Many Tea Partiers subsidized on the government dole.

[caseymoz]

"When Tom Grimes lost his job as a financial consultant 15 months ago, he called his congressman, a Democrat, for help getting government health care.

Then he found a new full-time occupation: Tea Party activist. . . .

Mr. Grimes, who receives Social Security, has filled the back seat of his Mercury Grand Marquis with the literature of the movement, including Glenn Beck’s “Arguing With Idiots” and Frederic Bastiat’s “The Law,” which denounces public benefits as “false philanthropy.”

“If you quit giving people that stuff, they would figure out how to do it on their own,” Mr. Grimes said."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/us/politics/28teaparty.html

***********************

Well, Tom, give it a truth test. Refuse your government handout, and get it on your own. Isn't that the thing you ought to do? See if not having your government dole enables you to find a real job before you starve.

He was a financial consultant, too. Meaning he was riding on the coattails of the same financial institutions that caused this economic disaster. Is this guy right about anything?

Later, this same genius says, “If you don’t trust the mindset or the value system of the people running the system, you can’t even look at the facts anymore.” Facts don't matter? As the final cracker: this guy says he is thinking of getting a part time job with the Census Bureau.

One of them complains about what the government has done with trade since the 1980s. What happened in the 1980s guy? That's right: Ronald Reagan was elected. Mr. Small-but-let's-grow-the-government himself. Showing that hypocrisy goes right to the hero the Tea Baggers worship.

I remember then there was a huge swing to the right among college students and twenty somethings. Everyone was reading Ayn Rand. The swing was due to a deliberate campaign by conservatives, trying to neutralize the liberalism that had been present on campuses in the sixties and seventies. There was a huge, well-financed push to spread conservatism in my generation. I'd say the Teabaggers are people who embraced it, but not as any kind of real ethic, rather, as a fantasy, a dream. It did instill in them a lasting hatred of government. Getting money from the government is just part of that hatred.

I don't predict that the Tea Party has any staying power in American Politics. They have almost no ideological consistency except a general distrust of government. Their hero, Sara Palin, is a wretched and stupid person and is laughing all the way to the bank with their money. Then again, most teabaggers have never had a problem with that, though everyone has their limits. They believe in their dreams about her and not the reality of her. They'll pretend to like her for another year or maybe three.

Even if I don't see it lasting, its current members can resurface mutant strain of the Tea Party that's much worse. Especially if conditions in the country worsen. The Tea Party may die, but unfortunately, most of its membership will remain none-the-wiser.

[XanaDUer]

1. If he gets cut off the dole

then I guess he'll have to go out, get another job, and that will take away from his anti-"handouts" work.

The irony is thick. Almost as thick as these idiots' skulls.

[Turbineguy]

2. I suspect that in addition to all their other delusions

they feel they are seeing something that the rest of us are missing. That they somehow are ahead of the curve. That they are the leading edge of an American Renaissance.

Now if they can get the rest of us to revise history, discard everything that we have learned about science, economics and a host of other subjects, everything will turn out their way. Reality will still have to be tamed, but that's just a belief system too.

[jaksavage]

3. Self hatred

built in.

[Andy823]

4. Amazing isn't it?

I wonder how many are on unemployment, complaining about the democrats and president, and all the time the republicans are doing thing in congress to stop them from getting extensions on the money for "unemployment"? DO these people even "think" before they make some stupid comment like “If you quit giving people that stuff, they would figure out how to do it on their own”?

I hear those on the right, republicans and teabaggers, say the "IF" the people vote the republicans back in, that the teabaggers will be able to "keep them honest" and working for the "people"! Yeah, just like they did in the Bush years! Two tax cuts for the rich during a time of war, deregulating banks and financial institutions, spending "trillions" on a war for Oil, "really" taking away our rights, and helping big business move jobs overseas costing millions of jobs in this country! How anyone can be so gullible is beyond belief!

[Shallah Kali]

5. Another article on Gov. Subsidized Tea Partiers - 1 couple have 10 kids on medicaid

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/04/15/tea_party_rally_generates_plenty_of_criticism_opposing_views?mode=PF

Early yesterday morning, Valerie and Rob Shirk corralled their 10 home-schooled children into their van for the 2 1/2-hour drive from their home in Connecticut to Boston, arriving just in time to hear Sarah Palin denounce government-run health care at the tea party movement rally on Boston Common.

snip

“The problem in this country is that too many people are looking for handouts,’’ said Valerie Shirk, 43, of Prospect, Conn. “I agree with the signs that say, ‘Share my father’s work ethic — not his paycheck.’ We have to do something about the whole welfare mentality in this country.’’

snip

Gene Theroux, of Springfield, held up a sign that read “Against Progressivism,’’ which he said meant he was protesting “the movement to socialism’’ and the United Nations’ “sovereignty violations’’ against the United States. The 57-year-old retired Air Force chief master sergeant said he likes his government-run health care administered by the US Department of Veterans Affairs, but he worries about what will happen when some 30 million newly insured Americans enter the system.

“Where does it say in the Constitution that there’s a mandate for all Americans to have health care?’’ he said. “This bill will ravage the health care that I get.’’

snip

The couple, who rely on Medicaid for their health care, were also upset about the nation’s new health reforms.

When asked why her family used state-subsidized health care when she criticized people who take handouts, Valerie Shirk said she did not want to stop having children, and that her husband’s income was not enough to cover the family with private insurance.

“I know there’s a dichotomy because of what we get from the state,’’ she said. “But I just look at each of my children as a blessing.’’