A Short Citizen's Guide to Kooks, Demagogues, and Right-Wingers On Tax Day | Robert Reich's Blog
The nice thing about the left is that they are always so caring and respectful--they believe whole heartedly in diversity, and as the intellectual cream of the crop, they know that diversity of thought is the only kind that really counts. That is why they are so open minded.
A buddy of mine asked me which of the key messages of the tea parties will resonate with the general public? That they are deranged, or that they are dangerous? I responded that with something like 80% of the public, even though it looks like millions turned out in protest, what will resonate is "Tea Party"? Who did that, and did anyone show up? I looked out on CNN today a couple times, not a word about the tax protests.
Mr Reich, and a few of the more radical of the lefties are of course up in arms about anyone showing up from the right to protest for any reason. What right do those people have to a different opionion? Well, to listen to Bob or most lefties, none at all. Our founding fathers created a nation dedicated to total thought agreement and maximum enjoyment of the payment of taxes. The essense of "American" is to transfer as much of your income as possible to the government to redistribute to any bank, deadbeat mortgate holder, defunct brokerage house, failing unionized car manufacturer, or just someone that has less money than you for whatever reason. The reasons we are all Americans is that we believe in the government taking as much of our money as they want, and anyone that questions that is simply "not patriotic".
I was unable to attend the local tea party as I had a business engagement that evening, but I did get to drive by. Looked like in excess of 1K people peacefully and quite quietly gathered with signs that were generally pretty tame -- "Trillions in Debt: CHAINS we can believe in" was pretty good I thought. What a far cry from Code Pink throwing buckets of blood on people or all manner of "Bush is a Terrorist", etc anti-war signs. Cindy Sheehan in a ditch outside the Bush ranch in the summer of '05 was a national story for weeks. One woman and some occasional hangers on saying "get out of Iraq" was worth hours of coverage, millions of people questioning the spending of many trillions of dollars is worth virtually none. Our press has no biases.
I shudder to think what would have happened if the Bush administration had come out with a Homeland Security finding on "Left Wing Anti-War Protesters" the week of some sort of planned anti-war demonstration. The press would have been apocolyptic for weeks -- and I'm not sure that if such a thing had happened, I might somewhat agree with them. Surprise, the BO administration comes out with a finding on "Right Wing Extremeism" on Monday of this week. Not a single MSM invocation of "chilling", even when the report goes so far as to indicate that "returning servicemen are a special threat". Oh, really? I thought the "demean the soldiers" went out with Vietnam -- apparently not.
A lot of the lefties seem to think that if you didn't protest a $400 Billion deficit, you can't protest $2 Trillion deficit. Huh? If I don't get mad over someone driving 40MPH, I'm not allowed to say anything about someone driving 200MPH? If I don't bitch about someone having 4 beers, I'm some sort of a hypocrite if I say that 20 is too many? There seems to have been a sudden development of some sort of logic that would receive rather shrill laughter were the shoe on the other foot. I believe that it is supposed to be the claim of the left that the right has all these "hard line views" and doesn't understand "gray". Most Republicans I know are "unhappy" with any deficits at all, were VERY pleased when the combination of the Repubilcan congress and Bill Clinton gave us a surplus, and VERY dissappointed when the combination for Bush and a Republican congress gave us deficits.
BO is exceeding the entrie Bush 8 year deficit spending in 4 months, and will exceed the entire deficit spending of all US presidents prior to him in 8 years by his own rosy estimates. The protests are not primarily about CURRENT taxation, they are about the DIRECTION that our country has turned. Some of us believe that we have turned in a direction that calls into question the very meaning of "America" in ways that may not be possible to ever recover. Are we right? Only the future will tell, but at one time we were a country where "diversity of thought" was considered a very good and prudent thing. We believed in not only an economic market, but even more importantly in a market of "idea competion" where concerned citizens were willing to stand up and take a postiion, even if (and sometimes especially) if it was contrary to the views of the masses.
Has that day passed? Maybe, but I'm proud to cast my lot with the "Kooks, Demagogues and Right Wingers".
The nice thing about the left is that they are always so caring and respectful--they believe whole heartedly in diversity, and as the intellectual cream of the crop, they know that diversity of thought is the only kind that really counts. That is why they are so open minded.
A buddy of mine asked me which of the key messages of the tea parties will resonate with the general public? That they are deranged, or that they are dangerous? I responded that with something like 80% of the public, even though it looks like millions turned out in protest, what will resonate is "Tea Party"? Who did that, and did anyone show up? I looked out on CNN today a couple times, not a word about the tax protests.
Mr Reich, and a few of the more radical of the lefties are of course up in arms about anyone showing up from the right to protest for any reason. What right do those people have to a different opionion? Well, to listen to Bob or most lefties, none at all. Our founding fathers created a nation dedicated to total thought agreement and maximum enjoyment of the payment of taxes. The essense of "American" is to transfer as much of your income as possible to the government to redistribute to any bank, deadbeat mortgate holder, defunct brokerage house, failing unionized car manufacturer, or just someone that has less money than you for whatever reason. The reasons we are all Americans is that we believe in the government taking as much of our money as they want, and anyone that questions that is simply "not patriotic".
I was unable to attend the local tea party as I had a business engagement that evening, but I did get to drive by. Looked like in excess of 1K people peacefully and quite quietly gathered with signs that were generally pretty tame -- "Trillions in Debt: CHAINS we can believe in" was pretty good I thought. What a far cry from Code Pink throwing buckets of blood on people or all manner of "Bush is a Terrorist", etc anti-war signs. Cindy Sheehan in a ditch outside the Bush ranch in the summer of '05 was a national story for weeks. One woman and some occasional hangers on saying "get out of Iraq" was worth hours of coverage, millions of people questioning the spending of many trillions of dollars is worth virtually none. Our press has no biases.
I shudder to think what would have happened if the Bush administration had come out with a Homeland Security finding on "Left Wing Anti-War Protesters" the week of some sort of planned anti-war demonstration. The press would have been apocolyptic for weeks -- and I'm not sure that if such a thing had happened, I might somewhat agree with them. Surprise, the BO administration comes out with a finding on "Right Wing Extremeism" on Monday of this week. Not a single MSM invocation of "chilling", even when the report goes so far as to indicate that "returning servicemen are a special threat". Oh, really? I thought the "demean the soldiers" went out with Vietnam -- apparently not.
A lot of the lefties seem to think that if you didn't protest a $400 Billion deficit, you can't protest $2 Trillion deficit. Huh? If I don't get mad over someone driving 40MPH, I'm not allowed to say anything about someone driving 200MPH? If I don't bitch about someone having 4 beers, I'm some sort of a hypocrite if I say that 20 is too many? There seems to have been a sudden development of some sort of logic that would receive rather shrill laughter were the shoe on the other foot. I believe that it is supposed to be the claim of the left that the right has all these "hard line views" and doesn't understand "gray". Most Republicans I know are "unhappy" with any deficits at all, were VERY pleased when the combination of the Repubilcan congress and Bill Clinton gave us a surplus, and VERY dissappointed when the combination for Bush and a Republican congress gave us deficits.
BO is exceeding the entrie Bush 8 year deficit spending in 4 months, and will exceed the entire deficit spending of all US presidents prior to him in 8 years by his own rosy estimates. The protests are not primarily about CURRENT taxation, they are about the DIRECTION that our country has turned. Some of us believe that we have turned in a direction that calls into question the very meaning of "America" in ways that may not be possible to ever recover. Are we right? Only the future will tell, but at one time we were a country where "diversity of thought" was considered a very good and prudent thing. We believed in not only an economic market, but even more importantly in a market of "idea competion" where concerned citizens were willing to stand up and take a postiion, even if (and sometimes especially) if it was contrary to the views of the masses.
Has that day passed? Maybe, but I'm proud to cast my lot with the "Kooks, Demagogues and Right Wingers".
No comments:
Post a Comment