Triumph of False Quotations.
Wise words, indeed
To quote constitutional-law expert Lawrence Lessig, "Who are you? How did you get in my house?"[1]
[1] Well, that's what he said to me.[2]
[2] http://xkcd.com/163/
OMG.. that's real
I assumed that Michele Bachmann quote was an example of "how made-up quotes become memes". I had no idea it was real. Really real. Video real (at 1:10):
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/1191735
All these ideas seem quaint:
* College education for $25K.
* Getting a job.
* Paying off student loans.
:)
Quaint? But very tangible
* Umass Boston education: $6700 * 4 = $26,800 (includes waivable fees)
* Having a college education in a developing field improves job chances
* My example was close to home. I'm almost done paying off my college loans AND my personal credit card debt. In about a year, I'll be debt-free for the first time in about 15 years. It could have been done faster, but I decided to add grad school into the mix as well.
I know you were being a little facetious, but I did want to say I wasn't totally over-the-top idealistic in my example. :)
Darn you Kaz and your inconvenient facts!
I'm gonna tax your little moped and become prosperous now!
Umass Boston.....
Kas I believe those are semester fees for tuition so you would have to double that number ($53,000)
It used to be a much better deal to go to the Umass system.
I stand corrected
Thanks, Pete. I'm used to seeing tuition and fees reported as annual costs on university websites. For example, other states in the area (CT, RI, MD) all have about $8000-9000 annual tuition and fee costs for in-state residents. About $32,000 to $36,000. I didn't realize UMass had climbed up above $50,000 now.
PS - Now that I actually look at their breakdown of fees and tuition...who charges under $1000 in tuition but then charges a $4000 dollar "curriculum fee" (numbers taken from UMass Amherst pdf). What kind of bullshit is that?? I think I'm so glad I didn't go through this state's education system.
PPS - Found out that tuition goes to the state (then has to be given back to fund the school..."curriculum fees" don't.) Man, the political systems in this country just need to be nuked from space with impugnity...
ahhh....student loans
When I tell my students at Suffolk Law that it took me until I was into my 40s to pay off my student loans, they (understandably) get a sick look to their faces.
Of course, the tuition/debt situation is much, much worse than when I was in college and law school in the 80s.
Which brings me to a point: To heck with these right-wing tea baggers. For the life of me, I cannot understand why STUDENTS aren't in the streets demanding a slowing of tuition hikes, more scholarship and grant money, and lower student loan debt.
The funny thing about loans
I do have a friend who's fallen under the talk-radio spell. She recently got her undergrad and grad degrees thanks to government-backed student loans, but she was yelling about how government needed to stop spending taxpayer money on education.
I tried to explain the irony, but she insisted "but I'm paying them back!" and couldn't quite grasp that if the loan program costs $60 billion each year (and it does), her education was still subsidized by taxpayers.
Example #1 is theft and leads to disaster
Hi Kaz,
I assume you are joking, but you realize that in example #1, you are using the word "tax" in place of "steal from". You may as well rob me at gun point by that logic.
Also, I assume you realize the basics, that there is "friction" caused by taxation. If I perform service A today at a cost of $10 to me and I charge $20 to you, and you increase the taxes I pay on gross revenue to 50%, then now I cannot make money charging $20, and will either raise my prices or go out of business.
In other words, if there are 9 non-productive person and 1 productive person, you can have taxes transferring part of what the 1 produces to the 9 who need help. But there is a fairly low maximum where you simply kill off the business of the 1 productive participant, and your 50% taxes are now bringing in 50% of nothing.
You understand this, right?
Your assumption
You assume that I care whether you live or die or not. If I don't tax you, I'll tax the next guy that fills your shoes. In fact, I'll tax *everyone* at 100% of their profits and then redistribute that wealth...tada, a form of socialism.
OR I could be wiser about it and tax you at a level commiserate to your total profit. As you make more, I get more of your profits. If you're one of the top earners, then I'm taking the most percentage of your profits than anyone else. You're still making so much that you are well and above everyone, meanwhile I'm just as prosperous as you are because I'm reaping the rewards of having you in the tax system. I reinvest that money in ways that benefit you AND everyone else around you as well. Tada, capitalism. I don't need 100% of your profits because I'm getting enough from you and everyone else at their own proportions to be prosperous myself. It's been known to happen. My example was obviously grossly exaggerated to make the point, but you can tone it back and we can all be prosperous together...and the guy taxing the rest can be prosperous too as long as he acts to keep everyone prosperous because it's also in his best interests. Tax your way to prosperity. It's not a hard ideal to grasp.
Do you admit there is a curve here, then
Hi Kaz,
Let's say that our goal was to get the MOST tax revenue out of our economy as possible.
Now, if you tax everything at 100%, most free-will economic activity will drop towards zero. You'd have to rob everyone of their freedom and compel them to do most jobs; but more to the point, you'd have very little tax revenue. Just like if you had almost no taxes at all, you'd also get very little tax revenue.
So that suggests that there must be a curve here, with some optimum level of taxation. And that when you increase taxation past the optimum on a given activity, you will see a net decrease in total tax revenue, because that activity will now be engaged in less?
How can we determine such an optimum level of taxation? Again, just assuming that increasing total tax revenue is the actual goal. Save a discussion of whether that should be the goal for another day.
I would argue that the current system, where more than half of the country pays zero or negative taxes (ie, receives money), is not a system that will allow you to get to the optimum level of tax revenue, and in fact will lead to decreases in tax revenue the more you try to squeeze more taxes out of the shrinking groups which pay taxes.
There *is* a tax day protest at Boston Harbor
5:30 today at Long Wharf, to protest unequal federal tax treatment for same-sex couples. 1040s will be dumped into (and supposedly fished out of) the harbor.
More details on the harbor protest
Here.
teapot
The teapot in the schitzoid graphic on that page is a Computer Graphics in-joke:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_teapot
Utah what Itah?
Would you use the Utah Teapot to serve tea to this gentleman?
Counter protest?
Maybe members of the NOM will show up and counter-protest with their 2M4M campaign.
Using the Tea Party, of all
Using the Tea Party, of all things, to protest raising income taxes four percentage points for the very richest is actually something I find colossally offensive, not as a liberal, but as an AMERICAN. Obama's tax plan actually probably gave most of these shmucks blowing off work a pay raise due to payroll tax cuts.
I bet they're all against immigration too; ten bucks says they couldn't pass a citizenship test, forget a test on American history or current tax policy.
Lame ad targets, too?
I heard this stupid ad on the radio where a pseudonews person was condescendingly "interviewing" some man who had just received the smallest tax refund in history ... asking him why he was celebrating his pathetic $0.01 tax refund at some fast food place.
Hello? Smallest tax refund ever? That means the government didn't hang on to his money interest free for part of the year, and it also means that he didn't owe a damn thing.
That is WIN!
The Teabaggers that I have seen interviewed would probably think it was funny and that the poor guy was a lamer because he didn't get a BIG refund and get the government to pay him lots and lots of money like they did!
If there's one thing I can't
If there's one thing I can't fucking stand, it's people complaining about all those leeches on welfare who, if you press them hard enough, will eventually admit they live on unemployment, SSI benefits, or some other form of government benefit. If you're going to be a hypocrite, be a self-aware one, anyway.
The sad thing
Most *real* fiscal conservatives want to *pay* taxes at this time of year (just as little as possible)...because it meant that they were able to hold onto MORE of their money the previous year to be able to invest it as they saw fit. The desire is that through smart investing of their own earnings, they can return a rate high enough to use it to pay off the taxes on those original earnings that were being taxed in the first place.
If you're getting a tax refund, then it means you gave the government too much of your past year's earnings and you could have been using that money wisely to begin with if you hadn't turned it over to the government. People have been conditioned to think that tax refunds are like the prize on Deal or No Deal where through careful crafting they can get the Banker to pay out the biggest amount he's willing to settle on...but it's their own money they gave the Banker that they're trying to "win" back...
Idiots.
"I bet they're all against
"I bet they're all against immigration too; ten bucks says they couldn't pass a citizenship test, forget a test on American history or current tax policy."
You'd lose, at least with the Libertarian contingent. I've never met one who wasn't well-versed on all of the above. And the majority I've had interaction with are in favor of legal immigration, some in favor of all openings of the borders.
(I realize this somewhat contradicts my previous "not active in Libertarian circles anymore" comment, but that was based on their amazingly inadequate people skills, as opposed to their intelligence. They are still the most intelligent group with which I've ever hung.)
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
I'm going to take a wild
I'm going to take a wild guess and assume the libertarians you hung out with probably are substantially different from the "libertarians" one meets at events like this. There are people who sincerely believe in the philosophy, and then there are those who play pick-and-choose with it.
I don't agree with the libertarian philosophy on all points, but I've definitely met people who have considered how to make aspects of it work in the real world, and I've had great conversations with them. I doubt I'd find any interesting conversations here. Now, FUNNY...
An ineffective form of protest
If I wanted to organize an effective political protest, I wouldn't make it 6 hours long, because that means people will come and go throughout the event, and there will never be a crowd that looks at all large in a photograph.
Plus I'd make it *after* work hours, not during.
AP reports 100s of people; Fox News says 2,000
The Associated Press reports that "in Boston, a few hundred protesters gathered on the Boston Common."
Fox News Channel claimed "close to 2,000 demonstrators in Boston."
A few hundred is not very close to two thousand.
Which report is right?
One guess
Fox is including people walking to and from their lunch breaks. At their jobs. That they work at during the day.
Also, someone somewhere pointed out the irony that all these teabag anti-tax protests are being held on public land. These people just keep delivering the goods.
Fox News changes story from 2,000 to "a few hundred protesters"
Original story at Fox News (version filed around 10 am Wednesday) claimed "close to 2,000 demonstrators in Boston," while the AP's story (version filed around 1 pm) put the number at "a few hundred protesters." [Sadly, Google's cache has the FNC version prior to 10 am, which does not quote the 2,000 number.]
Fox News has since changed their story to match the AP's numbers.
Looks to me like the 2,000 protesters number appears to be a pure fabrication based on wishful thinking. But it's at least good that FNC corrected their error...
What do you expect
These Faux Noose guys made it all the way through college telling their frat brothers and the local sorority sisters "this is eight inches - honest!".
Cavuto in Sacramento...
Off air footage showed Neil Cavuto asking his producers how many people were estimated there. Nobody had an answer, so he made up a number: 5,000.
A few minutes later after going back on air, he basically says:
"They say there are 5,000 here, but it's easily double or even TRIPLE that number!"
So...yeah. Fox News estimates: made up by the on-air-head...and then doubled, no TRIPLED! when it came to actually "reporting" it.
Awesome.
Sigh...
Maybe both?
See my note above about why it's not a smart idea to have a six-hour-long event.
A little comparison
On February 15, 2003, a whole bunch of people who disagreed with a Presidential plan to spend an enormous amount of money on a single ill-conceived project got together in cities all over the country and all over the world.
In New York City:
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_15,_2003_ant...
I was there, with my sons, and it was wall-to-wall people in mid-town Manhattan, despite outside temperatures of less than 20F. There is simply no singular description of the "type" of people there - old people, young people, families,groups of nuns in habits, etc.
Interesting how Faux News avoided covering much of that protest against wastful spending - spending that ultimately put our country down the tubes - and yet they are spending enormous amounts of air time and energy on a handful of unemployed cranks with a lipton fetish.
In picture form, for any teabaggers among us
Real Protest:
Not a real protest:
(No subject)
Is this in Boston?
(I can't tell because the photo has no background)
This was from Lansing,
This was from Lansing, MI.
I'm sure there will be similar shots from Boston soon.
The info that I'd heard was that Boston and Worcester gatherings are at 4.
Yeahhhh...
Because this nonsense teabagging fervor being fomented by Republican outlets like Rush and Fox News plays just as well in Boston Common as it does in Rust Belt Lansing, MI...
Get real.
Real
(this was uploaded around 2 PM)
and I call BS on your pic, from Portland, OR.
Portland??
The "real protest" pic is an anti-war/"9/11 truthers" rally from NYC in 2004. It's a demonstration of Swirly's point of what a serious rally constitutes.
The "not a real protest" pic is from myfoxboston.com earlier today (you can even see their watermark in the upper right).
Neither pic has *anything* to do with Portland, OR. The website that had the pic hosted is in Portland.
Swing and a miss...
Oh, and your two pics look so alike. Why they must be 10 deep there in Boston! Golly! Lansing is so jealous of our teabagging ability!
I was at the Manhattan anti-war rally, too
and it was (a) not composed of '9/11 truther' nuts, and (b) in 2003, not 2004. It's possible that your photo is from a different and later event.
Different rally
Link has details to the source of the pic.
What link?
I see no link, just the photo.Oh, the '9/11 truthers' link. Never mind. Not sure why you even brought it into the discussion. A close reading of the Indymedia page suggests there were a few hundred 'truther' nuts surrounded by hundreds of thousands of ordinary sane anti-war protesters.
Pic's purpose
The picture's purpose was only to serve as a "what a real protest rally may look like" picture. Thousands of people ('thousands' meaning more than two) clogging the streets to voice their anger and show their numbers...not a crowd of a few hundred wearing teabags on their glasses and pouting in the park. It wasn't directly related to Swirly's post, it was purely a Crocodile Dundee moment (i.e. "that's not a knife...*this* is a knife!").
Check out the stats from other cities on 2/15/03
In the wiki link above, they list 60-200,000 estimated for San Francisco, and 50-60,000 for Los Angeles.
Over a million people across the US, even if you take the lower estimates.
Sorry Dave, but one carefully framed and zoomed crowd shot does not match the shutdown of midtown Manhattan, central LA, Seattle, and San Francisco by more people than can fit on the streets.
I remember one guy whining "when are we going to get to the protest" and several people laughing, but gently explaining that we were carrying signs, chanting, and flooding the streets of a major megacity and that was a protest (I was busy giving a statement to a German newspaper that was photographing my son and the sign he made himself).
Real Numbers
Keep in mind that this is just a couple blocks of one of the three major streets that was clogged with protesters for a two mile stretch between Grand Central Station and the rally site further up town.
You know what? We were right about the disaster that was to be the Iraq war - the human disaster, and the economic disaster.
Any overhead shots?
A simpler way to figure out how many people showed up is from an overhead shot (photo or video). Any such images yet available?
Crowd counting is always tricky. News media rarely rely on the organizers' counts, or at least qualify them as being counted by the organizers. More reliable are police or park rangers.
In this case, there is the tricky situation that one unofficial promoter of the event (Fox News) is the news source reporting crowd counts.
More electoral votes than teabaggers yesterday
More representatives in the electoral college elect our president than people showed up yesterday to the Boston Common Teabagging. Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com compiled the numbers for any reported crowd sizes from neutral sourcing. Boston came in at a whopping 500 according to the NYTimes. Over 30x more than that will come together tonight at the Garden to watch the Bruins' first NHL playoff game of the postseason.