Fritz Hollings (former Senator, Governor of South Carolina) used that "joke" to describe a few of his constituents, only I think he uses more examples....

I think the unspoken 'elephant in the room' as it were is that these people aren't necessarily against government programs that help people, it's about government programs that help other people. And 'other' people are those who are not white.

There is a not-so-thinly-veiled racism in play here, whether news organizations or opinion media want to go there or not. They've got theirs; anyone who doesn't look like they do is necessarily a lazy person sucking on the government teat.

Home-schoolers and back-row disaffected public school teens, how else could we explain such a total loss of intellectual engagement making any kind of sense at all?

Yes, a new political party needs to emerge for these citizens on the Right. To separate the wheat from the shaft, the new third party needs a slogan like, The New Republicans: Racists need not join!

I wonder, just how many Teabaggers would qualify for membership? -Kevo

The bottom line seem inescapable: too many Tea Party activists have no idea what they're talking about.

They know exactly what they're talking about. They are the typical NeoRepublican; denying others what they feel themselves entitled to. If the penalty for Vanderboegh's incitement to violence were suspension of his "gub'mint-funded socialist disability checks", I can assure you---without any doubt---he'd be screaming the loudest that the Government was persecuting him.

The cognitive dissonance is rather remarkable.

They're not experiencing the cognitive dissonance--we are. They lack the requisite self-awareness to catch on to the fact that their actions are completely incongruous with their "beliefs."

The prospect of Grimes becoming a census worker is too rich. What's he going to do--go door to door encouraging people not to talk to him?

At the health care town hall meeting I went to, there were a ton of Tea Baggers who got the conversation as far away from health care as they could, every chance they got. Of course, they had plenty of chances because they ignored any sense of decorum and shouted openly every couple of seconds.

At one point, a woman stood and shouted that the government should only provide us with a national defense. And absolutely nothing else.

Then something magical happened. For a moment it became the "What have the Romans ever done for us" scene from Monty Python's "Life of Brian." Someone shouted "And roads." Someone else shouted, "What about the schools?" Then "The Post Office."

And then they were all drowned out by deafening boos coming from all of the Social Security recipients assembled in that beautiful auditorium in a brand new school.

Clearly a vast majority of those there had come to shout. They had been given a few ideas of what to shout. But they had no idea what any of it meant. They just knew there's a black guy in the White House, and by god, something's got to be done about it.

"...the socialized medicine that comes with Medicare."

I wish people would quit trying to sound smart by countering stupidity with stupidity. Medicare is not socialized medicine. If it were the clinics and hospitals you went to would be government-owned and the physicians and nurses would be on government salaries. Medicare is Single Payer health care.

But how can credible people take nonsense seriously and hope to come up with a meaningful result?

In this particular case, the most obvious meaningful result would be to cut these people off from the programs upon which they rely.

Mr. Grimes despises government hand-outs? Believe that people should "figure out how to do it on their own?" Okay, Mr. Grimes: No more unemployment, no more Social Security, no more government benefits of any kind. At least one small part of the problem would be solved.

Obviously every tea bagger is not a racist. But there have been enough actions, signs and comments to show that this is a big part of this "movement". Speaking of movements, I'm on my 3rd cup of coffee. I feel a movement coming on...

You see, the Pee Pottiers want the government off their backs . The government checks are going into their hands.
But several commenters have already nailed it -- they hate the idea of "others" benefiting, from anything. Right-wing politics simply cannot exist without hatred and resentment.

"...the socialized medicine that comes with Medicare."

Medicare is Single Payer health care

Would "government run healthcare" suffice?

I'm going to assume you're just being polite, Steve, but the single biggest factor in this "misguidedness" is simple, tribal racism.

Digby has written about this many times, as have others. These people who have been getting taxpayer money for years, if not life-long in one way or another, simply don't want the brown people to get any of it.

http://www.digbysblog.blogspot.com/

Page down to the post "The Wrong People."

This is simple racism, and greed. It's ok for ME to get taxpayer money. But it's not ok for YOU to have some too. The GOP has been dogwhistling on this one for 40 years, at least.

Adding to the disconnect are legal ironies about conservative condemnation of the HCR mandate. There's a good article today by David G. Savage (Tribune) explaining how (ironically) a 2005 SCOTUS ruling backed by conservative members like Scalia and Kennedy, helps support that mandate. The 2005 ruling, "Gonzales v. Raich", said the federal government could interfere in the local growing of marijuana, even for medical reasons. Well, many of us think the Fed shouldn't have interfered with that particular activity, but the ruling upheld the overall principle of the thing. Hence, it would be hard now to argue against the mandate (although Roberts and cronies have no principled scruples anyway. They might vote the other way this time because conservative interests would rather they do. That's what worries me.) But overall, this is poetic justice.

The devil is in the details, and few teabaggers/libertarians/right wingnuts have patience for paying attention to details.

They act from knee-jerk reactions, almost from a visceral place.

If you don't like government, then any public servant, any public employee should be hung in effigy.

We are not going to be able to make any sense of non-sense, but we can be reasonable with our reason.

(aside) How come Sarah Palin was reading from notes in Nevada? I thought she had a palm?

Wasn't it Craig T Nelson who decried the stimulus while bragging that be never received any handouts when he was on food stamps? This is the norm for them.

I encountered the same people when I lived in Alaska. They wanted unfettered hunting and fishing so they could 'live off the land'. Of course what they meant was, kill every living thing they could find and then use the money from selling those things to live in a nice house in the lower 48 six to seven months out of the year.

Let's not forget most of these people live in states that are heavily subsisdised by the Federal government by the taxpayers in all the blue states that they hate so much.

As long as the MSM continues to portray their talking points as a valid "opposing view " , were are doomed to listen to the blathering Becks et al
for the foreseeable future

From conversations I had with out-of-district teabaggers at Jan Schakowsky's townhall on HCR, I gather that SS and Medicare are okay because "we paid for them," while they worry that many millions of undeserving people are going to get "free" healthcare they didn't pay for. You cannot convince these people even now that the law does not offer "free government healthcare" to everybody except the teabaggers.

It's like that old SNL skit where a black guy pretends to be white and discovers that when black people aren't around, white people give each other all kinds of free stuff, don't make them pay bus fare, etc.

They're addicted to the feeling of being part of something, and that's a powerful thing that's difficult to give up. So the problem isn't with facts and reason, but breaking this particular addiction, just like any other serious addiction. Tough to do. There are people out there pushing Tea Bagger fear videos. I know of one, but no doubt there are more.

... Kevo... separate wheat from chaff, not shaft.

It is not that surprising that the people who have the time to organize and attend events like this are retired or unemployed and receiving government benefits.

It is also not that surprising that they view themselves as deserving recipients of those benefits.

It's true they think there are OTHER people who are undeserving recipients of government benefits.

These is really all about the OTHER people.

@comradeanon

"obviously every tea bagger is not a racist."

This isn't obvious at all, Comrade. I rather think that they are all racists. I have empirical evidence on my side.

And you?

There is a tiny difference between government programs that tea partiers like and programs that they hate: in the case of social security & medicare, the recipients feel like it is their due, because they've been paying into the program their whole working lives. What burns them up are programs (generically considered "welfare") that are based on need, that the recipients may have never paid into.

What it boils down to is that they sort the residents of America into two groups: the hard workers, and the freeloaders. They don't have any problem with government helping out the former when they fall on hard times, but see red when the government spends money on the latter.

He hates government involvement in the lives of citizens -- but his main income is taxpayer-financed disability checks sent to him every month by the federal government

I see the same thing where I work - guys who have made careers in the military who are rabidly anti-federal government, and at the same time setting themselves up for a federal government job when they retire.

The same people had no problem whatsoever with Bush's deficit spending.

Another phenomenon I've observed is that the people who complain loudest about federal government and particularly the Obama administration seem to do the least amount of actual work.

The whole movement is laced with contradiction and hypocrisy.

Their sincerity notwithstanding. . .

Objection, your Honor - assumes facts not in evidence.

One partial psychological effect could be that if the government is providing these people with income and medical care, any inconvenience they run into - lack of money to buy something, a doctor's appointment to far in the future - they blame on the government. In fact, because these people are on government subsidies, the government does control a lot more of their lives. After awhile, their minds stop being able to register the benefits and only the negatives are taken into account. Also if you are on Medicare, Social Security, or disability there is little you can do to change your situation. It is less empowering than hating your boss and your job - there's no way to get a raise from the government or switch governments.

The problem is, they've forgotten or have blocked out the fact that they're lives would be significantly worse without this assistance. It's like a child rebelling against its parents because the weekly allowance doesn't let them buy $150 jeans.

Bill H: Medicare is Single Payer health care.

Actually, it's "social health insurance." I mean, technically...at least everywhere else in the world. Look it up. I'm guessing that US health economists and such refer to it as "single payer" because that word "social" tends to bring on the crazies - or, well...

Dave: Would "government run healthcare" suffice?

Um, no...the government is not providing the health care services, only providing or subsidizing the health insurance. Understand the difference?

Oh wait, except for the VA! Yeah, that's "government run healthcare" for the military. Bloody commies...

Yep, it's the Ocham's Razor obvious solution again. Racism is one. The other thing I would try to "out" is any "under-the-table" expenses and even cash these guys are getting from the shadowy organizers of the events.

. . . a confused group of misled people.

I had the chance to see some of the misleading up close. The Tuscaloosa Alabama Tea Party last April was sponsored and organized by the University of Alabama Law School Young Republicans, a group of individuals who have strong personal interests in keeping inhertance taxes low. The audience by and large were older and didn't look like people who had much acquantance with trust funds. The Young Republicans showed their opinion of their audience by inviting a spokesman for the neo-confederate, secessionist League of the South to be opening speaker.

Re the last point, I think it would be a good thing if everyone had to pay SOMETHING for services. Even if you're poor, you pay $5 for your meds, so you're invested in the system. There ARE lots of folks having more kids so they get more welfare. There ARE plenty of people who play the system... I've known some of them. They move assets into someone else's name... get welfare. Get disability. Get worker's comp. And they did not deserve them.

Not to say that a lot of people DO deserve them!

If that is what the Teabaggers are angry about, as stated above, asking those who receive something who have paid nothing into the system, to pay a meager amount is a good idea. In fact, it's a good idea Teabaggers or not.

I do think there is racism in the Teabagger movement-- don't know if that's the only thing behind it, tho. There certainly is a huge lack of education, too.

Daryl has a point. It would be reasonable to expect some quid pro quo on health care from recipients, such as higher premiums for being more risky, some pay-back requirements as can be afforded, etc. (There may be, for all I know.)

@Iron Knee-While I can agree with the terminology we try to properly use, it's the terminology the baggers use that needs to be put into context that they understand when trying to contradict their point. The VA would be socialized according to the baggers and medicare government run. Now what should we call social security? Government run 401K, IRA?

John above at 10:51 am touches on something that I've been wondering about as well...or rather, my wife has been wondering about it, and now she's got me thinkin' on it as well. (She's a psychoanalyst.)

I think that racism is a factor, but clearly not the only one. John raises a potential psychological side to things, and there may be something there, too.

The fact that many of the fiercest critics of new government assistance are in fact heavily reliant on the government themselves may make them feel less good about themselves. Sometimes people who aren't too keen on themselves will lash out at others - when what they're really doing is lashing out at themselves; so they lash out at "deadbeats" on the government teat, i.e., themselves.

/episode of In Treatment...

"After a year of angry debate," the Times article noted, "emotion outweighs fact."
-----------------------

It's too much to ask of the Times, but it does leave me wondering -- after all they've done to consistently report facts on the one side and distinguish these from fact-free emotional claims on the other, how such a thing could have come to pass in spite of their efforts.

I bet this often keeps Clark Hoyt up past his naptime.

"There ARE lots of folks having more kids so they get more welfare."

A commonly held belief, I know, but I have never seen anyone provide data to support it. Is there any data to support this claim other than "I know someone who knows this woman who says that's what she's doing"?

Dave - I'm not getting your point, to be honest.

Are you suggesting that to properly debate Tea Partiers we should use the same terminology that they do?

Why not do the opposite and try to get people to understand that it's taxpayer-subsidized health insurance that ends up paying doctors who are in private practice?

I think there's a dynamic here that everyone is missing. Yes, there's cognitive dissonance, yes there's racism and a sense of we're owed because "we paid our dues." But there is also a huge rage at the idea that the government being in bed with the banks - leading to loss of jobs at the community level and the need for things like Medicare, Social Security, etc.

I think one of the biggest mistakes by the Obama administration was not exacting a heavier toll on the banks and not doing more to relieve home foreclosures. The sense therefore is that the government, in complicity with the banks, screwed up the economy and then paid to bail out the banks using the taxpayers' money at the cost of "regular folks" jobs and houses.

Nor, I should add, is this a new idea. 30 years ago I was hearing from people who were sure that all their problems were derived from an evil alliance between the banks and the government. This easily leads to the paranoid fantasies about the Trilateral Commission, the IMF and World Government. What's changed is that this is no longer a fringe idea. It is now part of the Republican Party and members of Congress.

With this attitude, the Affordable Care Act is yet another sop to keep them happy - but in [their] reality costs them money and leads to big profits to the banks/insurance companies. I would also point out that some of this may be found on the far left as well in the Anarchist fringe. However, as Steve has repeatedly pointed out, the Democratic party does not have any Anarchists elected to Congress.

"I know someone who knows this woman who says that's what she's doing"?

Stereotyping is also a problem from things like this. This too seems to be a problem of the baggers when they group people. I think they believe "being created equal" actually means being created the same. I point out if you look at 1+1(others)=2(yourself), that's not the same.

I know a guy who just a lost his job, a sad sack who still voted Democratic all his life. All of a sudden, he's a Beck clone raging about government spending, particularly the Census. What I notice about his rage is the helplessness. He knows he needs the government but he lost his job and the government didn't prevent that.

We're in the Bad Mother phase of early childhood psychology.

How ironic that 'Bill H' does not realize that it is the Bill Hs about whom he writes!
Home-schooled and the back-row disaffected public school teens with no affinity to intelligent students or jocks left to resent achievers are easily swayed by the demagogs who are in it only for the money.

These people have put themselves in the public domain...use them The Democratic Party should plaster their faces all over ads and literature listing what social programs they make use of and live off of. Its not enough to just expose the hypocrisy, they need to put faces on it, make it personal. Whenever these people rally somewhere, making a show for tv cameras, expose them.

In a way, I'm surprised these stories have even gone public by they media. Although the narrative is somewhat shifting now that the healthcare bill has passed. I think the Tea Baggers' days as media darlings may be over.

Dave - I'm not getting your point, to be honest.

Are you suggesting that to properly debate Tea Partiers we should use the same terminology that they do?

That's exactly whay I'm saying. They will never agree with the opposite as we understand it. It's all about message and terminology that turns to fear. Cap and trade is cap and tax. Universal healthcare is socialism or government run. I'm suggesting fear is part of the equation we are discussing. Some may be racist, some may have fear, some may be ignorant, some may be legitimate, and other things being suggested and I am just adding to the picture we are painting here.

Clem @ 10:55 says "There ARE lots of folks having more kids so they get more welfare." Oh, REALly??

You actually know any women who have told you this? For that matter, have you ever come across a woman who has actually had children? (I doubt if you are married, and a parent, or you would have been thrown out of the house by your wife for simple stupidity in saying this?) You actually have heard any woman tell you that she deliberately chose to go through the nine months of discomfort that pregnancy brings, the cutting back on one's simple day-to-day free time, the lifetime committment, (and remember that you said 'more' which means she already has at least one child and has experienced both the joys and priblems of parenthood) for no other reason than to get the extra hundred dollars or so a month she gets for her additional child -- which won't even cover costs for diapers, or food, or later cost of schoolbooks, school lunches, or the various needs or wants any kids have?

People have kids for lots of reasons, because they want them, because of ignorance of contraception and refusal of abortion, because they feel it is their 'religious duty' but the one reason they DON'T have kids is to get more welfare that won't even pay half of the additonal cost that any kid brings.

Do me a favor, guy. First check the regs to see how much this 'extra welfare child' brings to the parent. Then actually hang out with some mothers who are on welfare, and talk with them.

Then come back in a week or so and apologize to us for your public display of stupidity.

Saint Zak has a good idea about publicizing these people. But to expect the media to acknowledge anything anticorporation is naive.

Now for the reason I actually joined the conversation. There are a lot of versions of the joke that Steve tells -- and that someone here credited to Fritz Hollings. The best one I've seen appeared on Sisyphus' blog at 43rd St. Blues -- though he admits he copied it. (the address is http://www.43rdstateblues.com/?q=node/5495 and why ARE Idaho Democratic blues all so good?)

Here's the way he tells it -- sorry, cat feeding keeps me from the blockquoting of each paragraph.

-------------
This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the U.S. Department of Energy.

I then took a shower in the clean water provided by a municipal water utility.

After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC-regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like, using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

I watched this while eating my breakfast of U.S. Department of Agriculture-inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

At the appropriate time, as regulated by the U.S. Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the U.S. Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration-approved automobile and set out to work on the roads build by the local, state, and federal Departments of Transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank.

On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the U.S. Postal Service and drop the kids off at the public school.

After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health administration, enjoying another two meals which again do not kill me because of the USDA, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to my house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and Fire Marshal's inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its valuables thanks to the local police department.

And then I log on to the internet -- which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration -- and post on Freerepublic.com and Fox News forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can't do anything right.
-----------

That sorta makes the point, don't it?

tea partyers are generally ignorant fools easily manipulated by the plutocracy. Their inability carry on rational, fact-based thought in their minds is a hazard to themselves and everyone else. They are the same fools who supported reagan against their own interests.

Ah, how I miss those smoke filled skies of Kansas as the Republican farmers would burn their Soil Bank checks, while deriding those "Wellofffare-Queens in Wichita and KC"

A Modest Proposal

How about this? Once these ringleaders are identified, cut 'em off. Have the Social Security Administration send them a nice letter, on government stationery, informing them that their comments have been heard, and they will be removed from the SS and Medicare rolls immediately, as a cost-saving measure and to reduce the creeping government socialism that you, dear Taxpayer, were demonstrating and calling for violence against.

No further checks will arrive, nor direct deposits, and when they visit their doctors or the hospital, they'll be privileged to pay in cash, just like any other Free American.

The teabaggers are right. Government has been responsible for much of what has happened in the last 30 years. But somehow they do not realize that it is the top 5% who have been allowed by government to play with their money and figure out how to extract real wealth out of everyone else by shuffling around worthless pieces of paper.

Over and over Americans have been squeezed by this oligarchy as they extract real productive wealth from the economy while contributing little to nothing back. I think of this author who wrote "The Trouble with Kansas" (or something like that for the title).

Somehow it is difficult for them to channel their anger to the targets who gave them so much of this grief.

Terraformer, you beat me to it. These people don't want government to help anybody ELSE. They deserve what their getting. Those other lazy parasites, and we know who they are, need to be taught a lesson in self sufficiency, because we know they only blow the money on drugs anyway, right?

Misled? I call it addlepated.

zoot, please, please don't make that mistake. These people are being manipulated, but not by a mythical 'plutocracy' -- most of the members of which, if it did exist, would prefer them not to be making fools of themselves blocking something that actually benefits them as business owners -- in fact, if any group should prefer 'single-payer' it is the plutocracy, that is, if 'economic determinism' and 'class solidarity' were more than Marxist myths.

The true manipulators are preachers (some of whom are sincere fanatics, others of whom are merely glad for the 'prayer offerings' this brings in), 'newsclowns' (was that a Phildickian neologism?) who are greedy for money and notoriety and, probably in some cases, whose crazyiness and illogic isn't a 'tactic' but a representation of how they think, and politicians seeing an angry mob and who 'have to see which way my people are marching so I can lead them.' In many cases they are simply running for their (political) lives because the same mobs who are heating the tar and feathers for Democrats are perfectly willing to make enough to deal with Republicans who don't 'fight for the right' -- see the attitudes towards John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Parker Griffith, Bob Inglis, Shelby, and the poor guy who is running for Governor of Slabama and actually dared state that there were parts of the Bible that didn't need to be taken literally. He was talking about the supposed ages of the patriarchs, not the creation stories, but he was still forced to recant. (As hard as it is to believe, several candidates in the race are trying to run to the right of Judge Roy Moore and actually suceeding.)

The tea parties might have been "Astroturfed' in the beginning, but right now they are being driven not by the successful and rich, but by people who aren't either, think they should be, and are desperate to find out reasons why they aren't -- external reasons, of course.

It is not cognitively dissonant, it is not intellectual inconsistent, it is not based on race per se.

Although all those factors help.

The Anglo-American Conservative world-view as shaped a few centuries ago in England does not view the provision of services to the needy through the agent, whether that be public or private or charitable, in an era where there was no separation of Church and State that distinction was essentially meaningless. Instead the focus was always on the recipient: was he among the deserving poor or the undeserving poor, the former getting aid, the latter ideally not.

That worldview is still pervasive today, even if unarticulated. Today 'government' does not mean 'public', Conservatives are not concerned about either the source of funding or the employer of those who deliver services, instead it is whether that service is being delivered to the 'deserving' or the 'undeserving'.

In the Conservative mind benefits delivered through the VA or as a result of work (Social Security and Medicare) are earned individual rights and so in that sense not 'governmental' at all. They are 'deserving'. Whereas welfare recipients are 'undeserving'.

Think Oliver Twist. Poor Oliver wasn't black or brown, he wasn't particularly 'Other' in any identifiable way, but he was 'undeserving'. Now obviously in America all of this got a toxic injection of racism, but the exact same dynamic played and plays our in British Conservatism even before England really had any brown or black population.

The Conservative mind-set may seem twisted when seen either from a Liberal Humanist or a Christian perspective, the idea that there even is such a thing as an 'undeserving' human being itself being alien to our worldview, but to simply dismiss it as mindless is a mistake, there is a logic there that is not totally a product of modern American wing-nuttery.

These stories abound. My own experience: one day a colleague of mine started blasting the Democrats health care plan, and Obama's "dictatorial" actions to pass the "2700 page" bill, etc. He said the government is taking over our lives, and that we need shrink government.

Later, as we (a group of co-workers) discussed health care in general, he mentioned that his disabled son gets health care through the Federal government.

And lets not forget Sarah Palin whose whole family is on Socaized medicine, paid for by the people of Alaska and of the USA becasue her husband is part Indian.
And they will get that free health care for life.

There is also her retirement pay as Governor and probably access to health care under the state's Civil Service.

And even though she is on Commie healt care, not a single death panel has killed off her less than delicious children, nor did it force Palin to abort a TriG fetus, nor did it force her daughter to abort a illigitimate fetus. Either on moral grounds or becasue it would keep them off their life time free meds.

Another ironic hyporkrisy among the Right is: their acceptance of special yet not even justified tax benefits for investors (like lower capital gains rates) and acceptance of child tax credits for 80+k-ers. I should not be subsidizing either lower rates for speculators, nor children of people who earn more than me. Sarah Palin said she's for low CG rates, and presumably supports the CTC (although not traditional welfare, I'm sure.)

Duane: the "best" among the 'baggers are suspicious of the financiers (even if often crankily tinged versions), and I hope we can channel that against the Rebaglickins and find common cause with some in that tea party movement. Meanwhile, join the Coffee Party Movement (Facebook, coffeepartyusa.com) and stand up yourselves!

Saw a commenter on local tv blog this morning who claimed that it was a "fact" that Obama was socialist, and as his evidence he wrote: "see Cultural Marxism - the Franklin school"... LOL, the guy can't even get the name of a major intellectual movement correct -- imagine him trying to read a page of Adorno or Marcuse... The Franklin school! I bet he thinks its an actual school like "School for the Americas" or something. Most of these folks could not pass an average basic pol sci or Modern Western Civ course.

"My neighbor went to public schools before joining the military. He went to college on the G.I. Bill, bought his first home through the FHA, and received his health care through the V.A. and Medicare. He now receives Social Security." But those aren't Commie programs like anything that Commie Obama pushes, because they help me and I'm an anti-Commie. You're just not being logical, Benen.

I had a friend who is a nurse that did a lot of work with people on welfare. She did have personal knowledge of some who had more children to get the extra benefits, and I believe her; so such things exist. How important they are is entirely another question.

My first wife worked in the welfare department of NYC back in the late '60s. Her area was the Bed-Stuy ghetto in Brooklyn. Ir was devastating for her, in that almost all of her cases were honest people who had been laid off or had medical problems and there was not much she could do for them. My impression (anecdote, not data!) is that most people would rather have an honest job but there will always be a few who try to freeload. (Of course --- snark alert! --- there are no cheaters at the high end of the income scale who game the system --- the moral: never steal anything small). So what? If a relatively few people cheat, why deprive the large majority who really need and deserve help (usually temporary, but with our systemic economic troubles, that's no longer a safe assumption)?

Clearly there is another dynamic at work, something a good social psychology needs to examine. What are so many so angry about? Not that we could cure a mass pathology in time for the coming environmental and resource crisis. I fear a very bumpy ride over the next few decades.

'this is a confused group of misled people.' That is not entirely true. They are being led exactly where their corporate masters want them to be led. They are adding balast to a political agenda that actually benefits a very small fraction of the electorate. But there aren't enough CEO's to win elections. So you need an ignorant mob that is mobilized by the media wing of the CEO club. Watch 'Wag the Dog' again to get a feel for how it is done.

These Tea Party cranks aren't really motivated by concern about government spending or the deficit -- where were they during the Bush years? These people are still paranoid about "welfare queens," "illegals," and "reparations" (Rush's view of health care reform). They think that they are the "real Americans" who work hard and pay their taxes, and that this African-American (or Kenyan-Muslim) President and his socialist comrades in Congress are channeling tax dollars to lazy people of color and illegal immigrants. This Reagan-era groupthink is the glue that holds the GOP together.

Steve Benen wrote: "The cognitive dissonance is rather remarkable."

I don't think "cognitive dissonance" means what you think it means. From Wikipedia:

Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, or by justifying or rationalizing them. It is one of the most influential and extensively studied theories in social psychology.

The Ditto-Head Tea-Baggers you describe show no indication of being "uncomfortable" at "holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously" nor do they seem "motivated" to change or justify or rationalize their contradictory beliefs and attitudes.

In fact, they seem entirely comfortable and pleased with themselves for holding contradictory beliefs and attitudes, and thus cannot be said to be experiencing the subjective state of "cognitive dissonance".

Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things."

"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

-- Alice in Wonderland

You all are missing the big point here.

The Republican leadership thinks that the tea party is the train to ride to victory. The Democratic leadership thinks that this is an Aikido moment to use the tea partiers against the Republicans in the court of popular opinion and bring out voters who don't usually vote in off year elections.

Democrats will move Immigration reform to the center ring so that the tea partiers can have maximum opportunity to show their hateful side.

Republicans will double down on the fear in order to scare as may waverers as possible.

Does anyone have a plan for what to do when the shooting starts?

A psychiatrist i work with (at a state mental hospital), a man i respect greatly for his compassion, and attention to his work, who has been practicing longer than i've been alive, was treated for prostate cancer last starting last summer. he proudly calls himself a Tea Partier, and thinks Sarah Palin is enchanting. he returned to work about three weeks ago.

in our "welcome back" conversation, he praised his treatment, his doctors, and all the options he had. then he said "say what you will about Medicare, it really worked for me. I was looking at the bill, and out of what was probably $100K in treatment, i paid about $120.

of course, since i'm a bleeding heart liberal, and we get along, i had to poke him a little. i said "so i guess that socialized medicine isn't so bad after all..." and he started rather forcefully explaining how it wasn't really socialized medicine for him because "i've paid in to Medicare for fifty years" and "i've paid my share, so i'm just getting what i put in."
at the time i couldn't remember when Medicare was enacted, so i gave him the "fifty years" but then i said to him "but what about everyone else, just because you put in your money, what about everyone who's on Medicare but didn't pay in?" he essentially ignored the question, and started in on a diatribe about how the new health care reform bill was going to cut Medicare by 20%.

so here's this guy, who works at a State Mental Hospital with geriatric patients, almost all of whom have Medicare, and sometimes with younger patients, almost all of whom subsist on SSI and Medicaid, who himself got good treatment cheaply through Medicare. and he looked me in the eye and decried socialized medicine.

if the smart people (and this psychiatrist is undeniably smart) get caught up in the emotion and the rhetoric, then i think we have to acknowledge that logic will not prevail. and we have to do what needs to be done regardless of whether anyone agrees with us.

Also, most anti-governmentalists accept that government should enforce private contracts, so hospitals can get money from their clients, defaulting home dwellers can be kicked out etc. Fun to see them have to use their own muscle to get what they want.

SA: not "cognitive dissonance" but "logical contradiction" is better. Nerds like the former and that explains the appeal.

Illegal immigrants: IMHO a big mistake of the Left was to wave off legitimate complaints about illegal immigration. Ill-Im floods the job market and is beloved by corporate interests, that should make you suspicious right there. Plus it really isn't part of classic liberal ideology to overlook illegal ways of entering a nation unless perhaps to help desperate refugees etc.

As I think I've written here before, there are too few receiving too much so that the rest of us have to fight for the leftovers. If everyone got what they needed, decent shelter, nutrition, health care, education, and opportunities for work, etc., I don't think we'd see all this in-fighting. It only benefits TPTB (powerful and wealthy) to keep the current system in place (especially dumbing down the population at large). I'm not advocating socialism, but IMO one of the roles of government is to make sure its citizens lives are as good as they can be.

More detailed reporting is needed on the Tea Party movement. I suspect it's more nuanced and detailed than present news reporting lets on. Our opinions are being developed by incomplete, inaccurate reporting thru the MSM.

I have no doubt racist attitudes prevail and they are becoming an operating wing of the Republican party, but we owe ourselves to look further.

Who waves off complaints about illegal immigration? The issue is where do you point the finger? I say that you can't blame the immigrant for coming over here to try to better their lives and fill these jobs. You blame the employers for first of all creating this two tiered system where there are these low paying jobs that don't pay a living wage and then they are allowed to essentially hire slave labor. You go after employers who are the real bad actors in this equation not the folks who they exploit. That is simply blaming the victim. Dry up the inducements and the flood will abate. Then work on border enforcement. Couple that with a human path to citizenship for those who have built lives here because of the fucked up system that we have been too cowardly to change for generations.

getting unemployment down to 4% would go a long way towards rationality.

www.moslerforsenate.com

and see the draft of 'the 7 deadly innocent frauds of economic policy' in the left margin:

www.moslereconomics.com

“All I know is government was put here for certain reasons,” Ms. Reimer said. “They were not put here to run banks, insurance companies, and health care and automobile companies. They were put here to keep us safe.”

Uhhhh, then who keeps us safe from banks, insurance companies, and health care and automobile companies?

SW:

"Who waves off complaints about illegal immigration? The issue is where do you point the finger? I say that you can't blame the immigrant for coming over here to try to better their lives and fill these jobs. You blame the employers for first of all creating this two tiered system where there are these low paying jobs that don't pay a living wage and then they are allowed to essentially hire slave labor. You go after employers who are the real bad actors in this equation not the folks who they exploit. That is simply blaming the victim. Dry up the inducements and the flood will abate. Then work on border enforcement. Couple that with a human path to citizenship for those who have built lives here because of the fucked up system that we have been too cowardly to change for generations."

I agree with you, but there is yet an additional factor to consider. Mexico, our biggest source of illegal immigrants due to geographic contiguity, is truly an oligarchy. As long as Mexico does nothing for the vast majority of its population, we will continue to see people coming over the border. They are desperate to scratch out a living and to provide food for their families. They are about as far from deadbeats as you can get. They also are NOT using a disproportionate amount of social services, such as health care, because they are afraid of "La Migra". Unfortunately, to the Tea Baggers they are brown-skinned and therefore suspect.

But that doesn't change the fact that we're talking about a reasonably large group of people who are deeply, tragically misguided.

Ever heard of the Taiping Rebellion? Crazy Chinese following a whacky pseudo-Christian leader in a cult that resulted in massive civil war in which about 25 million died, mostly civilians.

The Tea Partiers got nothin' on them...

[If you want to advertise on Washington Monthly, you should contact our advertising partners at Blogads and purchase space in the sidebar, not leave misleading comments about what sort of site you run. --Editorial Staff]

Palin is not on so called commie health care. BIA only covers those that are Native or part Native down to a certain point. Her husband qualifies under the law, she does not because she is not Native and her children do not because they fall under that percentage. That also means that when the children were born that none of the incurred prenatal or hospital bills were paid for by BIA because she herself did not qualify. Just because Natives qualify does not mean they use the system. I do not know whether Scott has or has not but know many that feel the system is so poor that they will not use it.

When you have members of Congress like Michelle Bachman saying in public that prior to Obama's election the economy was 100 percent private you know there's something really screwy going on in our public dialogue.

Hello!? If so many who receive government assistance in Tea Party flock are so angry at our government, then why don't we REALLY piss them off and pull the plug on their govenment assistance. THAT might realign their cognitive dissonance.

The bottom line seem inescapable: too many Tea Party activists have no idea what they're talking about.

This is wrong. The Tea Party activists aren't struggling against government handouts. They're against the government giving somebody else a handout. They are convinced that there is only so much to go around and that if you get more, they get less.

This is what the whole "Death Panel" nonsense was about and why they held saying Keep Your Goddamn Government Hands Off My Medicare!

The key word there is My, not Medicare.

But, "they" buy steaks with their welfare cards, take taxis to shop at WalMart and every one of "them" has a fancy bluetooth cell-phone. I've never seen any evidence of it myself, but I know it's so, because a woman I know told me so. I won't ask her whether she, herself, has seen any evidence of such spendthrift behaviour, because she hates like poison to be on the losing side of an argument and will do "whatever's necessary" not to place herself there.

You can't reason with people who're indulging themselves with a fit of blind rage.

Lyndon Johnson, while he was Senate Majority Leader, cogently explained why many of his (white) Texas consitutents opposed civil rights legislation: “I’ll tell you what’s at the bottom of it. If you can convince the lowest white man that he’s better off than the best colored man, he won’t notice you picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”

Very interesting thread. Lots of good stuff here. It's horrifying but irresistible to peer into that chasm, isn't it?

Bruce Webb: Instead the focus was always on the recipient: was he among the deserving poor or the undeserving poor, the former getting aid, the latter ideally not...Now obviously in America all of this got a toxic injection of racism, but the exact same dynamic played and plays our in British Conservatism even before England really had any brown or black population.

Just so. As I commented the other day: Racism is an enormous part of teabaggery and conservatism in general -- but as a subset of the larger "undeserving other" theme. None of that is uniquely American or especially modern...but that is what we are dealing with in this "movement."

Affirmative Action was passed under Johnson although it was started under Kennedy and to that end they gave the poor whites someone to look down on.

The man in your "joke" is my father-in-law. He did all those things, and voted for Alan Keyes in the last election. Alan. Keyes.

There is no contradiction. Just because I don't agree with a policy doesn't mean that I won't take advantage of it. After all, I paid for it with my taxes. More than paid for it. Could have purchased it cheaper privately. I don't care what other people have if I don't have to pay for it. If you stopped all the give away programs today, the payors will benefit, and the economy will benefit. The lack of irony here is on your side. You have no limits to the claims you make on the income of others. You apparently think government creates wealth, and can spend my money better than I can.

Here's another perfect example of the contradiction of the tea partiers:
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/03/28/palin-searchlight-rally/
~~~
The Tea Party movement loves to express its affection for the Constitution... so it’s extremely puzzling that Palin introduced this new attack line against President Obama yesterday:

"In these volatile times when we are a nation at war, now more than ever is when we need a commander-in-chief, not a constitutional law professor lecturing us from a lectern."

Ironically, the crowd cheered wildly at Palin’s line.
~~~
I really think we should pay no attention to these nutbags. Though they were possibly cheering Palin because they don't want anyone who knows more than they do (you know, their gut feelings) "lecturing" them.

My 90-year-old grandmother is a prime example of this paradox. Before she retired, when she had a disabled husband and a young daughter to support, she accepted government cheese under Jimmy Carter. But hates those damn welfare queens.

Now she gives little checks to various Republican causes because she's deathly afraid the gubmint is going to take away from her Social Security. Why does she think so? Because she gets letters weekly from various Republican-related organizations telling her so. Including Oliver North!

Yet, who is more likely to take away her Social Security, or at least her grandkids' SS? I think we all know the answer.

Is Medicare socialized medicine? The Conservative leading thinkers - Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater - say "yes". We should respect their definition. And we should then respect that the majority of Americans favor Socialized Medicine, using the terms defined by Conservatives. And we should feel free to remind them of that.

Just a guess, but I bet they have their Social Security checks "direct deposited" (Social Security encourages that) and with their Medicare premium deducted from their Social Security checks, they never actually SEE that government check.

Out of sight, out of mind.

Idiots. Sheeple. Brainwashed racists.

Stop those checks being deposited for a couple of months and they'll scream.

But WHAT will they scream? They'll scream that the government is so bad it can't get them their checks on time.

I think there's a term for this. I suspect it may be "cognitive dissonance."

"Yes, a new political party needs to emerge for these citizens on the Right. To separate the wheat from the shaft, the new third party needs a slogan like, The New Republicans: Racists need not join!"

BTW, it's chaff (i.e. the "fluff" from the wheat) not shaft.

But I think that to crystallize what's going on, the Tea Baggers SO need to change their slogan, but to ones like "Send back your Social Security and disability checks!" and "Burn your Medicare card!"

We'll see how many of the baggers stick around with slogans like those.

Brilliantly reasoned. I have no doubt that every Democrat who opposed the Bush tax cuts proudly overpaid their taxes at the older, higher rates, too.

Does anyone really think that a person who thinks, for example, that partial privatization of Social Security is a good idea ought to stop cashing their SS checks to show their commitment? Wow.

In retrospect, it may not have been a wise move to elect the quasi-alcoholic illegitimate Indonesian grandson of an African witch doctor as President of the USA.

When you try to be dispassionate and sit back and just observe the "Tea Partiers," the contradictions are obvious.

Here is a group of people, many benefiting directly for one government program or another. And yet they are out there yelling, screaming, and threatening along the general line of "Get the government out of our lives."

How can that be?

It can only be because they do not ADMIT to themselves that they could not make it without the government assistance they receive. Why?

Because the American psyche is all about independence, go-it-alone, frontier "freedom" in the Big Sky, nobody-here-but-me sense.

I bet you a bunch of these folks were ashamed to be on "welfare," (which is what disability is. Look at the word -- it means to "fare well.")

But why didn't they demonstrate when the Medicare prescription drug bill was up in Congress?

Hmmm. What could the difference be? hmmmmm.

First, the Republicans weren't giving this new welfare to them. Republican welfare? Good. Democratic welfare? Communism. A whole lot of these people are "Reagan" Democrats.

And what was it about Reagan that brought this particular stratum of Democrats to Reagan? What was it about him that was different from previous Republicans?

Well, they weren't fiscally different: Republicans have been the party of the rich and against working people for some time. National defense? Nope. That aspect of both parties had not changed for decades.

For one thing, he WAS a "great communicator." My husband and I used to laugh about a statement one of his conservative friends said. He said he was voting for Reagan because, "He's one of the greatest actors we've ever had."

Of course WE didn't think he was a great actor, but we also thought, "What does acting have to do with being a good President."

I think we've all seen THAT by now. So we were wrong then. I really, really helps when you're President to be a good actor.

But there is also the 180 degree turn that Reagan made. He made it in the South. And it is still referred to as "The Southern Strategy."

A bit of history. I worked for the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department under Nixon and Ford. And BOTH of them supported strong civil rights enforcement.

It was when Reagan went to the South and strongly inferred an anti-black agenda that former southern Democrats suddenly identified with the party of corporations and bosses.

Thus did the Republicans sell their souls to the Devil to get their sacks of gold. And as in Faust, their deals has come back to haunt them.

They are now so closely entwined with the racists they courted 30 years ago that legislators like Eric Cantor have to court with those re-enacting Kristallnacht.

It was all so clearly shown by that one woman in August. I can still see her so clearly. She was weeping and at the same time whining, "I just want my country back."

Back from what? From DEMOCRATS? I think not. She meant from Obama.

From the black guy.

It is so clear that people don't want to see it. It is the Emperor's New Clothes of the US of A. 150 years ago is not THAT long a time. That's when the Tea Partiers great-great-grandparents went to WAR to keep their slaves. The keep the black people property. To keep their law-bidin' rights to whip them, rape them, SELL their CHILDREN !!!

That one of THEM should be telling the Tea Partiers what to do? It is painful in the extreme. It is psychic pain they can not stand, much less understand.

The sins of the father indeed. These people are still enacting the sins of their ancestors.

Good news, bad news.

Bad news first: this is getting too heated. Super-heated. And the Republicans see this, too, and are going all in. Because if they can't make this pot boil over now, it's going to go cold. And they can see it.

Good news: we're breeding faster than they are. Another generation, and they'll be the minority, and they won't be able to get away with this anymore.

Why do Tea Partiers think they would be better off under an economic and political regime that utterly failed? The Bush Administration's aggressive militarism, tax cuts, de-regulation and small government ideology failed to defend us, failed to employ us, failed to protect our life savings and unconstitutionally intruded into every aspect of our personal lives. The policies put in place over those 8 years were an abject, utter failure for average Americans.

There's just so much spin you can put on failure. 100 years ago incompetence and corruption like we've seen recently caused whole governments to fail. And here we have a emerging group of New Apologists who, after listening to people like Michelle Bachman and Glenn Beck, don't know whether to scratch their watches or wind their butts.

We must always confront the lies and misinformation and we must never stop reminding people about the consequences of bad policy based on poor judgment like we saw under President Bush.

MM: "With this attitude, the Affordable Care Act is yet another sop to keep them happy - but in [their] reality costs them money and leads to big profits to the banks/insurance companies."

Why bracket-inject the word "their" into the sentence, when the package does exactly that? It compels payment but does not obligate service.

SB: "Their sincerity notwithstanding, this is a confused group of misled people."

Them too, eh?

Yet, it isn't "the government" that is allowing resources to go to undeserving people. Federal programs more often than not, work with limited manpower and budget for things like regulation and enforcement. Just look at the EPA and the massive amounts of environmental violations they can't handle because their manpower and funding don't allow it.

Application of social safety nets require regulation and enforcement of regulations. If these programs were regulated as they should be, there would be a lot of dropped dead wood. And maybe some of the worst complainers about Other People would be the first to get the boot while Other People got to stay in the program BECAUSE THEY NEEDED THE HELP!!!!

I know, lets let the fair and balanced reporters of Fox News tell us what the problems are, where the problems are, and who the problems are, instead of listening to the silenced voices of the people who run and apply these programs. Oh, wait...

Socialism is a failed economic system. PERIOD. No amount of government aid or largess to the most amount of people to convince them otherwise will change the fact that Socialism is unsustainable.

Yes, people who are on government programs may seem on the surface to be hypocritical...but on the other hand....they had their money taken from them at the threat of fines, punishment, jail to pay for Social Security. Maybe they are just getting restitution.

Veterans of the armed forces gave their entire existence to Uncle Sam in the form of military service in exchange for a pittance of a salary and an explicit promise for future benefits. Not to mention that lots of veterans from the Vietnam era and prior were conscripted into service (conscription is akin to forced servitude in some lexicons).

So all the writer's type of conversation and analysis leads to is a distraction from the main discussion: Socialism is a failed economic system.

Tim, it would help if you would define 'failed.' If you feel a system that allowed people to starve to death or die from disease rather than taxing the public and providing a safety net for the most vulnerable (which free-market capitalism could well bring about, since it's impossible to know how much private charity citizens are willing to give out if they don't know what the future holds in store for them) is better, well... seems to me that you need to tell the rest of us what 'success' means to you.

And is 'sustainable' really the only thing that matters in an economic system? Does the well-being of all the players who participate mean anything?

All the same, your whole 'restitution' argument conveniently ignores the fact that these people aren't practicing what they're preaching, and would have no compunction about eliminating the benefits that are allowing them to not have to sleep under a bridge or starve. It's awfully easy to provide social prescriptions that will not harm you or anyone close to you in the short term.

Having said that, I agree with your observation about conscripted veterans. All the same, not allowing the gov't to ignore their commitments to these people is an argument in favor of socialism.