'Tea party' conservatives just want a health-care system that can work

(PNI) The news media and the Democratic Party have done an excellent job portraying the Republicans and especially the "tea party" conservatives as being stingy and selfish.

The tea party's main goal is for the federal government to start acting fiscally responsible. We spend too much on welfare. We were a stronger country back in the early 1960s before welfare got out of control with LBJ's Great Society program.

Social Security funds were spent in the 1960s and both parties pushed program expansions over the years to make it unsustainable for the long run. The tea party does not want to end Social Security. It wants the program to operate more fiscally responsibly so it lasts longer for those who really need it.

Tea-party conservatives are willing to make sacrifices for future fiscal success. They do not want to defund the $1.7trillion "Obamacare" and throw grandma off the cliff. They want a health-care program that actually works for grandma -- not a train wreck that is now on the horizon.

--Ken Wade, Scottsdale

Ariz. attitudes need to change

The Republic editorial board's "New Arizona" series has some surprising revelations. We border Mexico. We live in a desert (Arid Zone-a).

We have industries that depend on dry, clear skies, warm weather and federal government spending including aerospace/military, agriculture/ranching, hospitality/tourism, retirement living and health care.

We have a long history of actively offending our Mexican neighbors and local Latinos. Most of our leaders don't accept the reality of climate change and our special desert vulnerability.

Our support for education ranks near the bottom both financially and intellectually as we parasitize other states for much of our educated workforce. Transportation is limited pretty much to more freeways.

Even to provide basic health care requires semi-heroic efforts to accept billions of federal dollars.

Until these attitudes change, New Arizona, same as Old Arizona.

--Andrew March, Phoenix

Secure border is humane border

I completely agree with the premise in the editorial "Put humanity in border policy" (Opinions, Tuesday). I couldn't disagree more with the incorrect statement, "Enforcement alone doesn't work. It kills."

The opposite is true: The tighter the border, the less chance you have of someone being able to cross it and endangering themselves.

A secure border is a humane border, one which we obviously don't have yet or we wouldn't have more than 11million people in the U.S. currently seeking a solution for their illegal-immigrant status.

--Rusty Childress, Phoenix

Gun violence is the new normal

The latest shooting spree in Chicago drives home one chilling point: As long as we, as a country, embrace our firearms and neglect the sad state of mental-health care, refusing to do anything about either issue, then we should not be surprised to see more incidents of mass murder.

The hysterical news reporting and anguished hand-wringing can stop; it will have become as commonplace as the tens of thousands of gun-related homicides and suicides that occur every year in this country.

So, if we're not going to do anything about it, then we're just going to have to get used to it. What a sick thought.

--Ed Coleman, Tempe

Health insurance not in budget

It looks like I'll be one of those who will be fined for not having health insurance.

I can barely pay my expenses. I don't get assistance with food nor do I have a cellphone. I live with antenna TV. I cook all meals at home and don't go to movies. I have Internet service for bill pay instead of paying for checks and stamps.

I make less than $1,500 a month, but I make it work. I'm on the verge of becoming a vegetarian because of meat prices.

The expense of health care isn't in my budget, and I don't expect the taxpayers to pay for me to have AHCCCS. I go to the store and get what's cheap and stand in line behind someone that has every form of welfare known and has a hair weave and manicure. Not to mention the designer clothes.

Mr. President, if you fine me, I have no choice but to steal a shopping cart to live out of.

--Merry Lindquist, Glendale

Dodgers deserved pool time

A note to the Arizona Diamondbacks:

The No.1 way to keep the L.A. Dodgers out of your pool -- win the final game.

I lost a little respect for my D-Backs hearing them complain about the Dodgers celebrating their division championship by jumping into our pool -- by the way, in basically an empty stadium when there were no fans or D-Back players around.

What's that saying from "Field of Dreams"? To paraphrase, if you build it, they will come. Well, what do you expect if you want to have a clever marketing idea by putting a pool in your stadium?

--Michael Shoff, Gilbert

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Blacks, Conservatives and Plantations

The most recent example of this is E.W. Jackson, who last weekend became the Virginia Republicans’ candidate for lieutenant governor in the state.

In a video posted to YouTube in 2012 titled “Bishop E.W. Jackson Message to Black Christians,” Jackson says:

“It is time to end the slavish devotion to the Democrat party. They have insulted us, used us and manipulated us. They have saturated the black community with ridiculous lies: ‘Unless we support the Democrat party, we will be returned to slavery. We will be robbed of voting rights. The Martin Luther King holiday will be repealed.’ They think we’re stupid and these lies will hold us captive while they violate everything we believe as Christians.”

He continues:

“Shame on us for allowing ourselves to be sold to the highest bidder. We belong to God. Our ancestors were sold against their will centuries ago, but we’re going to the slave market voluntarily today. Yes, it’s just that ugly.”

(Jackson also took swipes at the gay community and compared Planned Parenthood to the Ku Klux Klan.)

The Democrat Plantation theology goes something like this: Democrats use the government to addict and incapacitate blacks by giving them free things — welfare, food stamps and the like. This renders blacks dependent on and beholden to that government and the Democratic Party.

This is not completely dissimilar from Mitt Romney’s “47 percent” comments, although he never mentioned race:

“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what.

Star Parker, a Scripps Howard syndicated columnist, failed Republican Congressional candidate and author of the book “Uncle Sam’s Plantation: How Big Government Enslaves America’s Poor and What We Can do About It,” argued in an article in 2009 on the conservative Web site Townhall:

“A benevolent Uncle Sam welcomed mostly poor black Americans onto the government plantation. Those who accepted the invitation switched mind-sets from ‘How do I take care of myself?’ to ‘What do I have to do to stay on the plantation?’"

Mackubin Thomas Owens, a professor at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, R. I., put it more bluntly in an editorial on the Ashbrook University Web site in 2002:

“For the modern liberal Democratic racist as for the old-fashioned one, blacks are simply incapable of freedom. They will always need Ol’ Massa’s help. And woe be to any African-American who wanders off of the Democratic plantation.”

That last bit hints at the other part of Democrat Plantation theology: that black Democrats and white liberals are equal enforcers of enslavement.

A 2010 unsigned article published on the Web site of the conservative weekly Human Events reads:

“If black Americans wish to be Democrats, that is their choice — or is it? Despite the fact that Democrats enjoy the support of over 90% of black America, the other 10%, those who dare to ‘stray from the plantation,’ have been routinely vilified — by other black Americans.”

The article continued:

“The not-so-subtle message? Support liberal dogma — or face social ostracism.”

Dr. Ben Carson, who delivered a speech blasting the president during the National Prayer breakfast this year and quickly became a darling of the right (The Wall Street Journal declared: “Ben Carson for President”), said of white liberals in a radio interview:

“They are the most racist people there are. Because they put you in a little category, a little box. You have to think this way. How could you dare come off the plantation?”

(Carson also got in trouble for comparing homosexuality to pedophilia and bestiality. He later apologized for those comments, “if anybody was offended.”)

Unfortunately, the runaway slave image among many black Republican politicians is becoming ingrained and conservative audiences are applauding them for it.

Herman Cain, for example, built an entire presidential campaign on slave imagery.

C. Mason Weaver, a radio talk show host, failed Republican Congressional candidate from California and author of the book “It’s OK to Leave the Plantation,” said of President Obama at a 2009 Tea Party rally in Washington: “You thought he was saying was ‘hope and change’; he was saying was ‘ropes and chains,’ not ‘hope and change.’ ” Weaver continued: “Decide today if you’re going to be free or slaves. Decide today if you’re going to be a slave to your master or the master of your own destiny.” Weaver would repeat the “rope and chains” line on Fox and Friends that year.

The Rev. C.L. Bryant, a Tea Party member and occasional Fox News guest, even made a movie called “Runaway Slave,” in which he says that America should “run away from socialism, run from statism, run away from progressivism.”

While these politicians accuse the vast majority of African-Americans of being mindless drones of the Democrats, they are skating dangerously close to — if not beyond — the point where they become conservative caricatures.

The implication that most African-Americans can’t be discerning, that they can’t weigh the pros and cons of political parties and make informed decisions, that they are rendered servile in exchange for social services, is the highest level of insult. And black politicians are the ones Republicans are cheering on as they deliver it.

Now who, exactly, is being used here?

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When Conservatives Walk Out on Budget Talks, Democrats Win Eventually (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | Republicans walked out on a member of the president's staff after a budget meeting. Discussions revolve around massive debt, taxes and lots of public bickering. It's not the 1995 to 1996 budget battles between President Bill Clinton and a conservative Congress. It's a repeat of the same events 15 years later.

President Obama sent his wing man, Vice President Joe Biden, to talk to Republican leaders in Congress about what the president wants from the budget. According to the Associated Press, Biden said we need to raise taxes. Speaker of the House John Boehner said raising taxes was "off the table."

The GOP then walked out of the discussions abruptly.

This budget discussion can go one of two ways. Either the sides compromise or they don't. The GOP walking out is just a symbolic gesture to let the American public know how they feel about raising taxes. The Democrats still have the upper hand, as they control one side of Congress.

Clinton compromised on his budget proposals with Newt Gingrich and the GOP-led Congress. When Clinton got re-elected, the Republicans made him pay for his popularity. They filed articles of impeachment against him regarding a lie under oath about having sex.

If history serves, the Republicans and Democrats will bicker back and forth for weeks. The two sides will come together in crunch time and get the work done. There will be a combination of what both sides want. In the end, it won't be perfect, but both sides will say they accomplished a lot.

Obama clearly understands Clinton's position. He got re-elected after a budget battle but paid a price. Obama will surely try to compromise, but only after making Republicans sweat out a deal. Plus, the current commander-in-chief probably won't be having sex with interns any time soon.

Obama and his team have surely learned from recent events. There are fears of citizens having their benefits reduced or removed altogether. Obama played into this argument after his speech about bringing troops home from Afghanistan. The president said it's now time to focus on domestic issues, not wartime problems.

The Republicans want to make cuts. They didn't learn from the special congressional election in May when a Democrat defeated a Republican in a conservative-leaning area. Instead of the GOP placing fear in people's minds over "death panels," now the Democrats can make voters feel like their entitlements will be taken away if conservatives stay in power. Kathy Hochul used Medicare cuts to win against her GOP opponent, Jane Corwin, in upstate New York, according to ABC News.

A walk out by Republicans is no big deal. This is still a process, and the work will get done eventually before something drastic happens.

It's a win-win for the Democrats if they can parlay as much budget-cutting as possible until the 2013 session of Congress starts. By that time, the 2012 election would have decided who controls Congress after the next president is elected.

Who wins when Republicans walk out? The Democrats do eventually because the president owns veto power.

William Browning is a research librarian specializing in U.S. politics. Born in St. Louis, Browning is active in local politics and served as a campaign volunteer for President Barack Obama and Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill.

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