You’ll have to forgive me if I’m not terribly sympathetic of those who are protesting that their taxes are too high. 98 percent of Americans are receiving a tax cut under the Obama administration, and the top 2 percent — those who can afford to take time off of work for protests like this — are calling a return to the Clinton tax rates “socialism.”
Millions of Americans are unemployed. Millions more are underemployed, working part-time because they can’t find full-time work. Still more American workers are working two jobs, but are nevertheless unable to make enough money to pay their rent and feed their children. Perhaps you can see why I’m not overly concerned about your situation, tax-day protesters.
“98 percent of Americans are receiving a tax cut under the Obama administration”
I think I got my $8 in my last pay check, but it was kind of hard to tell.
So move to a tax free state. Somilia is available, just leave behind the assets you have obtained under American governments.
I think Somalia would fit your ideology better than mine, so I would rather you move there.
The pirates attack law abiding people, hold them hostage, and take money from them. Sounds just like where you want to take us.
A country with no functioning government, with the poorest people resorting to robbery as the only way to feed their families.
Sounds a lot more like your ideology, CMan.
Forgo taxes, and eat Soylent Green?
C”Rush”, just use that $8.00 to make a sign to use at your teabagging party.
One sign could say:
“Republicans are 100% correct on every issue every time”
If you can afford 2 signs, the other one could say.
“DemocRATS are 100% wrong on every issue every time”
That pretty much summarizes every comment your dittoheaded ass has ever posted here.
And my two words to you are…….
Great Job!!
Where is TFWG when you need him:)
Bottom line C-Rush is that you are not getting a tax hike, which is what the sheeple are protesting. Just realize that you have been conscripted (duped) as foot soldiers to protect the top 1% at your own expense. Hannity/Rush/et al wouldn’t come off as populist if they were honest and just said they want more millions, so they have to enlist you to ask for their bigger piece of the pie. It’s just like T-Paw who wants to protect tax cuts for the top 1% by cutting two months of wages from middle class workers just trying to get by.
Under Republican economics, when the economy booms only the top benefits, and when the economy busts only the middle class suffers. 50% of all CEO’s made over 1.08 million. they probably couldn’t survive on just a million.
“you are not getting a tax hike”
Yet! They’re coming…count on it!
C”Rush”,
Just because you say things does not make them true.
Your party has little credibility. The Republican base has not proven their ability as “oracles” that are able to accurately predict the outcome of any policy, be it your own policies or the Democratic politcies.
In fact, dittoheads can’t even get their own crazy sh*t right, such as the fabled “Operation Chaos”.
NO SUCCESS, that’s what most people think about the Republican base, the party of no credibility.
That’s why you’re at 20%.
CMan,
I think you might be right, and as long as the tax increases come in tiny increments and the state is meeting my needs, I don’t see why taxation is a bad thing. It all depends on needs being met and can I get rich?
Seriously, why do you keep being the serf trying to help maintain a redistribution of wealth to economic royalists. We are turning into a country run by multi-national corporations who are corporate first-country last. This is exactly what our founders, middle to upper middle class all, feared. Bankers and capitalists are making our decisions instead of elected officials, and we have people like you helping.
I work very hard all year for my 15 days/year of paid vacation. Who the hell are you to tell me I shouldn’t spend one of them doing what I can to protect freedom and the American way of life?
The double-standards of liberals amuse me. If, during the next welfare reform protest, I were to say that I can’t afford to go protest because I have to work, unlike the welfare rights protesters, you would demonize me as a right-wing compassionless lowlife bastard. Now it’s okay for you to say what you did about hard-working citizens using their personal vacation time to go to St. Paul? Unbelievable!
Put your money where your mouth is, emigrate to a failed but tax free state.
That doesn’t even deserve a response.
Right On!
“protect freedom and the American way of life”
Could you explain that further?
How do you define that?
I have my own definitions, but I want to hear what yours are.
That’s a great question. Sometimes it seems people feel they can do it on their own and don’t need the govn’t or other people. Of course that isn’t true.
OK, here is my opinion. Until recently, The American way of life has has been marked by a sense of individual rights and responsibilities, a sort of rugged “can-do” individualism nurtured by freedom itself. It made the United States the most successful states in the history of the world. In this new “It Takes a Village” mentality, I think our nation’s vision, it’s morals, it’s work ethic ….. well ….. let’s just say that I don’t believe our nation is living up to it’s boundless potential.
Right On!
“I don’t believe our nation is living up to it’s boundless potential.”
Your words are pessimistic. Ho American is that?
Do you need the strong, bold, steady leadership of George W. Bush to make you optimistic again?
I think our nations potential lies in it’s people, not it’s leaders.
Right-on:
Why no tea parties when Republicans ran up huge deficits, made the largest increases in the size of governments, and submitted horrible budgets? You are get a tax cut. You expose yourself for the fraud you are. Admit it is not about these issues, but about pure politics.
Actually it’s both. Everyone knows a portion of the effort was to score political points; SO WHAT!? That’s how the sausage is made, baby! Your side does it all the time! It’s all good.
Part of the effort, though, is very issues-based. Much of the effort is to put Congress and our legislature know that there is a large segment of people out here who do not approve of rising taxes and deficits which fund worthless projects and ineffective programs.
And hey, what do you all say that we dispense with the name calling? I respect your point of view, please respect mine, and feel free to disagree with it. Name calling just because we disagree only separates us when we need to unite and find a way to solve the problems we all are facing. Thanks!
Yeah, there is a little of that: A lack of understanding and then assumption. But are you a right-winger?
I am an American.
Your 15 days per year were brought to you by labor unions. They are there for you regardless of how hard you work.
Given that you are having to take vacation days to teabag, I think you’ll be getting a tax cut from Obama too.
Clueless twit.
A tax cut from Obama? Really? He will be writing me a personal check then? No? Oh, my kids will be paying the bill? How very generous of Obama!
Oh, and you ROCK with that name-calling! I’ll bet you’re the coolest kid on the playground during the second grade recess!
Oh, and by the way, how sad that my 15 days are there for me “regardless of how hard” I work! Showing up on a job site should not entitle me to benefits! Giving an honest day’s effort should! Too bad people like me have to pull the dead weight of the lazy fat-asses of the world! I’ll try to not let it bother me.
OK boys and girls can you say off-shore Tax Shelter? Take a look at what closing the loopholes on off-shore tax shelters would mean to Minnesota… Note that our complete deficit could be found this way… any tax protesters trying to have this looked into or are they just pissed that they have to pay taxes at all? Oh I forgot that’s the free market.
Chart on costs to states…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thenewswire/archive/taxes.html
Article about the issue…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/15/offshore-tax-havens-a-sta_n_186640.html
A Senate report estimated in 2008 that the United States loses up to $100 billion a year in tax revenue to offshore tax havens (PDF). In a report released Wednesday, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group offers a state-by-state breakdown of the cost to taxpayers of tax revenue lost to “shell companies and sham headquarters” in places like Switzerland and the Cayman Islands.
The practice soaks dutiful taxpayers in every state for hundreds of millions of dollars, according to U.S. PIRG.
Don’t confuse the righties with facts, it just makes their heads hurt.
The tea party in St. Paul is 5-8pm (specifically scheduled because of work conflicts). Unless you don’t have regular hours, you should be able to make it after work!
Thanks for the tip, Sean2. I’ll be sure to be at the counter-demonstration, with the sign reading, “Fascist Sore Losers GET A BRAIN”
Are the protesters fascists? The protesters who want the government out of our lives, who want the preservation of personal liberty and small government? That qualifies them as fascists?
Sean2,
“The protesters who want the government out of our lives, who want the preservation of personal liberty and small government?”
What is your plan, or a plan, to address these issues that are so important to you?
They’re not fascists, they are idiots. Protesting tax increases when they’re actually getting tax cuts…sheesh.
- When huge corporate media cartells astroturf a “public outcry”
- When people by into this tripe and come out in droves
- When these same people were completely silent for the past 8 years of Republican-induced bank bailouts and financial ruin, Constitutional infringmenets galore, a war based on lies, and a validation of torture
- When these people try to pin all this on a democratic president who’s been in office 100+ days
- And when these people cry for impeachment with not one shred of evidence to support it
THEY ARE FASCIST SORE LOSERS!
Oh, and a couple more things:
- When these people trust a sick corporate rats nest of fascism named Fox News, one of whose hosts repeatedly displays alternating films of our President and Adolf Hitler, in an attempt to link them with (again!) no evidence whatsoever,
They are embracing a fascist regime.
Ok, I take back my claim that these people are fascists. But they still endorse a fascist regime.
If this upsets you, then stop trying to pin a “Socialist” label on our President.
Sean2:
Why is it, that you guys cry and cry and cry about government supposedly telling you what to do, but you have no problem with multi-national corporations telling you what to do? China has the free-est, most market friendly business practices in the world. In your world you would have even less choice than you have now. I wold rather have some choice over who makes our decisions, than have economic royalists rule this country with their own interests at heart.
In the end, it isn’t about free markets, or big government taking away individual liberty. It’s about a bunch of spoiled children having a tantrum because their money is being taken away. The three central terms of any argument they can raise are “I, me, my.” This has been getting them attention, so they have no incentive to grow up.
As has been pointed out, these whiners have no problem with driving on tax-funded roads, enrolling in Medicare, or visiting state parks. It all comes down to “I want it!” What about contributing to society at large? “I want it!” What about building for the nation’s future? “I want it!”
No, it isn’t the “waste”: ask what’s wasteful, and you’ll get a story about some penny-ante welfare program that benefits someone other than them. It isn’t about paying too much for what they get: this type would shriek if everyone’s tax burden was a dollar per year. It isn’t big government: this type couldn’t give a rat’s rear, as long as it doesn’t cost them a nickle. It’s not about principle, it’s about greed.
If the rightwingnut lemmings had functioning brains, they’d be marching on republiCon Ron’s state GreedOverPrinciples party HQ, and demanding fiscal accountability in their own party.
But they don’t, so they won’t.
“Hypocrisy, thy party is GOP.”
Quote from John Cole:
“You know what really irritates me about the tea parties? The basic fact that if right now, it were President John McCain and not President Obama, and nothing else had changed, these tea parties wouldn’t exist. You know it, I know it, and even the teabaggers know it. It is just such transparent bullshit that it is offensive. The most these guys ever did during the last lost eight years was put a limp Porkbusters logo on their website, but now that we have President Malcom X George McGovern Shabazz, they are freaking out like there is no tomorrow. So absurd.”
The argument of the quote may hold true for some. However, it is past time that people have started openly complaining about big government spending, corporate mismanagement and the roots of the problems that we all have to endure.
We all need to learn that at some point or another it isn’t always a good idea to just drink the kool-aid then ask questions later. We live in a democratic republic, both of those things suggest that as individuals we are those that are to lead the politicians and they are supposed to be working for us.
I didn’t support the “bail out” Bush signed and if McCain were president and continued the “economic stimulus” 2/3 spending bill, I would be outraged and would not support it either. Mr. Obama is now our president, I did not vote for him, but I know that I can not change the fact that he in fact did win the election and that he will be my president for the next 4 years. Now, after the mess our last two presidents drove us into, we all need to find our outlets to speak up and make sure that we are heard. I am very skeptical but I hope he can do a better job than his immediate predecessors and that he will listen when the people speak.
My personal protest had nothing to do with the taxes I pay, it had to do with the mismanagement of my tax money by my government, widespread corruption, failing infrastructure, and failing systems. All the while the only solution that never works and is always tried is to throw money at problems rather than come up with real solutions. So the absurdity of the whole situation is that someone can misconstrue genuine thie discontent with how disconnected, dishonest, partisan, and unconstitutional things have become, with a purely partisan political agenda. This isn’t a democrat or republican problem, this is our problem.
See HUGE crowds at the state capital at 4PM
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9027778@N07/3445913150/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9027778@N07/3445913058
Be very afraid!
Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,,
We’re finally on our own,,
4 Dead in O-Hi-O
This summer I hear the calling
Does embedding work here?
— - Guess not — —
Those protesting at the Tea Parties are not protesting tax increases. They are protesting increased liabilities. Whether or not you and I pay the taxes for those liabilities today, tomorrow, or in the next generation, we still owe it.
So say what you want about the tax side. Not covering our bills today is like having our credit card payment deferred. What a deal! Oh - we still owe the money? Damn.
It is the bill I’m tired of. The tax is all semantics.
Call it what ever you want, it was a great event. I was impressed with the turnout. I know the left has had there little fun calling it teabagging and I’m glad they had a good time with it, However, the crowd was energized and I think it is only the start of something bigger.
I find it amusing whenever conservatives, Raygun devotees, rail against the spending going on these days. DtM takes great pains to distance himself from Bush II, often claiming only to have voted for the criminal once. Here’s the problem, thanks to the criminal’s spending on illegal wars and corporation give-aways, the nation is in dire straits. President Obama has taken great pains to explain and make transparent what the massive spending package is being spent on. Is the present spending trend sustainable? Of course not. Nobody has suggested it is. What nobody has suggested as well, is can we recover without a massive spending package. Jobs, infrastructure, alternative energy sources, the world’s banking system are all going to be repaired at the end of the day. DtM, we are all just paying the bill for the criminal neglect that the nation has suffered under for 30 years. Buck up and maybe get a job. Do something useful and actually make something. It feels good.
Richard always fails to mention that Democrats have spent more on craptacular misadventures of the overseas military variety than have Republicans. Also that Obama and Democrats have given away every bit as much to their corporate constituents that Republicans have and have done zero, nothing, to change the transparency of government. Of course Richard also believes that the only people worthy of breath are Americans who assembly pieces of metal together and that NASA invented the Microwave and Velcro so you might want to take his opinion with a grain of salt.
“So say what you want about the tax side. Not covering our bills today is like having our credit card payment deferred. What a deal! Oh - we still owe the money? Damn.
It is the bill I’m tired of. The tax is all semantics.”
Then where the hell were all these noble protesters when Reagan, Bush and Bush were sending the deficit through the roof?
DtM-your sentiment here may be genuine, but I am sorry, the claims made by most of these yahoos are making that this “isn’t just about Obama” are laughable.
It’s like John Cole said. If McCain was president and everything else was exactly the same these corporate funded protests would NOT BE HAPPENING.
KH,
“Richard also believes that the only people worthy of breath are Americans who assembly pieces of metal together and that NASA invented the Microwave and Velcro”
Are you sure about that? Your comment sounds like a childish mischaracterization.
You all assume that someone is either 100% for Bush, or they are 100% for Obama.
DantheMan,
You make two very good points.
First, it is a real concern of many people that we are building debt without any immediate plans to repay it. Fiscal conservatives have been abandoned by the Republican party of today because the Republican base has embraced a supposed free market philosophy which in reality has placed too much wealth in the hands of too few and has hobbled any true free enterprise. Small businesses and individual entrepeneurs are victims of this economy, not the culprits. If the Democrats just ridicule this idea without attempting get in front of it, they will re-energize the Republicans. Pragmatism not partisanship will prevail in this instance. You are correct that there are real long range concerns here that need to be addressed.
Second, you are right that we think we need to be 100% one way or another. That is the result of too many years of deeply polarizing politics that has laid waste to reasonable argument. Obama is a pragmatist and he will have to deal with withering criticism from both sides in order to restore a rational approach to dealing with these difficult questions.
Nitro,
Richard made that claim many moons ago when trying to rationalize his belief that military spending was fundamentally different than other government boondoggles like NASA in how they produce innovation. Sorry to burst your bubble but there are a large number of poorly educated liberals.
Did he actually say NASA invented it, or did he say NASA spearheaded the initiative that helped create it?
The University of Michigan took the first step in creating the internet. They envisioned a “network” where two computers could share files online.
Give them credit. But Cisco created the ability to route data in multiple channels in high bandwidths, enabling the exchange of anything larger than a text note. Microsoft create the ability for most families to be able to own an affordable pc with basic functionality that could connect to that internet. Google and Amazon revolutionized the way for Microsoft-enabled pc’s to use Cisco’s network to operate in a virtual “cloud”.
So yes, the U of Mich established the internet. But it didn’t innovate the internet as we know and use it. Private industry created the ability for us to message with each other in nearly real-time on this blog for a few minutes, all while catching up on some work at home before going to bed.
Without the University of Michigan, the internet would have happened. But without private industry and (gasp) corporations, we wouldn’t be messaging with each other right now.
Perhaps that is similar to the NASA analogy.
DantheMan,
Does the University of Michigan’s envisioning of the internet predate the Advanced Research Projects Agency and ARPANET?
Yes. Michican led to Arapnet, whose goal was to “exchange messages between two computers”.
He said invented. Not that it matters because they had nothing to do with either. Velcro wasn’t invented in this country and the microwave came about before NASA was even a gleam in young a politicians eye. By a defense contractor working on parts for radar no less.
“By a defense contractor working on parts for radar no less.”
In other words, by someone working on a government-funded project.
Wasn’t the idea for the Internet — if not its refinement into what it is today — also a defense-related initiative? Decentralize the computers, so one bomb can’t disable the whole government?
Some perspective on this teabag protest.
Pajamas Media (right wing news & opinion of Joe the Plumber/Reporter fame) is estimating the total turnout for all the teabagging parties nationwide at 208,058.
Is this the size of the Republican base?
This is about equal to the size of the Anti-War protest in February 2003 in San Fransisco ALONE. There were protests all over the US at that time, including here in St. Paul. Those protesting were described by the right as only people who were part of left wing base of the Democratic party.
To all of the lefties here…who think this tea party thing is just some lame attempt to criticize Obama…you are wrong.
The tea party represents the final straw for most true conservatives. We can read the tea leaves, the left cannot. We bitched about Bushes spending on DHS and the government change of TSA employees. I thought the change a waste then, and I think it now. There is the war spending…which can be bitched about too, but this administration has NOT changed the war position OR the spending for it. (BIG campaign lie, imo) BUT….the real issue boils down to the bailouts, the stimulus, the $4trillion dollar budget, the UHC proposal, the DNA bill, the GM money, etc, etc.
We dont mind taxes, to the extent they help ALL Americans…or those in need from lose of employment, etc. BUT…what Obama is doing will financially bankrupt this country. And the spending is NOT transparent, NOT monitored, and NOT really any different, in terms of the payee, than under Bush. We still do not have a full cabinet, and Geitner cannot get anyone to work with him either. The entire show is being run by a few people behind the curtain…and some wonder if it is on purpose.
As for Cairns comment…That’s a great question. Sometimes it seems people feel they can do it on their own and don’t need the govn’t or other people. Of course that isn’t true…it is one of the most out of touch, self-loathing comments I have ever seen on this board. Obviously we CAN do this on our own. We have from the beginning and we are to this day. I dont know a SINGLE PERSON who needs the help of the government to succeed in life.
Lastly, the entire premise of a protest is to have your voice heard…and that is a trait common to ALL Americans…not just the left. Republicans tend to be reserved, quite, and have a general “do what you want” attitude towards life. Thats why we have VERY few issues that we stand on. If you really consider it…Republicans dont like big government because it impedes personal freedom, we dont like big taxes because money equals power and freedom and we, the people, would like to keep both, we dont like abortion, for the most part, and we want ALL Americans to work. Thats it. That about sums up our position.
So, why the Tea Party? Because MANY people believe that the government is TOO far reaching…its TOO involved in our everyday lives. It has TOO much power, TOO much control, and we just dont want it.
As for rhus’s comment about moving? Its already happening. What YOU fail to realize is that WEALTH is mobile. When THIS country begins to reflect, endorse, or promote socialistic ideals in the majority, the people who are being pinpointed to pay for that socialism have one VERY important option that most other people do not…the ability to move their wealth somewhere else. So…keep picking on the wealthy and the wealthy, as they are doing now…will move….which leaves WHO to pay the bills?
Look at MI for an example of this.
Oh, and to the lefties. Thanks….I appreciate your tolerance, openmindedness, and acceptance of us as fellow Americans. And if you are going to respond to this with sentences that start out with “Where were you when, Bush did …, or if right-wing sheeple”, etc…dont bother, we’ve already heard it…and honestly we dont care.
I will agree that after watching these buffoons celebrating male testes that we are sadly in need of some rational and pragmatic discussion. How can you have a meaningful dialog with people protesting a tax increase when 99% of them are getting a tax cut? This is about stupidity and fear mixed with an amazing amount of self deluded selfishness. They want to dress up in the trappings of the Founding Fathers but refuse to actually think or act s the Founder wished them to… “We all hang together or we will surely be hung separately…” Ben Franklin knew something about community, countrymen and why we have a United States of America. These Teabag clowns, not so much.
“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”
—John Kenneth Galbraith
If you haven’t already, read “What’s the Matter With Kansas”. The teabaggers are a perfect example of what that book talks about.
Not to get off topic much but:
Tang, Teflon, and Velcro, are not spinoffs of the Space Program. General Foods developed Tang in 1957, and it has been on supermarket shelves since 1959. In 1962, when astronaut John Glenn performed eating experiments in orbit, Tang was selected for the menu, launching the powdered drink’s heightened public awareness. NASA also raised the celebrity status of Teflon, a material invented for DuPont in 1938, when the Agency applied it to heat shields, space suits, and cargo hold liners. Velcro was used during the Apollo missions to anchor equipment for astronauts’ convenience in zero gravity situations. Although it is a Swiss invention from the 1940s, it has since been associated with the Space Program.
And in response to the only people worthy of breath are Americans who assembly pieces of metal together:
No, woodworkers are worthy as are people who work in plastic injections houses. Meatpackers are some of the toughest SOB’s around so I wouldn’t want to exclude them. Now, effete libertarian drones are worthy but I seem to remember KH trying to espouse the new wonderful world of the service economy and how manufacturing is going the way of the dodo. How’s that working out for us? Tax dodgers aside, the recovery, and presumably lower taxes for everyone, can only result from a mammoth resurgence in the nation’s manufacturing sector. Good jobs, fair pay, everyone prospers. We can’t, as a nation, survive by flipping each others burgers and approving each others loans.
“Tang was selected for the menu, launching the powdered drink’s heightened public awareness.”
This is confusing. ‘Way back in ‘69, an NASA PR man spoke at my grade school, and the first question he was asked was “do astronauts really drink Tang?” He told us it was something similar, but not really Tang. Whom to believe?
This is more thought than I have given to Tang in many years. It can’t be healthy.
So NASA is mostly a very expensive marketing program. As for jobs that don’t include gluing two pieces of material together some are more valuable than others. What I will repeat is the fact that those who make a living using their heads instead of their backs make contributions that in the end are what drive progress. The person who invents the machine or process that reduces the amount of labor to accomplish a task or produce a good. The doctor or engineer that develops a new drug or type of medical imaging device.
The largest sector of the “paper/money pusher” types we have in our society is government with around 23% of the work force dedicated to mostly management of government services. Things that by Richard’s definition add little or no value.
IF we were to follow Richard’s “logic” on who and what add value we would slowly work ourselves back to the stone age. Eschewing all of those “effete” types who dare to understand the value of a person’s intellect. Instead judging each other based on how tough, manly and macho we are. Giving us a nation of tough ass Neanderthals making buggy whips and heating their homes by burning wood.
My mother used to say “All honest work is honorable.” This of course was followed by a task of either incredibly smelly or difficult with very little to no pay in it for me.
I think much of this is a visceral reaction to the destruction of American manufacturing that has gone on over the last 20 years or so. We used to pride ourselves on all kind of things and then they started telling us we were a service economy and shipped good paying jobs overseas.
A little food for thought… this could be about America.
Chicago by Carl Sandburg
Hog Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation’s Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:
They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities;
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse, and under his ribs the heart of the people, Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.