Posted on 06/05/2014 8:43:11 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Watching the Tea Party consistently object to everything and anything the Obama administration has proposed over these 5 years has certainly been frustrating to those of us who believe that government can play a positive and valuable part in the lives of the citizenry.
In another column I listed just some of the initiatives that could have had our economy singing, our people employed, and our citizens enjoying the equal treatment guaranteed to them under our constitution and our laws. Instead, we have the most ineffective congress in history, universal, unrelenting obstruction, and our people and economy continue to struggle. And the Tea Party insults our intelligence by bemoaning that the Obama administration doesn’t accomplish anything. Crazy-making!
But for me, the Tea Party has absolutely jumped the shark with their latest attacks on Michelle Obama’s healthy eating initiative. If there is one universal imperative that everyone should be thrilled to get behind, it’s raising healthier kids. But as I understand the Tea Party argument – “government has no right to tell me what to feed my kids – if I want to feed them poison in the form of fast foods and junk, well, they’re my kids, and that’s my right.” Sarah Palin personified the position a couple of years ago, when she expressed her opposition to the First Lady’s initiative by delivering cupcakes to a local elementary school. About our children, she was metaphorically – and actually -- saying, “let them eat cake!”
This reaction strikes me as infantile. It’s as though the entire Tea Party is throwing itself on the floor and having a tantrum. “No! I WON’T eat my vegetables! I don’t wanna – and you can’t make me!” What kind of a parent chooses not to feed healthy food to his/her child? What kind of a parent is fine with allowing his/her children to become increasingly obese? What kind of parent would deny healthy food to someone else’s kid? Just what is really going on here?
My hope is this -- that a hatred of our President that is so blind and overwhelming that it manifests in a desire to intentionally harm our children will finally rip the blinders from the public’s eyes, and start them thinking about whether other issues that conservatives have opposed were actually objectionable, or were just another in a long line of otherwise worthy positions that were maligned because of who proposed them.
Or is this something more? The real opposition seems to be to new healthy requirements in school lunch programs. Who are the major beneficiaries of those programs? Poor children. For some of those children, their school lunch is the best meal of their day. But conservative hostility to poor people seems to have no bounds, so are they really saying that not only do poor children not have a right to decent, well-funded schools, but they don’t even have a right to healthy food?
Think I’m imagining things? The House of Representatives is currently considering a bill to mandate that white potatoes be included on the list of foods that women can purchase with their WIC dollars. (These are the same folks who rammed through an “expanded definition of vegetables in school food to include the tomato sauce on pizza). There’s nothing wrong with potatoes – I like potatoes, but studies demonstrate that most women and children already consume plenty of potatoes – what they need is incentive to purchase more fruits and vegetables. This is why the nonpartisan, scientific Institute of Medicine, which advises on WIC standards, has cautioned that white potatoes should not be included in the WIC program.
The current standards are making a difference. In 2010, Congress passed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, which set higher nutritional standards for school lunches, and now, 90% of schools report that they are meeting these standards, and guess what? The rate of childhood obesity is declining for the first time ever. I can see why the Tea Party wouldn’t love that – (not!)
Is it just that lazy parents who enjoy junk food themselves don’t want to have to change their own habits? Could they really be so selfish that they’re willing to trash their kids’ health rather than adopt new healthy habits themselves? I think the real answer is much more insidious. Like so many other political issues, you just have to follow the money. There are huge food companies that make a lot of money feeding junk to our kids. It’s a very lucrative income stream that they don’t want to give up. There’s gold in them thar burgers! So, they frame the issue as an infringement on personal freedom, mention that the Obama’s are in favor of healthy food, and a million Tea Party members reflexively hyperventilate and attack the First Lady.
Shouldn’t this be the issue that demonstrates to rational people in this country just how irrational the Tea Party is when they put their ideology of anti-Obamism and obstruction before everything – including their own healthier kids? Won’t this finally be the bridge too far? If not this issue – is there ANY Tea Party position that the citizens of America will decide is too absurd for them to accept?
"... been frustrating to those of us who believe that government can play a positive and valuable part in the lives of the citizenry."
The author has evidently never been taught about the federal government's constitutionally limited powers. More specifically, the only specific power that the states have delegated to the feds, via the Constitution, to continually regulate an aspect of intrastate life for private citizens is the US Mail, evidenced by the Constitution's Clause 7 of Section 8 of Article I.
Otherwise, several historical constitutional experts, including a justice, have clarified that the well-being of a state's citizens is up to the 10th Amendment-protected legislative powers of the state that a citizen is living in, not the federal government.
In fact, Justice John Marshall had officially clarified that only the states, not the federal government, can lay taxes for most of the "government" services that many citizens are now receiving from the corrupt federal government.
“Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
This community blogger is thrashing about looking for someone or something to pin blame on for the leadership failures of his hero Obama.
Are Tea Party criticisms of Obamacare the cause of its unpopularity and failure? No. Obama and his people own it. But this blogger won’t face that reality. If it’s not Bush’s fault, then it must be the Tea Party’s fault.
Blogger is lightweight amateur trying to look like a bigtime commentator, almost like a Chrissie Matthews mini-me.
If the Tea Party was dead, they would not be writing about it. This new Obama Scandal will only make the Tea Party stronger. At some point in time these idiots will realize that the more they suck, the stronger the Tea Party becomes.
Indeed, very disturbing. This author of this article should be institutionalized.
Insane
You’re right. Any bread post 1920 is bad for you.
If you want a very healthy diet that will maintain a healthy diet and body weight, then stick with beef, chicken and fish for meats. Root vegetables and fruits. Avoid dairy and the such. Of course this style of eating is hard because it takes more time to prepare.
You are far nicer than I Sir. I was going to ask which one was the mutt.
Community Blather...
Looks like she should try some of the Greenies she’s been giving her dog.
Inane, brainless, and relentlessly shallow.
re: “Watching the Tea Party consistently object to everything and anything . . . has certainly been frustrating to those of us who believe that government can play a positive and valuable part in the lives of the citizenry.”
No, Mardi, we just object to anything and everything that violates our Constitution, which is pretty much anything and everything the Obama administration does or attempts to do.
We object to and oppose anything and everything that assumes the Federal government can, by force of law, tell all Americans:
- what what we can eat,
- what we can drink,
- what we can think,
- what political speech we should listen to,
- what moral or political speech we can express
publicly,
- how much money we can give to political
candidates/causes we believe in,
- how to raise our children,
- how to educate our children,
- what public expressions of religion are acceptable,
- we must, with our taxes, fund organizations that
believe in killing unborn children,
- that private business owners do not have “freedom
of religion” and must violate their religious beliefs
and/conscience by requiring them to do business
with all people, even if doing so promotes moral
views or actions that violates their religious
convictions.
- they must purchase a product whether they want it
or not.
- that their doctors must turn over all private medical
information to the federal government.
- and on, and on, and on. . .
On the other hand, if Mardi wants more cooperation in Congress, how about liberals getting on board with reducing governmental regulation that puts a strangle-hold on business expansion, thus creating a business friendly atmosphere that encourages real economic growth for all Americans? How about liberals demanding that the government live within its means, and reducing the size of government by cutting programs or departments that are un-Constitutional?
You could pop open a Bottle of Beer using her overbite.
Rather than “disturbing”, I find it disgusting and infantile.
Nuff said right there.
Everything the Obammunist has proposed over the last five years should be objected to...not just objected to, but opposed with every fiber of our being(s). No, government cannot play a positive and valuable part in the lives of the citizenry...it can only take stuff from people -- like our money, our property and our freedom -- which is why government power must be limited.
Sheesh...of course a Commie rag like that is going to proclaim the Tea Party a failure. They hate the Tea Party, and everything it stands for! That's like Michael Moore proclaiming the Atkins diet a total failure.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
Thanks - it’s been a tough day and I needed a laugh ;’)
“scientific Institute of Medicine, which advises on WIC standards, has cautioned that white potatoes should not be included in the WIC program.”
Said the snooty well-fed wealthy bitch.
The economy would be singing if it weren’t for obstructionists’ objection to more taxes and government intervention? It is amazing to let progressives express their belief in the benevolence of government.
Matthew 23:24
Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.
Yap, yap, yap, Mardi...I am sick up to here with you female control freaks. GFY, after you’re done making my a sandwich.
If you want some real amusement, check this one out (but have a bucket handy, just in case). Find out how the Republicans use the Tea Party to steal elections:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Stealing-The-Election-2-0-by-Mardi-Harrison-130204-818.html
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