The Knoxville Tea Party

If you blame profits for our health care's expense, you need to read this thread. Look at what the govt-subsidized non-profit charges, then compare to the price for the same service from a for-profit private practice. Free enterprise beats government control by a country mile.

@DerekPederson3 Why not just evict seniors and take their property outright like Zimbabwe? Your theory of resentment and being entitled to what other people earned and built worked out really well there!👍

We should be raising property taxes on seniors not lowering them. Most seniors are “low income.” They don’t have any income because they don’t work anymore. That’s why we tax their assets instead.

@FuwnieSchtuff @BasedMikeLee Wrong. You're way better off than Boomers ever were at the same age. x.com/JohnStossel/st…

@BasedMikeLee All true Mike, but capitalism is by and large only working for boomers these days and a drowning man will grab the tip of a sword.

“Democratic socialism” is a term many leftists seem to love these days—as if the word “democratic” could be the talisman that will finally make socialism work. It won’t. It never will.

@_sn_n You're catching up with Minnesota.

Republicans be like: Man that money could have been used for tax cuts for the wealthy

@DemzDeliver Republicans plant the trees. Then Democrats loot the trees and take credit for the apples.

Every Democrat since Reagan has decreased the deficit. Every Republican since Reagan has increased it.

@haugejostein Apparently war is an excellent investment, since the United States is so much better off than our nearest neighbors. But in fact we fight wars to defend liberty around the world, without which the countries with their inferior government health care would not have any at all.

Some countries spend money on wars. Other countries spend money on universal healthcare.

@haugejostein Ven padre santo para que te prestemos una cama

@RickAnderson Ironically it's your pursuit of fairness, decency, and diversity that's the problem, because your fairness, decency, and diversity produce the opposite: intolerance, conformity, and division. Competence and unity of spirit and purpose are strengths. Random 'diversity' isn't one.

I am truly fatigued by this negative line of dreck about Canada. Yes, we have challenges, more at the moment than usual. But this is a tremendous country, and yes we have a Canadian Dream, the belief that people can come together to build better lives, and in doing so build a better country: fair, decent, and diverse.

Vietnam's doi moi reforms after 1986 turned one of the world's poorest countries into a manufacturing powerhouse through one simple mechanism: recognizing property rights. The Communist Party didn't abandon socialism in theory, but they unleashed capitalism in practice by letting farmers own their land and entrepreneurs keep their profits. The numbers tell the story Mises and Rothbard predicted. GDP per capita jumped from $231 in 1985 to over $4,000 today. Poverty rates collapsed from 70% to under 2%. Rice production doubled within a decade once farmers could sell their harvests at market prices instead of delivering quotas to state warehouses. When you own something, you take care of it. When the state owns everything, everyone starves. The transformation happened fastest in agriculture, where doi moi dissolved collective farms and returned land-use rights to individual families. Suddenly Vietnamese farmers started working 12-hour days instead of pretending to work for the collective. They invested in better seeds, irrigation, and equipment because they captured the returns. Production exploded because human action responds to incentives, not revolutionary slogans. Manufacturing followed the same pattern. Foreign companies flooded in once Vietnam allowed private ownership of factories and guaranteed profit repatriation. Nike, Samsung, and Intel didn't build plants in Vietnam because they loved Ho Chi Minh's ideology. They came because property rights meant they could actually own their investments and keep their earnings. The Party calls it "socialist-oriented market economy" to save face, but markets don't care about your labels—they care about whether you can own, buy, sell, and profit without bureaucrats stealing everything.

40% of the top 1% from Canada have left Canada for other countries, mostly the USA. The top talented from Canada have given up trying to build their companies in Canada due to regulations and crushing taxes. The best Canadians are launching their businesses mostly in the USA.

@ZeynabDay Your math shows how lucky and wealthy we are--even someone earning our lowest wage can travel 60 miles for an hour's work. And soon we'll be back to 90 miles or so, which is amazing.

If you made the $7.25 minimum wage in Tennessee, you'd have to work 9 hours to pay for a 15-gallon tank of gas. A full day's work. In a state where most people have to commute by automobile to get to work, sometimes over longer distances. This is repeated across the country.

I'm Papua New Guinean, so let me talk about my own country for a second. My country is not failing because of the "white man." My country is not failing because of some mythical systematic stranglehold keeping us down. My country is failing because we have deep-rooted corruption at every level of society and government - the same kind of corruption people are now waking up to in the U.S., except ours is even more blatant. Papua New Guinea is one of the most resource-rich nations on Earth. We have: ✅ Massive gold, copper, and nickel deposits ✅ Major oil and LNG/natural gas projects that drive much of the economy ✅ Strong agricultural exports including: ▶️ Coffee ▶️ Cocoa ▶️ Palm oil ▶️ Copra ▶️ Rubber Large fisheries and forestry sectors And yet despite all of that wealth, since independence in 1975 - when Australia formally granted PNG independence - our politicians have repeatedly sold this nation out for personal greed. Nobody forced them at gunpoint. Nobody made them rob their own people. Nobody made them loot public funds. Independence was handed to us on a golden platter. And what did our leadership do? They turned around and pillaged the country for themselves. WE ARE OUR OWN WORST ENEMIES. And this same pattern exists all over: ~ Africa ~ The Middle East ~ Parts of Asia ~ Latin America Too many nations are crippled less by outsiders and more by their own corrupt elites, tribalism, greed, incompetence, and refusal to build functioning institutions. Then millions from these broken countries move to the West carrying a built-in victim mentality - blaming everyone else for problems they never fixed at home. And when you see crime, violence, rape, gang activity, and lawlessness emerge in parts of the West from certain migrant populations, many of these individuals come from places where: ☑️ corruption is normal ☑️ violence is common ☑️ law enforcement is weak ☑️ and accountability barely exists You cannot import people from dysfunctional societies in mass numbers and expect zero cultural consequences. Harsh truth: Until people start taking responsibility for their own nations, cultures, and leadership... nothing changes.

@stevectx1964 @BraddrofliT Well I want people to live well and be able to afford things too. But it is precisely misguided largess that has made college & K-12 unaffordable, and govt that made medical care too pricey too. I've studied it. Medical care could cost 1/2 tomorrow if we just got govt out of it.

@Knoxteaparty @BraddrofliT Bullshit. I dont want socialism like Venezuela or communism like Cuba. Just policies that work for working class people, not a hand full of billionaires. Things like universal healthcare, affordable education, livable wages and clean water and air.

Most people screaming about “socialism” couldn’t define it if their life depended on it. They’ve been conditioned to shout “Cuba” and “Venezuela” like that’s the entire concept. That’s not knowledge that’s brain washing

@stevectx1964 @BraddrofliT Every creature on Earth has to work to survive; the question is how humanity can live most, and toil least. But using govt to live off our neighbors' labor doesn't accomplish that. Taxing Peter to subsidize Paul discourages the very process that liberates everyone from drudgery.

@Knoxteaparty @BraddrofliT Youu're not really free if you have to work multiple jobs to survive. Or if a medical emergency can bankrupt your family. Or when the water you drink and the air you breath are toxic. Capitalism without sufficient regulation and social investment ultimately results in oligarchy.

@MacelroyRo17135 @BraddrofliT There are certainly a few who need help, and we have ways. Poverty, in America, is mostly from choices--what you've listed aren't anywhere close to being the causes of most poverty and misfortune. Poverty in other countries is mostly from governments purporting to help people.

@Knoxteaparty @BraddrofliT What if you’re physically or intellectually disabled and your family abandons you? For one example. I know you’re not a kid, but you sound like a high schooler who just read Ayn Rand and hasn’t had the time or experience to think it through yet.

@Magnum1ooo @thevivafrei It simply cannot be lawful to cause bodily harm with soundwaves any more than damaging someone's eyes with a laser. I've been on the wrong end of these tactics. It's painful, and I'm sure I lost hearing from it.

I'm an attorney and I've done some research on this in a couple jurisdictions. The bottom line is that existing laws fall depressingly short in giving a remedy. It essentially boils down to this: if a person is screaming, or whistling in your face, or in your ear, even 1 inch away, that's generally not a crime unless they touch you. If they touch you, it becomes simple assault or similar. But all the other options are civil; i.e. harassment, etc. Your remedy is to do something like seek a protective order against the person. Or other civil remedies that do absolutely nothing in the moment. I would support a law that makes this type of aggressive, intimidation illegal. But such a law would be used against conservatives all the time. Imagine you had a law that said you couldn't direct "excessive noise" at an individual within 12 inches or 18 inches of their ears or face. Whatever. The assholes would argue what is excessive or isn't. And every time a conservative journalist was walking through the crowd with a microphone asking questions, they would be accused of violating the law. It feels like a sad reality of our times that asshole/aggressive/activists can do this kind of stuff and essentially get away with it.

Setting aside the assault itself, which is egregious… I don’t understand why cops do not charge people using those whistles so close to people’s ears with assault/battery or harassment. Whatever the appropriate charge would be in that jurisdiction. It is criminal use of an item-turned-weapon that can cause serious and irreparable damage to the ears.

@NotTheirScript My personal experiance, 5 friends have last stage of lung cancer in last 5 years. 3 in Canada dead with 18 months from diagnosed. 2 in US still alive after 36 months. All of them are middle class normal citizen.

@MacelroyRo17135 @BraddrofliT Govt exists to protect people's rights. That's fine. But not to supply their basic needs, bc govt--which produces no good or food or service--can only supply one man, by taking from another. Govt helping people usually looks something like this: x.com/TONYxTWO/statu…

@Knoxteaparty @BraddrofliT I’m most certainly not a socialist. But “the government helping people” isn’t socialist either. Socialism is socialism.

@GOP_is_Gutless In 1866 the senator who proposed the 14th Amendment's "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" said it meant people subject to all of our laws like other citizens. Can Americans and Mexicans get passports from the same places? Can they both vote in Mexican elections? Nope.

🚨 Justice Alito just exposed the core flaw in unlimited birthright citizenship. During SCOTUS arguments, Alito hammered the key question: If anyone who sneaks into the U.S. illegally can have a child here and automatically grant that child American citizenship — with full rights and no allegiance required — then who really controls who becomes a citizen? The country… or the people who break our laws to get here? This isn’t just a legal technicality. It’s about whether America still has the sovereign right to decide its own future — or if the 14th Amendment has been twisted into an open invitation that collapses our entire immigration system. Alito’s questioning cut straight to the heart: In a world of 8 billion people, one plane flight away from U.S. soil, automatic citizenship regardless of lawful presence or loyalty turns the Constitution into a suicide pact. Does the United States control its citizenship — or does it surrender that power to illegal entrants? #BirthrightCitizenship #SCOTUS #AmericaFirst

💯. Do foreigners, by breaking our laws, get to overrule American sovereignty on who gets to be a citizen?

@carlquintanilla Didn't realize Gov. Hairdoo invented Nvidia, thanks!👍

“Of all the prevailing media narratives around Gavin Newsom, the one that is most conspicuous by its absence is how under its two-term governor California became the top performing economy not just among its 49 siblings but also any developed nation.” bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…