Hypocrisy Watch: Jobless Teabaggers rely on gov't help to get by

Several articles have come out in the last few days (Benen, the New York Times and the Washington Post among them) regarding leaders of the Tea Party movement. what's repeatedly pointed out is that these people are not working - something that should be obvious because of the massive amounts of time on their hands. Having a job myself, I've found it difficult to attend any rallies. One of the more striking themes though is that these anti-government, anti-Socialism leaders are receiving government benefits.

First up is the guy who'se been advocating violence, including most recently, breaking thousands of windows in government offices - a Kristallnacht of sorts - to try to 'coerce' Congress into repealing health care reform. (Here's a link to some of the scarier things he advocates)

The Washington Post ran a profile of Mike Vanderboegh, a 57-year-old former militiaman from Alabama, who disapproves of the new Affordable Care Act. Vanderboegh, who describes himself as a "Christian libertarian" and has been part of various clandestine militia groups, has been encouraging those who agree with him to throw bricks through the windows of Democratic offices nationwide.

It's about what you'd expect from someone like this, and Vanderboegh is unapologetic about his extremism. In his interview with the Post, he makes multiple references to people who "are armed and are capable of making such resistance possible and perhaps even initiating a civil war."

But here is the kicker. He's on disability because of health problems! He receives benefits for one program and uses his newly-free-and-government-paid-for time to oppose a program that would help him! Dear sweet Zeus....

Vanderboegh said he once worked as a warehouse manager but now lives on government disability checks. He said he receives $1,300 a month because of his congestive heart failure, diabetes and hypertension.

Then there's the guy who lost his job and then 1) called his Congressman to 2) get government health care so he could spend his time opposing government health care.

Make any sense to you? No? Me either. By th3 way he now gets 3) Social Security, and presumably 4) Medicare. Which is... say it with me... government-run health care.

When Tom Grimes lost his job as a financial consultant 15 months ago, he called his congressman, a Democrat, for help getting government health care.

Then he found a new full-time occupation: Tea Party activist.

Mr. Grimes, who receives Social Security, has filled the back seat of his Mercury Grand Marquis with the literature of the movement, including Glenn Beck’s “Arguing With Idiots” and Frederic Bastiat’s “The Law,” which denounces public benefits as “false philanthropy.”

“If you quit giving people that stuff, they would figure out how to do it on their own,” Mr. Grimes said.

He and others do not see any contradictions in their arguments for smaller government even as they argue that it should do more to prevent job loss or cuts to Medicare. After a year of angry debate, emotion outweighs fact.

“If you don’t trust the mindset or the value system of the people running the system, you can’t even look at the facts anymore,” Mr. Grimes said.

Mr. Grimes is, however, looking for a job. You just won't guess where he's looking. Private sector?

Nooooope.

He's looking for the government, whose value system he doesn't trust, to 5) bail him out. AGAIN.

Mr. Grimes, for his part, is thinking of getting a part-time job with the Census Bureau.