Posted by
Patrick Henry on Sunday, February 21, 2010 8:28:48 PM
Appearing in the Frbuary 16 edition of the New York Times was a lengthy article
by David Barstow attempting to link the Tea Party movement to the John Birch
Society, the Aryan Nation, the militias, racism, "birthers," the Oath Takers, and
every stripe of conspiracy theorist known to man. If you believe the Times, the "tea
baggers" are also responsible for someone leaving the toilet seat up at the White
House and should be investigated for causing global warming. One could write a
book entitled "When Liberals Lie," except everyone knows that it's about every time
their mouths move.
Did members of some of the foregoing extremist groups ever attend Tea Party
rallies? Of course they did. Any time any group dares publicly oppose government,
fringe elements come out to test the waters and see if their particular hobby horse will
ride. To suggest that the Tea Parties are largely made up of such hut jobs, or that
their extreme positions have been adopted is exactly like saying that since Barack
Obama appointed Van Jones, who publicly called himself a communist, to a responsible
post in his administration, that Obama's administration is communistic. (Jones was
also a "truther" who signed a petition blaming the U.S. government for staging 9/11.
You want to talk about conspiracy theorist nut jobs?)
Disingenuous guilt-by-association tactics are typlical of whining liberal weenies who
can't argue issues and so resort to pejoratively labeling those who disagree with them.
And the New York Times, rumored to consider changing its name to "YellowJournalism
'R Us," is among the worst of the worst. One need only see how many NYT writers have
resigned in disgrace for making up stories out of whole cloth or manufacturing bogus
sources to see what a cesspool of dishonesty swirls there. It makes one want to dismiss
the Tea Party article and say "just consider the source."
But there is something more insidious at stake here, and it is the brazen attempt to equate
dissent with sedition. Barstow's bogus article even implies that the Tea Parties may be
conspiring with those who would seek to overthrow the government by force of arms. If
liberals succeed in forcing the equation that dissent equals sedition, then they have laid
the groundwork for stifling all dissent. (Wouldn't they love that)?
The article harps on the obsession that Tea Partiers think elements in the government
are conspiring to curb or abolish certain of their freedoms, or to impose massive controls
against the will of the people. The dictionary definition suggests that a conspiracy occurs
when a few people meet in secret and agree to keep information about an event or course
of action from others. Do you suppose, by any stretch of the imagination, that when a small
group, meeting behind closed doors in the middle of the night, paying bribes to persuade dissenters and planning to pass a sweeping takeover of healthcare already rejected by
the public by use of a rarely used parliamentary trick because they can't get enough
votes to pass it any other way fits that definition? A lot of Americans do, and many of
them never attended a Tea Party.
Our founding documents hold that government officials serve at the will of the people,
and that the only legitimate government is by the consent of the governed. The Tea
Party movement is pro-limited government, pro-lower taxation and pro-Constitution.
Consequently they are ani-taxation, anti-big government and therefore anti-Democrat
and anti-Barack Obama. None of that makes them in any way racist, seditionist or some
kind of lunatic fringe.
But the very thought of a faceless horde of rubes with pitchforks has liberals, including
Barack Obama, wettting their pants. Why? Because they've been found out and called out.
They have made the fatal miscalculation of trying to impose a left-wing agenda on a right
center country, and it has royally backfired. The Tea Party is just the early crest of a tsunami
of resentment and rejection that they know is going to wash them out of offfice in the
elections of 2010 and 2012. It won't require assassinations, or armed rebellion. Just a few
million Americans who are fed up with big government giveaways, out-of-control
national debt and arrogant politicans who pontificate from on high as thoug everyone else
was stupid, and then snivel in a corner when somebody calls them the leftist corruptocrats
that they are. They can't hide, so they had better run.