Originally posted by: BMW540I6speed
I just don't get it. Don't any of these folks find the comparison between Obama and Hitler/Stalin/Mao/Saddam/Mussolini/Pol Pot/et al to be an incredible insult to the people who *actually suffered* under these despots?
"So your grandparents lost their families in Nazi concentration camps? Well, Barack Obama tried to get the government to pay for my health insurance! It's exactly the same!"
I mean really, wtf?
Doesn't the fact that people can go to Obama's events to heckle - and packing heat, no less - invalidate the claim that he has created a police state? Doesn't the continued popularity of Glenn Beck (god help us all) demonstrate that dissidents are not, in fact, being sent to the fields for re-education? These people look like everyday ordinary middle class Americans. But, there they are holding up these utterly wacko and ridiculous signs.
What's happening today is no different from McCarthyism or any other time politicians have used fear as a tool to create frenzy and fear in the most ignorant of society. While I had my issues with Bush jr., I never doubted his citizenship nor his humanity. These people want to dehumanize Obama, and to me, sorry, that smacks of racism, or at least "otherism".
The only reason I can think why anyone who considers themselves fiscally conservative and would still vote for todays Republicans (including Ron Paul) is because they are irrational and not so good with math or history or what economic freedom means for most of the world.
The worst mistake they make is that they think tax cuts are tax cuts. They're not - they're tax deferments, which you will have to pay someday, with interest. It's like saying that the sweater you bought on credit card for $100 is cheaper than the sweater you paid $125 for...except you don't pay the sweater off for 4 years, and it ends up costing you $200 with the interest payments. What are the tea baggers really complaining about? It can't be taxes. We're the least taxed western industrialized nation. Our taxation to GDP ratio is the lowest in the world.
Do they think they get a bad deal for their tax dollars? They should step back and think about it. The average American will pay roughly 300K to 600K in taxes over the course of their entire lifetime. That's just enough to pay one year in salaries for maybe 10 government employees. Over the course of a lifetime, Americans will utilize the work of millions of government employees. They'll travel hundreds of thousands of miles on government roads and bridges. They'll use 911 services provided by government. They'll send their kids to schools and universities built and staffed by the government. Their state will probably have been helped significantly in emergency situations by the government. They'll use libraries built and staffed by the government. Just those things mentioned above cost billions.They paid a fraction of that over the course of their entire lives.
Tell me, what self-respecting "socialist", much less a communist, would have sent hundreds of billions of dollars to billionaire capitalists to bail them out? He has "nationalized" all of 0.21% of the economy since taking office.