U.S. ranks 46 in tax collection revenue as a percentage of GDP

The U.S. ranks a lowly 46th out of 100 nations that collect tax revenue as a percentage of GDP. Ths U.S. is also below nearly every 1st world industrialized nation.

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/GC.TAX.TOTL.GD.ZS

What about the other side?

As many of the right have not so eloquently pointed out: what about your hate filled rhetoric about Bush and Iraq? What's the difference? It's true, many liberals and Democrats espoused vast quantities of hate towards the President after he invaded Iraq and called for his death and head on a pike.

But here is the difference: that kind of talk stemmed from the absolute limit of the politcal spectrum. Our leaders, our elected officials, never joined in on that chorus. John Kerry, John McCain, Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton weren't the ones appearing on cable news shows, plastering photos of their "targets" on websites, and delivering hate-filled speeches to hungry, ravenous crowds. Sure, they were against the war, sure they disliked Bush's policies, but they never joined in with the murderous screams echoing from these groups. That's the difference.

Enter the new crop of GOP leadership -- Sarah Palin (a vice presidential candidate), Rand Paul (a U.S. Senator) Dick Armey (a U.S. Representative) and Glenn Beck (a Conservative personality on radio and TV) who all openly deliver lie after lie about our country, our government, and especially our president. They call Obama a socialist, a communist, a nazi, a marxist, a radical Muslim, and a racist that "hates" white people. These people wield enormous power and influence not just in their districts, but across the country thanks to their own propaganda network. They, along with others, continuously villify anyone who does not agree with them with the intention of scaring average Americans with the ideas that our government is evil(now that our government is being run by someone else that is not them).

Here is also the difference: President Bush was never shot at, never attacked (except for someone with a shoe in a foreign country), neither were any member of the GOP for 8 years. Liberals are not the ones stockpiling weapons and ammunition and talking about second amendment solutions and trigger options. That's not us. We talk a big game, sure. But the threat of violence from a hippy, tree-hugging, liberal, is about as likely as a contestant on the Biggest Loser turning down desert.

So comfort yourself all you want that we are exactly the same as the Tea Party or Conservative riff-raff clogging up the political world, but deep down you know that's not true, and you know that your skewed perspective, twisted rationale and vitrol for this government (that is still a goverment of the people, by the people, and for the people) has resulted in a population (all be it, small population) armed to the teeth with the notion that killing and shooting people to protect "liberty" or "freedom" is okay. That blood is on your hands.

And I won't call for your death, or your doom, or for someone to kill you. I will pray for your souls, for your lives, and hope that you will ask forgiveness from whatever God you pray to because while you may think of yourselves as Christians, your actions and words speak to the opposite of that. You know this to be true.

An Open Letter to America from the Republican Party

Dear America,

We're sorry. We f****d you all. We f****d up the country. We f****d ourselves.

The years have not been kind to us and we have no one to blame but ourselves. We have strayed from our principals, from common sense, and from reason. It's true, we don't like people who are different from us. That includes blacks, Asians, Latinos, Muslims, and gays. They frighten us and we hide behind the cloak of religion and patriotism to justify our own ignorance and racism. As a result, we have lost most of America.

We have become irresponsible and irrational. Worse, we tolerate, promote and celebrate prejudice and hatred. We have wound ourselves in a swamp of hypocrisy, hyperbole, historical inaccuracy and hatred. We are sorry, again. Because we believe having responsible choices is important to democracy, we know our survival in the political landscape is important for the future of this country.

We're going to try harder. We're going to come up with a platform that isn't built on a foundation of cowardice: fear of people with colors, religions, cultures and sex lives that differ from your own; fear of reform in banking, health care, energy; fantasy fears of America being transformed into an Islamic nation, into social-/commun-/fasc- ism, into a disarmed populace put in internment camps; and more.

We're going to stop threatening impeachment when the Democratically controlled and elected Congress uses a parliamentary procedure (deem and pass) that we have used more than 35 times in just one session and more than 100 times in all, that's also centuries old and which the courts have supported; especially when our own leaders admit it all.

We're going to stop screaming against a stimulus package that we have taken credit for all the good it's done in our own district. We're going to stop happily handing out enormous checks representing money that we voted against and then falsely claiming we fought for it all along because we know our loyal voting base is either too ignorant or too lazy to believe anything else other than what we tell them. Above all, we're going to stop secretly begging for more funds, pork barrel projects, and aid to help programs we have rallied against such as: free clinics for children and women, Medicaid, Medicare, SCHIP, public transportation, and so-called liberal schools (just to name a few) all the while maintaining our fiscal conservative lies. Sorry, again.

We're going to stop flipping out when the black president bows to foreign dignitaries, as appropriate for their culture, especially since we were silent when the white presidents did the same: Bush. Nixon. Ike. In fact, we didn't even make a peep when Bush held hands and kissed the leader of a country that our own country is not on "kissing terms" with. Our bad.

We're going to stop complaining about a lack of bipartisanship when the President has routinely invited us to Super Bowl parties, visited our own Conservative Caucus to answer questions, and we're going to stop fighting against our own ideas just because the black president likes and endorses our own proposals. We're going to stop routinely obstructing Congressional procedure for the sake of political gain and threatening to filibuster at least 100 pieces of legislation in one session, far more than any other party since the procedural tactic was invented. It was a bad week, we ran out of Milano cookies. Sorry.

We're going to stop using words like socialism, communism and fascism, until we have some kind of basic understanding of what those words mean. Hopefully we can learn that they're not synonymous.

We're going to stop using media outlets and personalities to dictate our parties path and agenda and call them out when their hate-filled tirades endanger not only our party, but people's lives. So, so, sorry.

We know this is a lot to do. Even prominent members of our own party have spoken out against these atrocities. We didn't listen because, well, our heads were too far up our own asses. We are going to drain the swamp of the conspiracy nuts, the bald-faced liars undeterred by demonstrable facts, the overt hypocrisy and the hatred right away. But, please, give us time to work all this out. We should be ready to come back to the political table by the end of this decade, until then, the current party in power is the best chance we have at making progress in the 21st century and undo all the wrongs we have made over the past 30 years. When we return, we are going to offer a calm, responsible, grownup agenda based on our values and vision for America. We know that not everyone will agree with these values, but we can't continue like we have been. We're destroying the very thing we love -- America.

Sincerely,

The GOP

As inspired by:

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/a/m/americandad/2010/03/an-open-letter-to-conservative.php