Taxes, Civil Disobedience.
Protesting Jim Crow laws.
Protesting taxes in a country with one of the lowest tax rates in the Industrialized world.
Yep. Pretty much the same thing.
On a more pleasant note, tax evasion is a felony (if Wikipedia is to be believed), so here's hoping the Teabaggers will forfeit their right to vote en masse this April.
39 comments:
Tinsley's smirky redneck doesn't actually say WHAT he's protesting, of course (in the end all teabagger nonsense boils down to "black man, White House"), but I'm pretty goddamn certain it doesn't even remotely compare to the fight for civil rights, or the protests against the invasion and occupation (and subsequent quagmire) of Iraq.
I'll say it again: how about YOU, Bruce Tinsley? Are YOU going to refuse to pay your taxes? ...Or are you nothing but a miserably, cowardly hypocrite? (Yes, I know--rhetorical question, but still.)
The interesting thing is this, most of the people I know who opposed the war in Iraq didn't stop paying their taxes. Nor did those involved in the Civil Rights protests. Instead they actually accepted being arrested for their actions but protested the laws themselves and showed the barbarism and ridiculousness of the laws.
This is an apples to oranges comparison and an offensive one at that.
And, of course, there's that whole misoverestimation thing of how much the "MSM" loved the anti-war protests. That's why you saw nothing else on cable news and newspaper headlines for weeks on end in late 2002, early 2003! Right?
I seem to remember a trend in the '80s about omitting the portion (not all) of your taxes that go to support the military industrial complex. Not paying taxes isn't new, therefore, not original (by a longshot, remember the post-revolution whiskey rebellion?).
The problem with the Taxed Enough Already people is they complain that taxes are two high. They do this even whith the tax reduction trend of the last 30 years. What they DON'T talk about is how much they should be paying. This would require them to actually think about the budget, what should be included in it, and HOW MUCH THAT TRANSLATES INTO. This would be:
a- Effort put into investigating our finances and the workings of an ubercomplex system aka our government....too much like work.
b- Thought put into what numbers of dollars are required to fulfill the government's duties, including the one's THEY champion....too late to learn math and basic statistics--easier to rely on knee jerking.
c- Establishing concrete, verifiable numbers that could be compared to real world metrics...Much safer to use a passionate argument that can't be argued with at all, especially when it's being screamed over any attempted discussion.
When confronted with someone complaining about high taxes, try asking them what level they suggest. If they actually pull a number out of, let's say the air, ask them if that covers the military (including Iraq, Afganistan, Guantanimo), Medicare, Homeland Security, and any other pro right-wing programs. If the answer is yes, find out what they used to come up with said number. These things require too much commitment from these passionate patriots, and I bet you'll find not one shred of fact or figures to support 'lower taxes' claims. Just rhetoric
Gee, I think I meant "too high". *sigh* Ranter's spelling....
Along those lines, but on a state level, here's something for any teabaggers actually capable of independent thought to consider (from USAToday):
"Polls show that voters want to cut state spending in theory, but not in practice. In a USAToday/CNN/Gallup Poll, 79% said they preferred spending cuts to tax increases to balance state budgets. Those who favored spending cuts were asked whether they were willing to cut education funding: 77% said no. On health care funding, 78% said no. Education and health care make up about two-thirds of state spending, so balancing budgets by cutting spending is nearly impossible if those programs are off limits."
"The narrow question is: Tax increases or spending cuts? The broader question is: What do citizens want from government? In the boom, governors and legislatures gave people what they wanted. In the downturn,people will decide whether to pay for it."
Let me paraphrase that: you want less beer money and a future, or more beer money and no future?
That slamming sound you just heard was Tinshley running out the door as soon as Tog said "beer."
Kind of like what Nickanonyrast does if someone says "Justin Bieber."
These things are so equivalent. People opposed to throwing out Habeas Corpus, secret arrests, phone tapping, and wholesale murder of civilians are JUST like people who don't want none of their money going to help them manurities.
As has already been said, maybe the newspapers will start giving them the urgent attention they gave to all those marches and protests against the Iraq war, which would free up a lot of reporters to look into the urgent "kitty stuck in tree" issue.
I don't think I've ever been as pissed off from one of these comics as this one. And that is saying a lot coming from Mallard Fillmore. The right wing seems to think the whole civil rights movement was just Dr. King giving his "I have a dream" speech, there were a few marches, and then magically the civil rights act was passed and enforced. They seem to forget about what happened during the "civil disobedience" phase of the movement. Or maybe they don't know, I can't imagine that a lot of time is spent covering the civil rights era when you are home schooled. The people who protested the Jim Crow laws did so knowing full well they would be arrested (and beaten, and sprayed with fire hoses, and in some cases murdered), knowing that it would build sympathy for their cause. I can't imagine any teabagger willing to go through that for their not paying taxes cause. They would probably whine when the IRS shows up to ask why they didn't pay taxes. And as for sympathy, no normal American (i.e. a non-teabagger) is going to care.
A more talented cartoonist would at least portray his teabagger/tax protester with something other than the white-male-meathead stereotype.
Oh, but Joe the Trucker -- your taxes have already been paid. You paid each time you got a paycheck. Every time you refilled your tanks with sweet, refreshing diesel. With each 2-liter Pepsi and prepackaged bear claw you bought inside the truck stop convenience store. When you bought that oversized, rubbery novelty pencil.
And honestly, "the Mainstream Media" doesn't care if you pay your taxes or not -- unless you are a Hollywood celebrity.
Ha, what a coward.
Chances are with the tax cuts extended and expanded, Mr. Red-neck is one of the 47% who won't have to pay income tax if he's earning the normal income of highschool graduates with a wife and two kids. He's in no danger of arrest, and he even still paid his social security, medicare, payroll, state, and city taxes.
What the hell is he writing the "mainstream media" (MORE LIEK LAMESTREAM MEDIA AMIRITE?!?) for, anyway? Why would THEY care about his moronic "protest?"
This is definitely one of the more repulsive MF comics I can recall. Yeah, what terrible hypocrisy to have SUPPORTED civil disobedience over civil rights, yet somehow to OPPOSE it over OMG BLACK ISLAMOMARXOFASCIST IN THE WHITE HOUSE!!!!11 Same basic thing, right?
Aw come on guys, you know one of Mallard's dictates is that "average, hardworking Americans need a break instead of a lecture". You're intentionally clouding the issue. Here's how it breaks down:
Civil rights protesters: Uppity blacks and dirty, usurious jews.
Anti-war protesters: filthy hippies, folksingers and Alec Baldwin
Tax withholders trying to keep Obama's death panels away from their grannies: average, hardworking Americans.
See how easy that was? You can read more of these simplified lessons in my book Homeschooling History: How to Get Done Quickly So You Can Plug in the XBox and Take A Nap, guaranteed 100% liberal bias free or your money back.
Actually, the Mainstream Media, from what I've seen, is positively enraptured with the 'bagger protests*. Because everyone loves a circus -- although I have to say they're a bit unpleasant when they consist of nothing but clowns.
* A strong word, certainly, for "bunches of fat people sitting in lawn chairs with misspelled signs for a few hours, shouting n*gg*r, then going home."
Meanwhile, because I know that the merest negative mention of Sarah Palin annoys Nickanonyrast nearly as much as finding out he accidentally taped over his "special" recording of Kidz Bop again: it's one day till Sarah and her goons protest it being Wednesday here in Massachusetts, and oh look, Scott Brown isn't going to join them!
Guess even he knows how toxic the teabaggers can really be.
Hey Kip and others here, if you're really opposed to opposed to "throwing out Habeas Corpus, secret arrests, phone tapping, and wholesale murder of civilians" why do you support Obama, who's done nothing to reverse these sick Bush policies, but actually enshrined them!
Yeah! We should all be supporting Republicans instead, because their stances on such things are ... oh, uh, hmmm.
We can still support Obama for the good he's doing, and pray (and push, through our Congresscritters) for him to come around on the Bush-era totalitarian crap that he's letting slide for what I truly hope is just the time being. Same with his wishy-washiness on gay rights. I'd prefer he were the raging liberal the screamy queens on Faux claim him to be, but given the immediate alternative of the Party of No, I'll take what I can get.
"Either-yer-with-us-or-yer-agin-us" thinking typified by Anony-not-rast's "you can't support Obama unless you agree with him on everything" attitude won't get us anywhere except backwards. Most of the '00s (and man, what a perfect-looking numeral for the Bush era!) decade proved that.
Anyway, your concern is duly noted, Anonymous.
Why the hell does this dimwitted anonymous keep tossing anti-Obama rhetoric out there as though that somehow makes Mallard Fillmore suck less?
Dear Anonymous:
Who said we AREN'T angry about that?
Last time I checked, I was.
Except this is a blog devoted to tearing down the logical fallacies of a specific, poorly drawn cartoon duck.
Assuming the entries here represent the entirety of our political beliefs is a little on the simplistic side, wouldn't you say?
95% of all Americans get a tax cut.
But, yeah, it's the racism of today's "comic" that really bugs me.
Although it's a tight contest with the hypocrisy of Drinkley, who now says he opposed the Iraq war, but lacked the guts to "say" anything about it.
Although although ... I love the smug stupidity of today's drawing, where the guy who (as y'all noted) already had his income tax withheld, so what's his plan? File for 100% refund?
It really is true: not all stupid people are racists, but all racists are stupid people.
Ah, rewinn, thanks for the excuse to once again post my favorite quote on this topic (and very similar to your observation):
I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it. -- John Stuart Mill, letter to the Conservative MP, Sir John Pakington (March, 1866)
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRmill.htm
IIRC, the basic definition of "civil disobedience" requires one to be arrested. Just how many of the teabaggers do you suppose are willing to go to jail for their "cause"? Yeah, I guessed "zero" as well.
And, as someone old enough to have lived through and participated in the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 60s, I must say that I do NOT recall the MSM being even slightly positive towards "civil disobedience".
So, yeah, Tinkley, I hope you and your wingnut cohorts get the same treatment that protesters got back then. Just how long do you think you will stand up to fire hoses, attack dogs, false arrests, and the occasional "accidental" death of one of your leaders (vide Fred Hampton)?
My guess for that one is also "zero", as in "zero minutes before we start whining about the mean meanies doing mean things to us."
WV: conatee. The bastard offspring of a neocon and a manatee.
Guys, you have to remember that our beloved Batshit Bruce doesn't have his tax withheld, and sneers derisively at anyone who does with a regularity with which he used to observe Veterans' Day. I'm sure he assumes every teabagger does likewise.
I hope Tinsley's April 15th strip features Mallard swaddling himself in the US flag and baying loudly, "I DIDN'T PAY ANY TAXES THIS YEAR TO PROTEST OBAMAsomething!!" while Tinsley himself quietly notes, "I paid, but I was all pissy about it...."
Translation: "Damn SIXTIES! Damn SIXTIES with their damn HIPPIES and their damn WAR-HATING and their damn CIVIL RIGHTS and shit! Damn DARKIES should have stayed in their damn PLACE! Damn SIXTIES!!!"
It isn't so much civil, as STEALING, if they continue to reap what taxes pay for. And I suspect they are.
Also, what exactly is a standard protest in disobedience to? Anything besides Mallards sensibilities?
Just got home, to read this from dlauthor:
"Kind of like what Nickanonyrast does if someone says 'Justin Bieber.'"
Hot on the heels of my assuring folks yesterday that I'm not the troll now known as Nickanonyrast, you posted this about the time I was going on a Justin Bieber tweet-rant.
Scary.
("What am I thinking of right now?" "Tacos!")
In another other-comics note, today's Curtis, of all places, perpetuated the myth of taxes always going up. *sigh*
No interesting WV here today, but at another blog, I just got "alito"!
"It isn't so much civil, as STEALING, if they continue to reap what taxes pay for. And I suspect they are."
Of course they are. They aren't about to take responsibility for building and maintaining their own roads or electrical grids or water and sewage systems, delivering their own mail, etc. the way they would have to if they truly divorced themselves from The System by not paying taxes. That would be too much like living up to their own ideals.
Once again, it comes back to the childishness of the conservative mentality: "Gimme all the benefits and privileges of living in The Greatest Country on Earth! Whaddaya mean I have to PAY for it?? You SUCK!!"
WV: Whori: The RNC's nickname for Glenn Beck.
Where does one mail a letter (ZOMG USPS?! DUCKY IS A SOCIALIST COMMIE POSTAL LOVER FAGGOT!!) to the MSM? Is there a PO box or something (no doubt in Faggotachussets)? Or a C/O number? How does that work?
The thing that gets me is the smirk of self-righteousness in the last panel. Wow, you sure is clever, Jim-bob! Ah guess I should nuff had stayed in mom's high school like you does and get smartered, too.
Because, as we all know, the news channels and the papers have devoted absolutely no time to the teabaggers. At all. They certainly haven't had any on for interviews or anything.
Again, Ducks; we'll be more then happy to take back all the money that's been given to your state by the federal government, since you hate spending so much. We also got some ass-useless aircraft carriers and air superiority fighters, and nuclear missiles we could not by / get rid of. That will save billions a year.
He has a point about the media and the Civil Rights Movement - they showed footage of that racist prick (a sheriff, I think?) turning hoses and dogs on people peacefully protesting.
That is the only thing stopping me from ranting. (That and the power of suggestion. "You've got the flu." "But I feel fine, well normal for me." "Yeah, you wouldn't notice aches and pains..." And now my head feels clogged. Though that may be exhaustion, antihistamines, and opiates.)
I LIVE IN FUCKING MEMPHIS.
I almost want to write him a letter about the Civil Rights Museum and how I can't even THINK about it without crying (and I was born in '88) and last time I went (for school) I didn't even mind the unruly kids (it's free on Monday afternoon, which is why we went... broke liberal college students and all oh wait, I know some conservatives. And a guy who doesn't know the difference between Iraq and Iran, "You know, like in that country song.")
Anyways, I hate kids and crowds but I was crying so much (and very little was new to me, I'd already been once - no crying because my mom was born in '62 and no effin idea what was going on) I didn't care about them.
The only thing about the museum that will stop your tears is the parts about the conspiracy theories re: James Earl Ray. Not the actual shooting, fuck it's CREEPY to see the room he stayed in and look at the wreath across the way... how and why...
But they come right back when you see all the inductees (or something) like Bill Clinton and Maya Angelou and Nelson Mandela (and probably Obama one day after 2016) and how the struggle's not over, with images of hispanics and native people and ...
Okay, in the beginning there's a bit about the integration of the high school in Little Rock. The hatred on the GIRLS' faces floored me, they were my age, how could they be so mean, so cruel?
At the end, there's a shot from a march or something up in Tipton County, and it shows a smiling white guy standing next to a smiling black girl.
Seriously, visit, but even if you don't cry, don't plan on going to Graceland next, it's not some damn sight to see, it's our FUCKING history and god the bus and recreation of the strike here...
Yeah, I'm off topic but GOD DAMN, next he'll be whining about how there's no white history month.
You can see MLK's room (through class) of course. Lots of cigarettes, of course.
Back on topic - how is he going to make sure this missive gets to the Mainsteam Media HQ in I Hate America Town? Is he going to use public roads to drive it there? The mail?
Today's candorville is funny - it features a teabagger and Lemont is like, you're on a public sidewalk waiting for a public bus. The response is nonsense of course.
http://comics.com/candorville/2010-04-13/
Where does one mail a letter (ZOMG USPS?! DUCKY IS A SOCIALIST COMMIE POSTAL LOVER FAGGOT!!) to the MSM?
When one is a teabagger, one just addresses it to "The Librul Media, Jew York." They're like kids sending letters to "Santa Claus, North Pole," only without the endearing innocence.
Two words - EMMITT FUCKING TILL.
His murderers CONFESSED (probably before, ha ha, we sure showed him) but definitely on record AFTER they were acquitted by an all-white jury.
I imagine the liberals in the media at the time (50s) were all over it!
No, just those working for "black" publications, including one that showed his face. (BARBED FUCKING WIRE) His mom insisted on an open casket so the world would see.
The magazine showing how he looked reminds me of conservatives bitching about Al Jazeera showing injured/dead Iraqis.
I know the civil rights movement isn't drilled in everywhere else (my cousins didn't get MLK day off in Nebraska) but sometimes it gives me hope for the south that this was drilled in over and over so that we don't forget. because it still happens.
I'm gonna go look at puppies now.
and tog's words make me want to punch people.
smirking redneck.
"I'm not racist, but why do they get to say negra?"
that's my family, that's the asshole in the old footage spitting on marchers that's the face of privilege.
That makes sense. Do you think they last-line it, "USSA"?
Kaitlyn, while I"m pretty sure Ducks is more referring to "Free Speach Zones", I think we can all agree that Emmit Till is exactly the same thing as the federal government saying you can't deny health coverage to children.
@Randy re Curtis: That strip devoted a week to a guy in a Subway shop ranting that Pixar "TOOK UHR JAHBS" from traditional animators, and when Curtis' pregnant mother was attacked by a mugger and fought him off, author Billingsley credited her success--but oddly enough not the subsequent miscarriage--to God. Curtis isn't as bad as B.C. or Family Circus, let alone Mallard, and the art is quite good, but it's a pretty miserable strip writing-wise.
DID YOU PAY YOUR TAXES, BRUCE?
Ducky is Right - thank you for giving me some perspective on the issue.
However
A young black kid brutally murdered for talking to a white woman is not equal to what Obama has in store for Real America. Making insurance companies act like they care is worse.
And tog - I don't want to assault you, you just captured what pissed me off so well.
Stop the presses: Concern Troll Is Concerned! Now that Obama's in office, he really cares about due process. He's seen the light!
Reminds me of the trolls who demand to know why somebody isn't protesting the treatment of minorities in some other country. I call it the "toilet paper" strategy, where the wingers give a shit about women and minorities Over There so they dont' have to give a shit about them Over Here.
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