His concluding sentence:

"For our state to recover we need to re-establish the democratic principals our state and our nation were founded on."

Rhode Island Democrat principles have given us the fourth highest taxes, the worst business climate, lousy bridges, indefensibly generous social programs, poorly performing schools and too many state legislators who are only covertly corrupt when they are not overtly corrupt.

Thanks, but this state has had more than enough "Democrat principles".

Excessively high taxes is itself a form of tyranny and corruption.

Do you remember what set off the American Revolution? Back thern, they called it the War For Independence.

England was imposing excessive taxes, and they passed a piece of oppressive legislation called the Stamp Act (1765).

In 1772 the HMS Gaspee was attacked in a place called Warwick, RI. It is considered the first attack of the Revolutionary War!!

Come on Rhode Islanders, you revolted once!

I hate to delve into personal insults on a posting, but sometimes it's warranted. Che Crowley is an idiot! Socialism - which is what he's advocating - is the road to failure in poverty.

History has shown us over and over, so one has to be an “idiot” to continue to subscribe to failure (though Crowley probably considers itself to be in good company with Michael Moore). Probably wants to turn this state into a third world country like Cuba - free healthcare with abject poverty, except for an effete few at the top.

While Tom Cruise as the Church of Scientology, idiots like Che Crowley are crusaders for the Church of Socialism. His faith in the dogma of his religion has elevated him out of the sphere of questioning any of the tenets, and indeed out of the sphere of earthly reality.

It should come as no surprise that Che Crowley supports that other socialist Barack Obama. Recently the folks over at Ocean State Republican posted some entertaining looks at the world view of Che Crowley and his ilk:

“Well, its classic Marxism, which is just a subset of collectivism – communism; socialism; fascism – they’re all just different species of the genus collectivism. First you need to understand that collectivists like my brother actually despise the whole notion of patriotism and national sovereignty, and hold particular contempt for the United States. They hate the United States because its founding principles are the polar opposite of collectivism: the United States stands for individual liberty and its reciprocal requirement for individual self-reliance and self-responsibility, which in turn are enabled by free-market capitalism. They hate the United States because it is this world’s most economically and militarily powerful nation, it is a political finger in the eye of Marxist collectivism, showing by its success the inherent flaws of collectivism. Collectivists hate the whole notion of patriotism and national sovereignty (and religion, for that matter) because those “identities” compete with their preferred identities – and they’re all about “identity politics.” But their preferred identities revolve around race, gender and economic class. Anything to make people not consider themselves sovereign individuals, but victimized groups harboring resentment – and into the void step the collectivist politicians promising to make it better by enacting Marxist-collectivist wealth redistribution schemes.”

http://oceanstaterepublican.com/2008/03/07/an-exclusive-osr-interview-with-jabba-levesque/#more-316

“History tells us that the imposition of socialist policies on the scale of those proposed by Barack Obama lead to mass poverty, not mass prosperity. As discussed, there will always by truly rich people – these existed even in Communist countries (the “Party Leaders” – the Communist countries’ version of our own “limousine liberals” – the parallels are striking). There will always be poor people – but under Obama nation there will be tens of millions more of them. The people who will really suffer under Obama nation will be the middle-class; those who subscribe to the American Dream of upward mobility through the rewards that free market capitalism offers in return for hard work and ambition – for people such as this will be prevented from accumulating assets because once they pass a certain (and relatively minimal) threshold of success taxes will confiscate almost all additional earnings (to a large extent this is already occurring with the heavily progressive income tax that kicks in at very middle class income thresholds). This intentional decimation of the middle class is nothing new – for the American middle class is the “bourgeoisie” so despised by Karl Marx – Barack Obama merely intends to be the latest practitioner of this inhumane economic system.”

http://oceanstaterepublican.com/2008/03/10/obamanomics-the-audacity-of-socialism/#more-323

Now contrast with the pronouncements of Comrade Crowley:

>>CROWLEY: The point of the income tax is not about paying for services but about redistribution of wealth from the top to the bottom, pure and simple. Progressives cannot be afraid to defend this very American understanding of taxes … For our state to recover we need to re-establish the democratic principals our state and our nation were founded on.

Comment: I'm sure the Founding Fathers will be shocked to learn that the Constitution of the United States is really a version of the Communist Manifesto. To try to portray socialist wealth redistribution as "very American" goes beyond even propaganda and into the realm of outright lies. And when one has to resort to outright lies to promote one's agenda, all others should pay heed commensurate with the messengers credibility, i.e., not at all.

>>CROWLEY: Over the last decade, as we have engineered our tax structure to the benefit of the elite, they have used the structure to keep control over the available wages.

Comment: To assert that Rhode Island starting to align its tax structure with that of Ted Kennedy's liberal home state of Massachusetts reflects an engineering by Rhode Island's "rich" to jigger the tax system in its favor is laughable on its face.

Also laughable is the unspoken but inevitable co-conclusion that the public sector union and welfare industry controlled Democrat General Assembly, which enacted these changes, is a puppet for the "rich."

I wonder how many public school teachers in Rhode Island cringe at the thought that they are forced to join the teachers union (they have no choice - join or be fired - workers rights on the Cuban model) ... and are driven to tears knowing that the dues forcibly extracted from their paychecks pay Crowley's salary?

Andrew, this statement of yours in indeed a fact:
"high taxes in conjunction with mediocre services provided to the general public are acceptable under their stated ideology."

Just take a look at the teachers unions, how much we pay them, and the crappy results they give us. They are living proof of that retarded "progressive" ideology.

Ragin', either Crowley is truly an idiot, in which case there is no "personal insult" committed; or he knows exactly what he's doing and is willing to go all out to distort the truth to achieve his goals. Either way, no apology is needed.

Great comment.

"Progressives"like crowley and jerzyk support regressive taxes which have a wide impact thanks to their butt-boy art handy,who co-sponsored the bill that would tax such rich guy privileges as plumbing services,dry cleaning,grass cutting,tax preparation,etc.I realize onlt real huge capitalist tycoons ever need plumbers.If crowley really wants re-distribution of wealth,why doesn't he share everything he owns with anyone who wants it?These are usually the very cheapest people on a personal level.A guy like Henry Shelton often gets on my nerves,but I think he lives a spartan life and really believes he's doing the right thing(he's being played)-crowley makes a lot of money for being a lowlife agitator and he lives in Lincoln-what's a matter pat-too many dark people for you in Providence?It's always the crowleys,steve browns,and baksts who "just happen"to live in lily-white neighborhoods and have the gall to preach to the rest of us.

"Progress" and "progressive" have some history. They are key words in the Soviet and communist propaganda efforts.

"Services?" Hahahahahahahaha.

Taxes in RI are clearly about re-distribution of wealth, re-distribution of wealth to the most powerful (and often most corrupt) special interests.

The thought of those jolly jokers in the RI General Assembly and those crooked RI judges dictating to me.. makes me physically ill.

When my wife and were in flight to our new home in Idaho last year, we had an amazing sense of liberation. It was high fives! We had escaped!!

The bottom line: Rhode Island is no longer a good place to live. Live in RI at your own peril.

When I moved to RI 24 years ago it was a nice place to live right here in Providence as a matter of fact.Now we are beset by political whores trying to shake us down to make lowlifes allergic to work and illegal aliens happy.There is a core of recently arrived activists (Handy,Rick Martinez,Matt Jerzyk)allied with union thugs like Moura,and ethnic ward heelers(Almeida,Diaz,Pichardo)all supported by leadership devoid of ethics(Murphy and Montalbano)and lying down in the gutter with a subhuman piece of filth like Steven Brown who are out to ruin the quality of life that once existed here and is rapidly disappearing-I am very angry that I have to think about moving because I was always ready to pay my fair share and ask for no special favors and be left in peace.But they just won't let things be.I almost forgot David Segal,who is really more immature than bad,and Pat Crowley who was born to make an ass of himself in a duck suit.

Does Crowley really live in Lincoln? He signs his letters to the Cranston Herald. Patrick Crowley, Cranston.

Pat Crowley is the chair of the Lincoln Democrats so he must live in the town. The NEA headquarters are in Cranston, from where I assume the letter was generated.

When did the PBN start charging for online access? Does anyone know if Crowley signed his guest column on behalf of the NEARI? Please tell me he didn't.

The Cranston Herald never calls him out as an NEARI official, they just let him sign the letters like he's a Cranston resident.

NEARI secretary/receptionist Lou Rainone also spews the same variety of verbal garbage, although much less frequently now that Cranston is back to big, irresponsible spending and heading back down the toilet.

Monique,
You merit a paraphrase. Here goes:

National Republican principles have given us low taxes on the rich and high taxes on the poor, a worsening business climate quickly tumbling towards recession, lousy bridges, a crumbling infrastructure, millions in default of their homes, indefensibly poor social programs (48,000,000 of us with no medical insurance), woefully federally underfunded school programs which leave many children behind and shift the tax onus from the federal government to the states, overtly and covertly corrupt war profiteers, 4,000 of our sons and daughters dead, and an insouciant vice president who can only remark "so" when reminded that 70 to 80 percent of us are against his administration's fiasco in Iraq.

Thanks, but this citizen has had more than enough "Republican principles".

"For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers," Jesus Christ. While you think about the Jesus quote remember that our "Mission Accomplished" fearless leader ducked out of VietNam, but didn't mind hiding away while he sent our sons and daughters to die so that he could show up his daddy.

OldTimeLefty

It's been a while since I posted here, but I just can't resist. Now I know Carrol doesn't even read what ever I right and the rest of the lap dog rightists on this page just fall right in line. Maybe Carroll is in the top 1% bracket whose taxes have been cut, again and again, while my taxes have risen. Then yes, he should pay more.

But I actually want to lower taxes - that is why I support the economic growth and fairness act of 2008 - which would give the super majority of Rhode Islanders a tax break.

And I'd be happy to have the Cranston Herald refer to me with my title. I sign my editorials with my title... why they don't publish it is up to them. I know when the Westerly Sun, the Valley Breeze, the Projo, the East Bay Pendulum, the Sakonnet Times to name just a few publish my pieces they include my title. The only time I don't include my title is when I write for Motif Magazine, which you can get on news stands every other week. Or on line at www.motifmagazine.net.

There you go, have at it. Let's start the clock on how long this obsession lasts with Carroll. We got up to 48 with Justin....

By the way, your flyer is wrong.

by the way, I just checked the Cranston Herald Online and they have my title.... so again, maybe it is a right wing reading issue that we have here....

http://cranstononline.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5835&Itemid=35

and sometimes they don't...

http://www.cranstononline.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5609&Itemid=35

Pat,

You can't lower taxes (which you just said you wanted to do), redistribute income (which you said in your PBN op-ed you wanted to do) more extremely than is done now and maintain the current level services without cuts (which you never support), all at the same time. So you can't realistically be "for" all of these things.

And since you've brought the subject of officialness of your letters and op-eds up, it's fair to ask if your position that income taxes are not a mechanism for paying for state services is also the official position of the state NEA.

This is getting good.

My very same question Andrew. I read the PBN piece at the other blog, where the byline was not provided. His comments are certainly antagonistic, particularly for the venue.

Pat acts more union than teacher, and his inflammatory words and behavior can only have a negative effect on a professional that already suffers from a bit of a public perception problem. He should consider who pays his salary, a hefty one at that.

Would anyone here disagree with me if I were to say that "re-distribution of wealth" is really a euphemism for theft?

Old Time Lefty,

People aren't *entitled* to government health care. Entitlements killed Rhode Island, and they are killing our country too.

You talk about the destruction at the hands of the Republicans. I got news for you, the Republicans are not the folks who destroyed the state of Rhode Island.

PS
Republicans freed 30 million people in Iraq.

Citizen Critic
If you say that the Republic-rats "freed" 30,000,000 Iraqi's, you can also say that they killed 650,000 and displaced another 2,000,000. You are so far in the minority and so far removed from reality that rational argument is strewing pearls before swine. In case you haven't looked recently, there's a civil war going on among Sunni, Shia and Kurds. No one agrees on how to divide oil revenues and the fragile "truce" with Muqtada al Sadr's militia is about to fall apart. How can you call that mess "freedom".

The best you can say is to echo Cheney's "So" and stick your head further into the sand.
OldTimeLefty

Old Time Lefty,

You and the other anti-war "progressives" are quick to judge failure.

All wars are messy. The Revolutionary War here was messy, and so was WWII.

Between the Nazis and the Soviets it took 50 years to free Eastern Europe. I repeat: 50 years. Was it worth it?

We are only 5 years into Iraq.

Should we have not fought Hitler?

... and the 650,000 figure has been thoroughly discredited. The New England Journal of Medicine puts it at 151,000. (Yes, still 151,000 too many.)

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/NEJMsa0707782

"PS
Republicans freed 30 million people in Iraq."

Soldiers freed 30 million people in Iraq. A lot of them are Democrats.

All wars are indeed messy. Some were necessary. This one was trumped up and sold under false pretences. The deaths in WWII were awful, the war was necessary. This war is a fiasco. Can you tell me why we invaded - Military necessity, nope no WMD's - to get back at Al Qaeda, nope A.Q.'s Hq was and still is in Waziristan. As a result of our invasion Al Qaeda is now in Iraq. We got the countries wrong. We got the war wrong and we got the wrong administration.

So, saying "WWII" means nothing in regard to the current fiasco. It's like Orwell's Animal Farm when the sheep are taught to bleat "Four legs good. Two legs better" in order to justify the ruling pigs strutting around on two legs. Read the book.
OldTimeLefty