"Stop funding all studies! They just lead to more science!"

[sfwriter]

This was said a a meeting on local food security I attended yesterday that had been overrun by Tea Partiers.

A woman shouted: "Stop funding all studies! They just lead to more science!"

Never mind the talks, the conference and papers being presented were ALL the result of studies.

The next gem of wisdom to be yelled from the audience, a collection of local farmers, focused on funding:

"All grants are theft. They are either taken at gunpoint in taxes, or taken through coercion through "progressive" taxation."

When the speaker tried to explain a Kellogg Foundation grant that let St. Louis farmers form a coop and expand, this same guy shouted.

"Well that's a corporation. Don't you have ANY solutions that don't force us to be beholden to the government, grants or corporations?"

Another presenter explained how he was accused of being a communist for suggesting pork producers form a coop so they could ship their hogs to processing together. After he did a study and found that Missouri farmers were the least likely to work together at any level, from community up to local, state or federal governments. This is listed as the number one obstacle to maintaining family farms in one presentation.

Another man told me "Your debt is hurting my grandkids. We should all stop paying taxes immediately." This came after I refused his Tea Party Membership card.

I also heard a tale from another one of how he tried to form a tea party four years ago, but was told not to by the Republican establishment in his ant-tax group who said it was too radical. "Now we can show them what radical really means. Look around, the Tea Party is the voice of the people."

Apparently in Southwest Missouri, he is right.

[unhappycamper]

1. Southwest Missouri is in the heart of Dumbfuckistan. n/t

[RC]

6. And here I thought North Dakota was bad.

I guess there is always some place worse.

[trotsky]

2. This is Reagan's "shining city on the hill."

The rotten fruit of 30 years of preaching "government is the problem" and then de-funding education so people are left unable to question the premise.

[hobbit709]

3. Willfully ignorant fools and proud of it.

[n2doc]

4. Well then they should be fine with putting a nuclear waste dump there

With no studies.

Let's put our toxic waste there too. After all, land is probably cheap and will get even cheaper with these planned enhancements to Big Biz's profit streams.

[hobbit709]

5. And evidently it can't make the gene pool any worse.

[old mark]

8. ...especially if they keep fucking their livestock...nt

[FSogol]

7. "Werk together to reduce costs and increase profits? That's Communist!"

The tea baggers are dumb asses. They deserve the type of representation they want. It would be entirely reckless to allow them to have it.

[eleny]

9. I wonder if any of those farmers get subsidies?

Btw, here's the 2009 Missouri Summary
http://farm.ewg.org/region.php?fips=29000&progcode=total&yr=2009