Will Beck run off the Teabaggers now?

Ziggurat said:
Why on earth would you say that? Because that graph shows deficit relative to GDP? If so, you're badly mistaking my argument. And my previous response to GreNME should have demonstrated what I meant. Let's take a look back so I can hopefully clarify for you:


Note: quadrupled refers to the deficit having increase by a factor of four over what it had been.


Note that I talked about an infinity-fold increase in going from zero deficit to $1 deficit. Relative to GDP, $1 is still negligible. But relative to past deficit, it's and infinity-fold increase. In other words, when I was talking about relative increases being irrelevant, I meant relative to what the deficit had been. Just as when SoT said that the deficit increased by a factor of four, he meant relative to what the deficit had been. In fact, I even edited that post quite some time ago to include the word "fractional", with the express purpose of trying to clarify that point. Measuring relative to GDP (versus in dollar amounts) isn't at issue here, especially since the GDP hasn't varied by that much, so the large changes in deficit-to-GDP ratios have also been large changes in dollar amounts. Either of those measures will tell the same story: the deficit exploded in 2009.
Click to expand...

:dl:

Are you in the circus, Ziggy? Because your mental gymnastics are fantastic.

Like I already said, taking the old Ron Paul tropes and repackaging them as if they're something new is neither convincing nor rational.
 
GreNME said:
Are you in the circus, Ziggy? Because your mental gymnastics are fantastic.
Click to expand...

Hey, I'm not the one who quoted himself and attributed it to someone else. But I guess that's not gymnastics, that's a pratfall.

Like I already said, taking the old Ron Paul tropes and repackaging them as if they're something new is neither convincing nor rational.
Click to expand...

I don't give a damn about Ron Paul. The explosion of the deficit in 2009 is not a "trope", it's reality, and there's nothing irrational about being concerned about it.
 
Nothing irrational to be concerned about it, except that's NOT what the Tea Party is about.
 
thaiboxerken said:
Nothing irrational to be concerned about it, except that's NOT what the Tea Party is about.
Click to expand...

It's easy to win arguments if you get to decide what motivates them (even when it contradicts their own claims), and discount anything they say based on what you decide those motives are.
 
Ziggurat said:
It's easy to win arguments if you get to decide what motivates them (even when it contradicts their own claims), and discount anything they say based on what you decide those motives are.
Click to expand...
Aren't you also deciding what their motives are?
 
Upchurch said:
Aren't you also deciding what their motives are?
Click to expand...

I'm accepting what they say their motives are. I don't have the mind-reading talents Thai seems to have, so I'm stuck with the simplest and most obvious option.
 
Ziggurat said:
I don't give a damn about Ron Paul. The explosion of the deficit in 2009 is not a "trope", it's reality, and there's nothing irrational about being concerned about it.
Click to expand...

Knowing where your memes originate is one of the first steps to realizing how irrational the memes are. All you're doing is playing a repackaged version of the song and dance Paul-ites have been playing for years and demanding to be taken seriously. The deficit was the biggest ever under Bush (and Reagan, and Bush Sr.) and yet we only get these pseudo-militant paleo-conservative screechers demanding center stage when Slick Willy or Obama come into office. The trend is not only obvious, it's become trite and childishly transparent. It's like the Tea Party has taken three-fourths of the 24 Types of Libertarians caricatures and turned them into a political platform to obstruct the Democratic Party-- and the GOP is increasingly buying into it just as the Democratic Party stupidly began buying into the MoveOn.org ridiculous-ness after 2006.

So, frankly, I don't care about whether you give a damn, because you are not the end-all-be-all of the Tea Party and its supporters. All you have in defense is movable goalposts and no-true-teabagger arguments when challenged. When you come up with something substantial maybe we can catch up with some reasonable debate.
 
Ziggurat said:
It's easy to win arguments if you get to decide what motivates them (even when it contradicts their own claims), and discount anything they say based on what you decide those motives are.
Click to expand...

Are you claiming those people who want to "take our country back" are only about fiscal responsibility and less taxes?

Obama lowered taxes.

Bush took a budget surplus and turned it into the worst deficit the USA ever had, at that point in history.
 
Ziggurat said:
I'm accepting what they say their motives are. I don't have the mind-reading talents Thai seems to have, so I'm stuck with the simplest and most obvious option.
Click to expand...

I asked this before in another thread and never got a good answer: What does the Tea Party stand for and, more importantly, how do you know? What is your source? Do you claim it's better than Thai's?
 
The actually cleverly named Tea Party started out as a series of protests against the expiration of Bush-era tax cuts, as an homage to the Boston Tea Party tax protestors.

Since then if someone says they are a Tea Party supporter or are associated, it means whatever flavor of conservative politics that person prefers, unlike those RINO's that don't get it.
 
Last edited:
Didn't they also come out in droves against the health-care overhaul, bussed into protest drives by health care lobbyists?
 
thaiboxerken said:
Obama lowered taxes.
Click to expand...

We pay for what government spends. The longer we wait to pay for it, the more we pay. Cutting taxes while increasing spending doesn't help the fiscal picture. You're not stupid enough to believe otherwise. Why do you demand anyone else should be?
 
Ziggurat said:
We pay for what government spends. The longer we wait to pay for it, the more we pay. Cutting taxes while increasing spending doesn't help the fiscal picture. You're not stupid enough to believe otherwise. Why do you demand anyone else should be?
Click to expand...

Because apparently almost the entire membership of the Tea Party has been during the entire previous administration.
 
GreNME said:
Knowing where your memes originate is one of the first steps to realizing how irrational the memes are.
Click to expand...

What, you think Ron Paul is the only one who noticed the giant spike in the size of the deficit in 2009? You're giving him far too much credit if you think that.

All you're doing is playing a repackaged version of the song and dance Paul-ites have been playing for years
Click to expand...

Obviously not if I think something changed in 2009.

The deficit was the biggest ever under Bush (and Reagan, and Bush Sr.)
Click to expand...

As a percentage of GPD, neither claim is true. In fact, the Bush Jr. deficits were in line with the Reagan ones. Even the Obama deficits aren't actually the biggest ever as a percentage of GDP, but we had WW2 to justify it last time.

So, frankly, I don't care about whether you give a damn, because you are not the end-all-be-all of the Tea Party and its supporters. All you have in defense is movable goalposts and no-true-teabagger arguments when challenged. When you come up with something substantial maybe we can catch up with some reasonable debate.
Click to expand...

And all you've got is ad hominem attacks. When it comes to actually addressing the complaint that government is spending too much money, well, you don't even have a response to that.
 
So we've moved from "quadrupled the deficit" to "deficit threshold" to "percentage of GDP" as supposed reasons. I'm willing to bet that I could go to any TP event and ask 100 folks what "GDP" is and what the current US GDP is in dollars, and I could guarantee that an overwhelming majority (and possibly every last one) will fail to provide a correct answer.

But you go ahead and keep shifting that goalpost.
 
GreNME said:
Because apparently almost the entire membership of the Tea Party has been during the entire previous administration.
Click to expand...

And who defended those tax cuts on the basis that they would help the budget?
 
GreNME said:
So we've moved from "quadrupled the deficit" to "deficit threshold" to "percentage of GDP" as supposed reasons.
Click to expand...

Who is this ""we"? Contrary to your prior quoting of yourself which you attributed to me, I never supported the first position. And the second two items are not incompatible, so I'm not sure why you think that any movement was involved.

I'm willing to bet that I could go to any TP event and ask 100 folks what "GDP" is and what the current US GDP is in dollars, and I could guarantee that an overwhelming majority (and possibly every last one) will fail to provide a correct answer.
Click to expand...

There's got to be a name for the fallacy of knowing the result of a measurement before you've even performed it. If not, we can call it "argument ad GreNME".

But you go ahead and keep shifting that goalpost.
Click to expand...

You go ahead and keep inventing "facts" and constructing strawmen and misattributing quotes of yourself.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom