Hurray for Lance Baxter! I was never a big fan of a gecko with a cockney accent selling insurance (wtf?), but my mother-in-law laughs whenever she sees it, so I figure the lizard had his own demographic.
But this morning, after driving the wife to work I heard an NPR segment on how Lance has apparently been canned for leaving an angry message on some Teabagger voicemail. While recognizing Geico had the right to fire him for what he did, Lance does point out that he was acting as a private citizen. (Larry’s voice was heard at the end of the commercials, he wasn’t the gecko.)
Hurray for Lance! On one hand, I don’t think the Teabaggers are much to worry about. It’s really just a gaggle of the same tiresome cranky old people who were cranky before the 2008 election and have newly misappropriated a bit of American colonial history for their own histrionic purposes. If anything, by driving the GOP farther right, they may well isolate the middle. And one of my friends in Arizona points out that something like 2,000 McCain voters pass away every day, while 8,000 Hispanic-Americans are born. So do the math.
We’re generally happy with our insurance, but I think I’ll call Geico, voice my support for old Lance and say if they bring him back I’d love to talk to someone there about changing my insurance policy.
Oh, and the Teabaggers about American colonial history? The Boston Tea Party was a bunch of guys dressed as Indians dumping tea overboard to protest taxation without representation. (What the American textbooks don’t point out is that no representation was part of the deal. The King controlled the colonies. When settlers asked to go try their fortunes on his land overseas, part of the agreement was that they weren’t going to be represented. If anyone was reneging, it was the colonials who rebeled.)
So are the Teabaggers unrepresented? Hardly. Given American demographics, voters in the rural prairie states enjoy more representation than do urban coastal states. (Basically, the electoral college mirrors Congress. Thus, for example, as the Dakotas get four senators total for their population of about a million, while California’s 36+ million get only two senators, you can see who has the statistical advantage.)
If anyone is getting taxed without representation, it’s Hispanic migrant workers who pay taxes in our stores and those who pay into social security with no expectastion of ever collecting.
Hurray for Lance!
OmbudsBen 
Very well said indeed. Though we in CA certainly do have more Representatives, as that is based on population. But yeah, Hispanic migrants from Central America and Mexico, they don’t have representation, though one could again argue that they know that’s the deal when they come here, just like the colonists.
I remember when I was 16 and working, paying taxes and being mad about it, since I couldn’t vote. I was told that my rights were taken care of by adults voting in my best interest, but I don’t buy that. I think children shouldn’t have to pay income taxes until they can vote.