From the Congressional Record, page S2888:
I would also talk about my friend from Oklahoma. I know he is smart, and I understand that, but just because you are smart doesn’t mean you are al- ways right. We have a situation where this country has been driven by the tea party for the last number of years. When I was in school, I studied govern- ment and I learned about the anar- chists. They were different from the tea party because they were violent. But they were anarchists because they did not believe in government at any level, and they acknowledged that. The tea party kind of hides that. They do not say we are against government, but that is what it amounts to. They are not doing physically destructive things to buildings and people directly, but they are doing everything they can to throw a monkey wrench into any form of government, whether it is local, State, or the Federal Government. That is what it is all about. So any- thing they can do to throw a monkey wrench into the wheels of government, they are happy doing that. And I am sorry to say my friend from Oklahoma is helping them, maybe not directly but indirectly, and that is wrong. Gov- ernment is not inherently bad. Govern- ment is inherently good. That is why we have a Constitution, and we direct the activities of this government based upon that Constitution.
Just. Wow.
Hey Harry!
“Anarchy” is what you have when the president is ruling by executive orders, the AG won’t enforce the law, and congress sends up legislation that nobody has read!
Mr. Reid, YOU LIE. Oh, how I wish what you said was the truth.
Our Founder had a clear and accurate understanding of human nature, both the good and the bad of it. They gave us a central government with few and enumerated powers, because they knew that power inevitably seizes control to compel the will of one man over another.
Reid has actually done conservatives a favor in starting this conversation. If only we had a champion on the national level to engage this. But, that conversation requires more than sound bites, It’s seventh grade Civics, but the sheeple probably are not even interested in learning.
All men have a sin nature. We are, none of us, perfectly good. This is why government should be limited. Others may disagree, but I think that I would say government is inherently bad — I see it as a necessary evil, but it is inevitably run by flawed men and it needs to be limited and checked by a written (and respected) Constitution.
He could not state in any clearer terms that he is in direct opposition to our Founders and their philosophies. The Federalist Papers were a very thorough description of how and why government is evil, but a necessary one, and thus should be limited as much as practicable. The Bill of Rights creates explicit limitations on the federal government in every Amendment. We are truly no longer the America our Forefathers gave to us. We have given it away. We should be ashamed of ourselves.
This Reid character is a fool.
"Studying" and "understanding" are two different things. He's old enough for me to conclude that in his day, his schools (The George Washington University Law School, Southern Utah University, and Utah State University) had not yet become the liberal cesspools they are today.
His purpose and strategy is simple: Accuse your enemy of what you are doing.
driven by the tea party for the last number of years?!?! Seriously!? This country has been driven by one man and only one man for the "last number of years" and his name is Barack Hussein Obama. When we're driving the country you'll be able to tell by the lack of taxes and the increasing number of employed people.
I made it my morning update on FB.
Except when people like you are Senate Majority Leader.
Historical “anarchism” is “socialism without the state”, best represented today by those wacko WTO protesters. Nothing like the tea party, at all.
What Reid is talking about is anarcho-capitalism. This exists as a minority faction of the Libertarian party.
Perhaps many on the right see it as an ideal society but recognize that it’s a fantasy.
Anyway Harry, never at any time, at any place on the planet, has government been “inherently good”. More often than not it’s been a tool of oppression. It’s inherently the product of whomever is running it, those people are usually morons or jagoffs, like you. It is a necessary evil we should strive to make less evil and less necessary.
Take this statement and the statement from Kerry, and you will notice since the terrorist attack In Boston, a coordinated talking points campaign developing among dems to paint the TEA Party as anarchist and terrorist.
It's just crooked, lying scumbags like Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama that make it seem bad. look bad, smell bad and function in bad ways.
Harry Reid is EVIL, a POS and needs to go back under the rock from which he came.
I’m surprised he didn’t say teabaggers - the only time when it’s politically and socially acceptable to be homophobic.
“friend from Oklahoma...”
Was he going after Inhofe? Just about the only good senator besides Session left in that pit!
Once Harry Reid referred to illegal aliens as ‘free loaders and scam artists’.....If the tea party could pay him as much as the casino owners paid him off for amnesty, he like them too!!!!
marking
Harry, name a government that didn’t eventually turn on a portion of their own citizens.