Whenever fine, fine members of the Tea Party (or some politicians who are trying to manipulate white, working-class Americans) want to get all states' rightsy or pretend they understand jackshit about the history of the nation's founding, they will often cite the Federalist Papers and especially James Madison, author of a chunk of those documents (which, lucky ducks that we are, Glenn Beck is
translating into "modern" English). They want to reduce Madison to Johnny Limited Government, but they don't think through the implications of that beyond "me-no-like-taxes" and "I'd rather die than get health care from a black man."
But since you shall know people by their deeds, here's a couple of actual decisions that Madison made while President that might just blow up the heads of your teabagger cousins when they come over to eat your meat.
Madison didn't think the federal government should build roads, so good-bye interstate highways. He
vetoed a federal works bill in 1817, saying, "'The power to regulate commerce among the several States' can not include a power to construct roads and canals, and to improve the navigation of water courses in order to facilitate, promote, and secure such commerce without a latitude of construction departing from the ordinary import of the terms strengthened by the known inconveniences which doubtless led to the grant of this remedial power to Congress...If a general power to construct roads and canals, and to improve the navigation of water courses, with the train of powers incident thereto, be not possessed by Congress, the assent of the States in the mode provided in the bill can not confer the power." Whenever teabag patriots cite this document, they keep the shit about a federal government constrained by the Constitution. They leave out that, followed through, there'd be no I-10.
But, sure, sure, in theory, if not in action, your cousin might say that the roads he drives on every morning and afternoon would have to go, but you know all that money that the federal government gives to "faith-based" organizations. You know how that's not supposed to impinge on the separation of church and state because only that asshole miscegenation-lover Thomas Jefferson actually believed in it? About that: Madison
vetoed a bill that would have flat out established an Episcopal church in Alexandria, Virginia. His reasoning? "[T]he Bill exceeds the rightful authority, to which Governments are limited by the essential distinction between Civil and Religious functions, and violates, in particular, the Article of the Constitution of the United States which declares, that 'Congress shall make no law respecting a Religious establishment.'" That last part? Yeah, Madison wrote that shit.
He added that he was vetoing also "Because the Bill vests in the said incorporated Church, an authority to provide for the support of the poor, and the education of poor children of the same, an authority, which being altogether superfluous if the provision is to be the result of pious charity, would be a precedent for giving to religious Societies as such, a legal agency in carrying into effect a public and civil duty." Limited government means "limited" to Madison, not just "limited to the shit I care about."
So to all the teabaggers out there, suck on Madison's secular humanism, bitches.
Comments (30)
Any Tea Bagger reading this will be thinking...I got me a 4 X 4 ...hell yea, I don't need no stinking roads, Beck is right, dem libs is limp wristed, prius driving wussbags. The correlation of 18 wheelers, his Papst Blue Ribbon and roads are too advanced of concepts for most of them to grasp.
LOL I love the comic!!! In time we will look back on the tea bagger party and think "What the f* were we thinking?"
speaking of comics, American History according to tea party darlings Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann resembles American history according to Mad Magazine more than anything else.
@AmeliaHart - This sort of hateful name calling, I honestly thought you were above such a thing. Color me disappointed.
@randomneuralfirings - I'm sorry if I offended you. (I admit that was I poking fun.) However all joking aside I do see the tea party movement as a fringe/hateful group. So I am strongly against them - to me they do not represent the conservative right/Republicans properly and actually contributed in splintering the Republican party.
@randomneuralfirings - And I stand by what I said, in time people will look back on the tea party (especially Republicans) and say "What the f* were we thinking?"
I am married to James Madison B*****R V. True story
it's always great to actually know... the stance they have... I always wondered... thanks! Loved the comic ... =D stupid people!!
@randomneuralfirings - "This sort of hateful name calling, I honestly thought you [AmeliaHart] were above such a thing. Color me disappointed."
Fuck you and your hypocritical sensibilities.
You were the blogger who wrote in explicit defense of "Obamacare"-- link
The shit you and your conservative kin pulled back in 2009 and 2010 were a personality-cored villification and rebranding of liberal health care reform. This was a shift of the origins and authorship of health care reform, at one point Republican-advocated, to an "Kenyan," "Muslim," and "Communist" president.
While charges of sexual crudity would be on the mark, it doesn't match the substantive deception of your "Obamacare." Besides, here, the understanding of "teabagging" is unambigious. It clearly references the Teap Party-- no, not the 1773 Boston Tea Party nor the party of Alice in Wonderland-- but the rebranding efforts of 21st-century hyper-conservative Republicans.
@Celestial_Teapot - Talking about hypocritical sensibilities...Exactly what should I call your blog, then, since it is (for reasons that still escape me) offensive to name it after the person associated with it?
Perhaps the assumption that Tea Baggers have “minds” is throwing me....
@randomneuralfirings - In the same sense, teabagging and teabagger is associated with tea party. The critical difference, as articulared in my first reply, is that this reference is only crude, Obamacare was substantively deceptive.
@Celestial_Teapot - And how, pray tell, is it "deceptive" to nickname a piece of legislation after its most noteworthy advocate?
@randomneuralfirings - Actually, I'm agreeing with you on this over Celestial_Teapot (take that, people that say I'm biased!), Obamacare is just a normal political term. It's biased, but no more so than most others.
You know, I really did like the Tea Party when it was first established. I went to one of the rallies at the St. Paul Capitol on April 15th. There were Democrats, Republicans, and Independents like me there. I walked around and talked to people...they were all fed up with the government pushing us around. I liked that about them. Since then though I've seen the neo-conservatives hijack the group and that makes me sad and disappointed. So I've distanced myself. They're still right about some things... But they're going in a direction that they weren't supposed to originally. I don't really care for Beck either.
I will say that I'm disappointed in you for calling them teabaggers. It's really an offensive term (I play Halo on Xbox Live...I hear it all the time). I was shocked when I first heard media heads using it on MSNBC. I thought they had more dignity than that... I really think that it is a poor approach to stoop to name calling when discussing disagreements.
@firetyger - You realize that "teabagger" was a term that the party itself adopted at first, right? And that it is meant in derision to the people who hijacked what could have been a legit cause to the ignorant hillbillies who don't want a black president?
I was at the same rally as you (it was a 5 minute walk from my place), and I didn't see the same bipartisanship you did.
[It's really an offensive term (I play Halo on Xbox Live...I hear it all the time).]
As a retarded faggot, I find most of what I hear on XBL offensive.
@GodlessLiberal - They did not adopt that term. Do you not remember all the ruckus caused by Maddow and Olberman calling them that in the beginning? The Tea Party was enraged, and rightly so in that case.
That's awesome you were at the rally :) I took a bunch of pics...I was there with my kiddos. I'm surprised you didn't see the bipartisanship. Did you talk to many people?
The first time I'd ever heard the term "teabagger" and "teabagging" was about six or seven years ago when I first started playing games on XBox Live. People still use it on there all the time. But yeah, I was still shocked that anyone a part of the media would use such a crude term on TV. It was not appropriate at all.
@firetyger - They didn't?
I talked to people that weren't carrying signs that showed Obama as Hitler (there were a few), and in general the vibe I got was redneck mixed with the rare Ron Paul, semi-intellectual college type (don't take that last part as insulting, college democrats are full of semi-educated "liberals").
@GodlessLiberal - Originally we were encouraged to mail tea bags to members of Congress to protest but then people realized that they might think it was a toxic substance or something so they stopped. The reason tea bags were sent was because loose leaf tea is messier and far more expensive. It was not meant in a derogatory sense. Merely out of symbolism of the Boston Tea Party and convenience compared to loose leaf tea. I thought it was a bad idea because of those who think of the concept "teabagging" so I never mailed any. The rest of the Tea Party caught on once Maddow started using it in a derogatory way.
What time did you show up at the rally? I was there for the last half. I was purposely looking for Hitler signs because I was taking pictures to document it but I heard that all of the infiltrators had already been asked to leave by the time I got there so I never saw any.
@firetyger - "You know, I really did like the Tea Party when it was first established. I went to one of the rallies at the St. Paul Capitol on April 15th. There were Democrats, Republicans, and Independents like me there... Since then though I've seen the neo-conservatives hijack the group and that makes me sad and disappointed...."
I've had the same feeling.
Though, to me, "neo-conservative" refers to the post-Regan Republican foreign policy hawks and not the socially conservative/ evangelical branch of the GOP.
"I will say that I'm disappointed in you for calling them teabaggers. It's really an offensive term (I play Halo on Xbox Live...I hear it all the time). I was shocked when I first heard media heads using it on MSNBC."
To me, the epithet reflects percieved silliness of the "tea party" in general:
(1) The Boston Tea Part fought for no taxation without representation. The tea baggers fight for no taxation despite reprsentation.
(2) It's a short-hand. Teabagger is so much smoother than "Tea Party Member" or "Tea Partier." And really? Wearing actual teabags?
(3) As Krisko mentioend, "teabagging" and "teabagger" were first used by party members in innocent self-reference.
Yes, it's crude and sexual, but the ubiquity of this useage is bringing it into the mainstream. But most significantly, it functions in communicating intended disdain and ridicule.
@randomneuralfirings - "And how, pray tell, is it "deceptive" to nickname a piece of legislation after its most noteworthy advocate?"
Here's a site with the legislative history of the bill: from committee, amendments, house vote, and senate vote:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:HR03590:@@@S
Can you show me where "Obama" shows up?
If you recall high school civics you'd know that the Legislative Brach legislate bills and the Executive Branch executes them after they pass. While President, Barack Obama played no role in the writing, amending, or passing of Health Care Reform. If anything, you'd recall that the healthcare plan advocated by then-candidate Obama never even saw the fucking light of day.
The New Deal is not Roosvelt-Works the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is not the Johnson-Plan. Jiggle your axons, see if you can fire me another piece of leiglsation named for its contemporary President.
Jiggle your axons, see if you can fire me another piece of leiglsation [sic] named for its contemporary President.
"Bush tax cuts".
@Celestial_Teapot - I have yet to meet a self-identified conservative, Republican, or Tea Party member who has the vaguest fucking clue what "Obamacare" entails, how it was passed, or where it lies on the political spectrum. It's like abortion, when the subject comes up, they become so insanely irrational that you simply can't have a serious conversation with them..
Also, the term "Teabaggers" was being used by early Tea Party proponents like Michael Savage who didn't realize it had sexual connotations. It only became offensive to use the term after they became aware of the sexual connotations, and the Tea Party proponents began to frantically look for lefties to blame for their social ineptness in using the term in the first place.
The whole 'teabagger' debate is genuinely hysterical. First, that people get so upset about being called one, who bloody cares? Second that people doing the calling think it's insulting. I'd rather be called a teabagger than be called ...what, a teabaggee? That's coming from someone who rather enjoys balls in his mouth, for what that's worth.
@randomneuralfirings - Great example.
"Bush Tax Cuts" also called "Bush Era Tax Cut" is a descrptive phrase used mainly after the Bush administration. Obamacare was used as a negative-branding even before its passage. At no time was the phrase considered by conservatives or Republicans to be epithetic while the same could not be said of "Obamacare."
Try again you teabagger.