Comments for Politics Outdoors

Comment on Auditing the Tea Party: One style of American repression by John Krinsky

John Krinsky — Thu, 23 May 2013 03:55:19 +0000

This is actually worth a read.

I’m not sure I agree with all of it, but I think the general thrust is right, and especially because this is getting so overheated that it does remind me of ACORN to a certain extent.

http://crooksandliars.com/dave-johnson/latest-lie-irs-targeted-conservatives

John

Comment on Remembering the shootings at Kent State by Everett R. Hicks

Everett R. Hicks — Wed, 22 May 2013 04:24:19 +0000

The turbulence peaked on May 4th, when 3000 people (approximately 1,500 demonstrators and 1,500 bystanders) gathered in the University Commons to object to the National Guard presence on campus as well as to the Vietnam War. As the National Guard tried to disband the crowd, discord grew with rock throwing and yelling as the guards were trapped on a field for approximately 10 minutes. Only after the guards returned to the top of a hill, “twenty-eight of the more than seventy Guardsmen turned suddenly and fired” their weapons. (Lewis and Hensley, dept.kent.edu/sociology/lewis/LEWIHEN.htm , 2006) “A total of 67 bullets were fired” in a time frame “that lasted only thirteen seconds.” ( Kent State shootings ) Innocent bystanders were among the victims, with 2 of the 4 students killed being caught in the fire while walking to class.

Comment on Gitmo and the hunger strikes by Weldon Farmer

Weldon Farmer — Fri, 17 May 2013 05:42:45 +0000

The military claimed Friday that 14 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay prison are on a hunger strike, five more than they previously admitted.

Comment on Auditing the Tea Party: One style of American repression by John Krinsky

John Krinsky — Thu, 16 May 2013 00:46:50 +0000

And here, Bloomberg News (perhaps wanting to defuse the general climate of scandal?) reports the following–which certainly didn’t help the head of the IRS keep his job:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-15/irs-sent-same-letter-to-democrats-that-fed-tea-party-row.html

According to the IRS, the word searches were one method of pooling groups that had political purposes for greater scrutiny. Among these were Democratic-leaning groups (one of which, unlike any of the Tea Party groups was denied tax-exempt status). My big feeling here is that there isn’t as much inequity as there is GOP sound and fury. And it’s been my feeling from the start that liberals will never fight back. David, you’re right that I have somewhat relativistic morals here, but I believe that politics is a constant struggle and that there is no part of the state that acts utterly neutrally; I’m a Marxist, not a liberal, if I’ve got to wear a label. But look: if the IRS was acting neutrally here–and it seems that at worst, two employees were acting a little too enthusiastically to question TP groups–in pooling both left and right political applicants, there’s nothing in my mind that obviates the use of search terms either way as utterly unacceptable.

Comment on Auditing the Tea Party: One style of American repression by John Krinsky

John Krinsky — Wed, 15 May 2013 16:30:15 +0000

I think it’s because I start from the problematic assumption that politics and the operations of the state are never neutral. Is it problematic from a kind of Kantian point of view? Absolutely. We have no argument there!

Comment on Auditing the Tea Party: One style of American repression by David S. Meyer

David S. Meyer — Wed, 15 May 2013 16:22:56 +0000

That large groups like Crossroads and Americans for Prosperity seem to have escaped serious scrutiny is a big problem. That you are prepared to accept slanted bureaucratic procedures because the left has endured worse is also a problem. (You know, of course, that conspiracy theories are not limited to the right.) And that conservatives are particularly incensed about these IRS departures from neutrality while they had not raised a peep about previous efforts to go after groups they might not like as well is yet another problem.

Comment on Auditing the Tea Party: One style of American repression by John Krinsky

John Krinsky — Wed, 15 May 2013 03:31:35 +0000

To ask the question is to answer it. I suppose that my lack of outrage over this lies in my view that the left has already been subject to much worse repression than delays in (c)(4) status. But again, I think that this was probably a more clumsy way of sorting through likely groups that deserved more scrutiny, rather than the witch hunt the right is portraying it as. There were other groups–many others, apparently–who were also asked for more documentation. It’s hard to know what’s the real problem because there are still fairly few details out there. Do liberal groups simply assume that the bureaucracy got mucked up, and don’t kick up a fuss, while Tea Partiers think there are conspiracies everywhere? I don’t know. But the REAL problem, in all of this–as several commentators have indicated–is that the IRS left the big fish alone and have let (c)(4)s do end-runs around what few campaign finance laws we still have in place. Again, instead of saying that this was unequivocally right, I’d rather say that I’m still unconvinced that it was unequivocally wrong. Maybe dumb, but not altogether wrong. If you have no idea what you’re looking for, you’ll rarely find anything. And “profiling” is one way to do it. But I stand by my claim that not all profiling is created equal…

Comment on Auditing the Tea Party: One style of American repression by David S. Meyer

David S. Meyer — Tue, 14 May 2013 19:04:07 +0000

There’s all kinds of confusion associated with these 501 (c) 3 & 4 groups, and you can construe virtually anything as political. The point is that the IRS should not profile based on the content of those political beliefs.
Now, you raise another really interesting question:If the groups targeted had supported legalization of marijuana (in some social welfare kind of way), would there have been any outcry in Washington DC against this kind of profiling????

Comment on Auditing the Tea Party: One style of American repression by bespectacledape

bespectacledape — Tue, 14 May 2013 00:10:41 +0000

After all, in the Tea Party’s ideology, the collection of taxes (the IRS’s central mission) is inherently political – and, to them, liberal.

Comment on Auditing the Tea Party: One style of American repression by bespectacledape

bespectacledape — Tue, 14 May 2013 00:09:13 +0000

I see this as an example of an institution expending extra resources to investigate groups that have an ideological reason to break the law. Many law enforcement agencies pay special attention to, for example, pro-marijuana legalization groups. The IRS seemed here to have reason to believe that the ideology of Tea Party groups would try to subvert the IRS’s mission.

Is this profiling? Perhaps – but it’s certainly not surprising profiling. We can’t erect a wall between political and nonpolitical activity, after all. Everything’s political to someone, and if it’s worth doing, it’s worth arguing about.