Tasteless Appeal by Tea Party Group

One would think that trying to save lives would be something that could be done without injecting politics into it.

But if you're talking about something tea-baggers do, that would not be the case.

Livingston County tea-baggers are organizing blood drives, a worthy thing to do and something local Democrats have done in the past. But they couldn't just let it go at that. They had to make it political by using the theme, "Donate Blood, Before the IRS Bleeds Us Dry."

First of all, the tea-baggers vastly exaggerate the tax burden in this country. They ignore the fact that the overall tax burden in the U.S. is at the same level as 1950 and that federal taxes under President Obama are 13 percent lower than when George Bush was president. The decline is due in part to tax cuts included in President Obama's stimulus package -- something that tea-baggers conveniently forget when they attack the measure for adding to the deficit. So the appeal is not even accurate. The IRS is not bleeding anyone dry.

One wonders if the only way the tea-baggers could get their members to do a good deed for someone else was to resort to a bald-faced political lie as motivation.

Furthermore, what are the limits to injecting politics into saving lives? Will the Red Cross, which is supposed to be non-partisan, start allowing groups to designate their blood only for "red-blooded Americans," leaving out undocumented residents or gays or Muslims, for example?

Trying to save lives should be something all Americans can agree on. It should be done in a way that unites us, not divides us. Sooner or later, we all need help, and when we're helping each other we should help each other as human beings, not because we want to make a political point. Using someone else's misfortune to score political points is tasteless.