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Tea Parties Archive

Sunday

18

April 2010

0

COMMENTS

New York Times Runs Racist Op-Ed Against Tea Party

Written by , Posted in General/Misc., Identity Politics, Media Bias

Charles M. Blow, a regular columnist for the New York Times, has taken the already despicable race narrative on the Tea Parties to another level.  He begins with a bit of “diversity” hunting:

I had specifically come to this rally because it was supposed to be especially diverse. And, on the stage at least, it was. The speakers included a black doctor who bashed Democrats for crying racism, a Hispanic immigrant who said that she had never received a single government entitlement and a Vietnamese immigrant who said that the Tea Party leader was God. It felt like a bizarre spoof of a 1980s Benetton ad.

The juxtaposition was striking: an abundance of diversity on the stage and a dearth of it in the crowd, with the exception of a few minorities like the young black man who carried a sign that read “Quit calling me a racist.”

…It was a farce. This Tea Party wanted to project a mainstream image of a group that is anything but. A New York Times/CBS News poll released on Wednesday found that only 1 percent of Tea Party supporters are black and only 1 percent are Hispanic. It’s almost all white.

The implication: a lack of the kind of diversity Mr. Blow deems important (because there are other kinds, which he apparently doesn’t care about) is somehow condemning.  Notice he never actually explains the logic for how this matters.  But don’t hold your breath waiting for Mr. Blow to similarly investigate an NAACP event, or the next Million Man March.

But that’s hardly the worst.  Things really get ugly when he begins using his own racist attacks:

And even when compared to other whites, their views are extreme and marginal. For instance, white Tea Party supporters are twice as likely as white independents and eight times as likely as white Democrats to believe that Barack Obama was born in another country.

Furthermore, they were more than eight times as likely as white independents and six times as likely as white Democrats to think that the Obama administration favors blacks over whites.

Thursday night I saw a political minstrel show devised for the entertainment of those on the rim of obliviousness and for those engaged in the subterfuge of intolerance. I was not amused.

Because, you know, white views are just naturally extreme and marginal, so even by that standard the tea parties are on the fringe!  What a racist.  Can you imagine the New York Times running an op-ed that says “even compared to other blacks, their views are [insert negative attribute]?” The author of such a statement would be crucified.

He then doubles down with a racist attack on the black speakers, who he dubs a “minstrel show.”  Apparently no black person is capable of the free thinking that might lead them to be there because they believe in the cause. Oh no.  They must be getting used or duped.  I wonder if Mr. Blow has ever applied the same logic to his employment at the upper-class, white New York Times.  Probably not, because if he did his head might just explode.

Sunday

28

February 2010

3

COMMENTS

Frank Rich Dishonestly Associates Joseph Stack With Tea Party

Written by , Posted in Media Bias

Frank Rich writes a lot of nonsense.  His latest column can only be described as deranged, as he flails about trying to tar the entire conservative and tea party movements as unhinged.  In order to do so, he must play fast and loose with the facts.  One such lie involves the man who flew a plan into an IRS building:

Stack was a lone madman, and it would be both glib and inaccurate to call him a card-carrying Tea Partier or a “Tea Party terrorist.” But he did leave behind a manifesto whose frothing anti-government, anti-tax rage overlaps with some of those marching under the Tea Party banner.

He’s not a card-carrying member, but there are disturbing “overlaps.” You see how he does that?  Very sneaky.

Yet the picture he paints of Stack as a right-wing nut is entirely dishonest, though he is not the first to try do so.

Left out of Rich’s characterization of Stack are the many aspects of his manifesto which overlap mainstream leftwing thought, including that of Frank Rich.  He attacks drug and insurance companies.  He complains about corporate profits.  He swipes at organized religion.  He calls George W. Bush a “puppet.”  And then he finally ends by mocking capitalism.

But Frank Rich sees overlaps with the Tea Party.

The truth is that Joseph Stack will not fit into any tidy ideological box.  His rant runs the ideological spectrum, making it easy to find a sentence here or there to hang around the neck of whomever one seeks to target for guilt by association of thought.   The only real theme that unifies it all is that he saw our government as broken.  It seems most Americans, from left and right, are guilty of agreeing.

Thursday

17

September 2009

1

COMMENTS

Is Conservatism Dead?

Written by , Posted in Liberty & Limited Government

That’s the question being asked by many discussing Sam Tanenhaus’ new book, The Death of Conservatism. As he’s now making the rounds, it’s difficult to avoid the discussion.  His ultimate prescription of a content-free conservatism is so obviously self-serving for the liberal agenda that I’m not going to waste time addressing it.

A more interesting point I’ve seen him make is the contention that today’s conservatism, and I assume that he’s using the word in a broad sense to encapsulate the totality of small government movements, is lacking in heavyweight intellectuals like William F. Buckley, Jr.  I think he’s looking in the wrong places.

No, there is no one like Buckley in the conservative movement today. Nor is there a Reagan. This is less reflective of the state of conservative intellectualism than it is the fact that the two giants were irreplaceably unique.

Tanenhaus, like many in D.C. circles, looks only in two places for intellectual contributions: Washington, D.C. and the Ivory Tower. In his view, events like last week’s D.C. Tea Party are the result of unsophisticated if not outright moronic masses lashing out because they lack enlightened leadership. I think he’s got it all wrong.

Where he sees no intellectual leaders, I see millions. Thanks to the advances of technology, leadership is no longer confined to positions of great power or influence. With instant communication, political movements are finally able to arise via spontaneous order, the process by which common languages developed or markets function. Direction need not come from on high when outcomes are emergent.

As an example of the kind of intellectualism I see in conservatism, let me recount a short story from my trip to the D.C. Tea Party. As is my habit, I left the event a bit early to avoid the rush out of town, though there were still plenty other folks on the metro with me. A few of them struck up a conversation with a local woman who did not share the views of the marchers, though like them she was respectful and pleasant, taking turns listening and offering her views.

One of the marchers, in the course of a conversation the details of which I do not quite recall, began referencing the Constitution. Specifically, he drew on the manner in which the Commerce Clause has been abused through a misunderstanding of the targets of the clause, as well as the  meaning of the word “regulate” at the time.

Is not such enlightened discourse exactly the model for democratic debate that stuffy elitist types moan is so lacking? Is it accurate or honest to declare a movement with so many such people interested in American constitutional history to be lacking in intellectualism, merely because there is no Ivy League spokesman at the forefront?

Mr. Tanenhaus has asked an important question about a historically significant and influential movement within the American political sphere. It is unfortunate that his cultural blinders have prevented him from seeing the obvious answer.

Friday

3

July 2009

1

COMMENTS

Saturday

18

April 2009

0

COMMENTS

Thursday

16

April 2009

0

COMMENTS

Desperately Distorting The Tea Parties

Written by , Posted in Media Bias

Yesterday was tax day, which meant hundreds of thousands of regular Americans organized and protested Obama’s reckless spending of the money our children haven’t earned yet.  The left, and their allies in the media, have been desperate to paint the protests as manufactured by “corporate interests,” rather than the spontaneous and organic outgrowth of legitimate citizen rage with our tyrannical liberal government.  As usual, the left is projecting their own tactics (Axelturfing, for instance) onto the right.  But it’s the left that pays people to protest.  It’s the left that funnels money from George Soros to pretend grassroots movements.  The right doesn’t use these Alinsky tactics; Obama does.

Another reason the left just can’t believe these protests are real is because the protesters didn’t behave as typical leftist protesters do.  They didn’t destroy property.  They didn’t battle with police.  These are law abiding citizens fed up with the destructive behavior of their government.  They had no intention to join in that mindless destruction of American property.

Liberals must believe that this isn’t real, because they have deluded themselves into believing that everyone supports their reckless spending.  They can’t handle ideological differences, because they can’t defend their ideology against a challenge.  They’d rather pretend you don’t exist than defend their positions.  But in the end that will be their downfall.  They won’t be able to acknowledge the tide that will sweep them from office until the water’s receding, with their failed government in tatters in its wake.