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From MIT Inventor To Tea Party Leader
An anonymous reader writes "In the midst of Congressional races around the country, one stands out to techies. Thomas Massie, an MIT whiz kid who pioneered touch-based interfaces and founded SensAble Technologies in the 1990s, is the favorite to win the Republican nomination in his Kentucky district next week. SensAble was recently sold on the cheap, but in a new exclusive, Massie explains why he left the haptics firm years ago to lead a simpler life of farming, family, and guns — lots of guns. Along the way he built a solar-powered, off-the-grid house and became a local hero of the Tea Party. Now Massie is leading the charge to get more engineers into politics, and if he wins, he could be a force to be reckoned with in Washington, DC."
Engineer tea-billies? That's like gay Republicans, or poor Republicans. It makes no sense, whatsoever. I'm guessing that being such a supposed wunderkind, he never did anything outside of the labs and libraries, and as such, didn't get a well rounded education that enabled him to think on his own.
I don't respond to AC's.
Yeah I mean, they should have joined the peaceful OWS. Then they could join in with the public property destruction, theft, and rape. Can't forget the arsons, and attempt to blow up a bridge in Ohio a week or so back either. The Tea Party folks though? They're the terrorists.
Om, nomnomnom...
I don't understand why you're being modded a troll. That is a pretty accurate insight.
The Tea Party and its morons actively campaign to spread disinformation, outright lies, and push extreme and regressive religious agendas.
Nobody who is as smart as this guy could possibly be dumb enough to take that nonsense at face value. Clearly, he found a way to play the system, or someone is offering him mountains of cash.
After all, the driving force of the tech industry AND politics is the quest for mountains of cash.
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
Nobody is entirely self-sufficient. Even the people who live out in the boonies, have their own well, their own power and their own food depend on living in an environment where thugs don't roam the area, looking for cheap thrills or money.
Then I want my taxes refunded. There are violent drug cartel thugs roaming the US southwest unchecked. As a matter of fact, there are even road signs along the highway cautioning against stopping and/or walking about. These violent criminals are being deliberately allowed to persist and expand their reach and power in the US by the corrupt US government, even to the point of the Federal government preventing the States from protecting their own citizens when it refuses to carry out it's Constitutional duties to protect and defend the borders.
That's the problem with every single Libertarian/Tea Partier in the US. They think that a lack of government simply means that they get no medicare in exchange for no taxes. What they fail to understand is that the political and social stability of the US is built on taxes as well.
No, it's the political and social *control* over choice those on the Left wish to exercise over the people that is dependent on taxes and regulation.
I'm amazed that so many people still believe, after all the death and suffering resulting from the numerous previous attempts throughout history, that collectivism is a valid and workable system, and it just simply "hasn't been done right yet", when anyone with a functioning brain ell can tell you that collectivism *always* ends in an authoritarian regime and the old Soviet-era saying among Russians; "We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us" (after which they can pretend to stand in line to buy bread the bakers pretend to have had the flour to make).
All collectivist schemes on a national scale fail because they must rely on people *not* behaving in accordance to basic human nature to succeed.
The Utopian schemes of re-distribution of the wealth...are as visionary and impractical as those which vest all property in the Crown. - Samuel Adams
How strangely will the Tools of the Tyrant pervert the Plain Meaning of Words. - Samuel Adams
The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the U.S. from keeping their own arms. - Samuel Adams
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not. - Thomas Jefferson
Taxation follows public debt, and in its train wretchedness and oppression. - Thomas Jefferson
If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretense of taking care of them, they must become happy. - Thomas Jefferson
The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale. - Thomas Jefferson
The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first. - Thomas Jefferson
But of course, what would some old, dead, white guys know, right? I mean, besides giving humanity the first and only truly free nation that believes (or at least, *used to* believe) that men can rule themselves in ~5,000 years of human history.
Essentially, that's what this boils down to: A conflict between those who believe that people can rule themselves, run their own lives, and make their own choices, against those who believe people are too stupid and ignorant to be trusted with ruling themselves, running their own lives, or making their own choices, and must have their lives, choices, and laws dictated to them by an "enlightened elite".
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.