Tools For Tea And Tea For Tools



There is no official race among nations to reign superlative in comparative world statistics. Singapore’s inspiration to rule as the nation with the lowest infant mortality rate is not to stick it in Sweden’s face. Their success is due in part to the fact that there is no Singaporean or Swedish Tea Bag contingent to derail health policies that make sense in those countries. Meanwhile the U.S. whose GDP is larger than any other individual country flounders embarrassingly with the 33rd or 46th lowest infant mortality rate (depending on whose list you consult). With very few exceptions, the countries with the lowest infant mortality employ some form of government-run healthcare system. The result is that more of their babies live.

I’m sure this did not come up at the Tea People’s Convention this past weekend in Nashville. While there attendees were marshaled through pep talks on growing this movement whose intent appears to be bringing American progress to a screeching halt. Instead of supporting policy that keeps the U.S. competitive on all fronts, Tea People are more concerned with printing up pamphlets and placards with renderings of Barack Obama in a Hitler mustache. Obama is a Nazi-Socialist because he believes in investment of government resources to improve the overall health of the nation.

One of the things that bothers me about the Tea Movement is that it promotes an ugly loud denial of strategies that bolster national preeminence. Their single philosophy of no-taxing-no-spending is good if your country’s standing in the world has no importance. How patriotic. Or do they actually believe that letting Americans keep $600 more a year to go shopping will make the USA number one all around?

Right now, the roof is leaking. If it does not get fixed there will be mold in the walls and the floor will collapse. Eventually then entire house will rot. When there is nothing left but mushy pulp where once there was a house, will the Tea People smile and claim success (assuming they will still be around)? Ignoring problems while scoffing at neighbors who properly maintain their realms won’t fix a leaking roof. That is simple logic.

For all their talk of responsibility, the Tea People don’t seem to get it. They strike me as people who fart and then can’t figure out what stinks. I discussed this very odd phenomenon with someone at a Super Bowl party who suggested that the Tea People are mostly those who have been so indoctrinated with McCarthyism that they’ll rage irrationally against the successes of current mixed economies. They won’t stop calling Sweden and Singapore socialists long enough to consider those countries’ successes. They don’t want to. They want to continue to believe that a government that does nothing but make war is good government while Wal Mart and Enron will solve all of our other problems. The aggregate affect of this is that I’m starting to hate tea. In fact, we should rename it something like Patriot Punch.

3 comments:

  1. Chip, how 'bout "Patriot Piss"???

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  2. And let's not forget the Tea Movement folks want to reinstate literacy tests for voting -- then rail against anyone who justly perceives them as racist. Oy.

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  3. Well, I don't know much about the "Tea people" (I thought they lived in England) BUT I do know a bit about leaky roofs, and let me tell ya, where there's yellow stains there's water getting in and unless a pigeon flies over and drops a wad of gum on the crack and a rat happens by the gum and nicely smooshes the gum into the crack with his little rat skills then the water is just going to keep on leaking! People in America NEED to WAKE UP! I like your style, kid ;-)

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