Someone Run Future Protest Names Past Me

Well tax day hath come and gone.

Unless you have not filed yet. Or unless you filed for an extension. If this is the case, might as well get it over with already. It is not going to go away.

But new to this year - with much amusement to me - were tax day protesters. The tea baggers. Going all over America with tea bags protesting. Trying to invoke images of the Boston Tea Party - where colonists dressed up like natives and raided British tea ships, dumping the tea into Boston Harbor. While bravely trying to make the British think it was...THE INDIANS! Yes, it is those pesky savages that did it! Not us fine upstanding slightly pissed off subjects of the crown.

Or maybe they just likes dressing up like Indians. I do not know, I was not there. I think it happened before I was born.

But there is more to the protest besides the name that amuses me.

Now I know the right wing cranks just can not stoop low enough to make an ass out of themselves whenever possible. And generally I support their efforts to make themselves look like idiots. But this case really has me confused.

For you see, the taxes filed yesterday was for income earned LAST YEAR, and under a budget passed LAST YEAR. You know, when that other guy was President. And when that other guy was President, any protest at all meant you supported the terrorists.

So all the humorous signs about socialism and communism and so on - was over the same tax policy that has been in place since 2001? So why protest now? what took you cranks so long?

It seems to me that it would have been better to wait for the new President - who has only been in office for a few months - to actually sign a budget and a tax policy BEFORE you go out and protest it. What was actually being protested yesterday was a policy passed last year. When that other guy was in office.

Of course I realize what it was really all about. Socialism blah blah blah. Whatever some asshole on the radio said. It all must be true.

Which reminds me of a time when I was not yet born. The 50s.. Or maybe it was the 40s? Who knows. But there was this guy named Senator McCarthy. He saw communists hiding behind every tree. Why, there is one!! And another!! Oh my, they are going to take over! Everyone who disagreed with McCarthy was a communist. Anyone who was critical of him was a communist.

Anyone who even questioned him was a communist.

The amusing thing here is that McCarthy was trying to crush all political opposition to him personally by accusing anyone else who opposed him of being a communist.

Which is a lot how one party states - communist states - operate.

Fortunately for America, McCarthy failed in his quest to create a one party state.

Which gets us back to yesterday, and the protest to pin last years policy on the new guy. And the talk of socialism. Ohh look out!! There is a socialist!! Behind the tree!!!

And of course, the alternative the tea baggers propose works so well! More cuts to the top, so they will create more jobs. And why not! It has worked out so very well! Why, no jobs were sent to China in the 80s, 90s, or from 2000 - 2009! And the economy was doing so great until Jan 20 of this year!

This is the reason I think so many are not taking the cranks seriously. They are a parody of themselves. Spending was great when they were doing it. Passing bullshit budgets that looked good on paper but seriously underfunded the war was fine. After all - "emergency" spending could always be passed.

And it was. Sometimes twice a fiscal year. Running up massive debt was all fun and games. Reagan said "deficits do not matter" after all.

Excpet for now. Deficits only matter when right wing cranks are not setting the agenda. That must have been what Reagan really said.

That or Reagan was wrong.

I really do not know.

So what will 2009 look like? Got me. I missed some payments on my magical crystal ball and it was repoed.

But I suspect the patriotic tea baggers will be out again in 2010, with the same reccyled signs.

I will just be happy if I have to pay any taxes, as that means I will have made more money this year than last year.