Posted on 04/22/2010 5:19:51 AM PDT by Kaslin
"Hello, fellow racists."
That's how I greeted the gathering at the Tax Day Tea Party rally in Sacramento, Calif. Several people dropped their hoods and sheets in laughter. After a thorough search, I can report that I detected no secret handshake, security guards or minority-sniffing German shepherds to alert blacks that our presence was unwanted.
An MSNBC reporter at another Tea Party rally actually asked a black man whether he "felt uncomfortable." "No," he laughed. "No, these are my people -- Americans." The man appeared far too polite to ask, "You ever felt uncomfortable working for MSNBC?" I once appeared on a television show where a black pundit accused former President Ronald Reagan of racism. When I asked for proof, he said that Reagan "was uncomfortable around black people." I replied, "I'm uncomfortable around you. What does that make me?" So in the black tea partier's case, his presumed discomfort around whites made them racist. In Reagan's case, his presumed discomfort around blacks made him one. It does get confusing.
A more serious criticism of the Tea Party movement goes like this: When George W. Bush and the Republicans controlled the House, Senate and Oval Office, where were the complaints about spending?
One TP critic put it this way: "During these Tea Party protests conservatives are showing why the word 'hypocrite' should be part of the dictionary definition of conservative. They said nothing and did nothing while Bush and the Republican Congress were getting the country into deeper and deeper trouble. The conservatives who organize the Tea Party protests sat on their hands and did nothing. They did nothing when the balanced budget was destroyed, nothing when Bush exploded the deficit, nothing when Bush cut taxes instead of raising them to pay for the war he started."
As to Bush's non-defense, non-homeland security domestic spending, people did complain -- lots of them and frequently. Why isn't this more widely recognized? When a conservative criticizes Rush Limbaugh, that's news. The left hates Limbaugh. When a conservative criticizes Bush's spending, that's not news. The left loves domestic spending. For liberals, Bush's No Child Left Behind program "wasn't fully funded." The prescription bill for seniors contained a "doughnut hole," which made it insufficiently generous.
Conservatives, pundits and talk show hosts routinely blasted Bush for domestic spending. In 2003, after the passage of the Medicare prescription bill, a member of The Heritage Foundation said, "The president isn't showing leadership, and conservatives are angry." Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, said, "The conservative, free-market base in America is rightly in revolt over this bill."
In 2003, then-Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., made a bizarre accusation, condemning Bush for "undoing the New Deal." That December, I wrote: "Does she not see the steam blasting from the ears of principled conservatives flatly astonished by President George W. Bush's and his Republican colleagues' willingness to spend, spend and spend? During Bush's term in office, excluding defense and homeland security, non-war government expenditures increased at a rate faster than under former President Bill Clinton. By this time in his term, Reagan vetoed over 20 bills, Bush none."
So if people were unhappy with Bush's spending, then why are folks only now assembling, carrying signs and holding rallies in opposition to bigger government?
Fair question. Better late than never. More importantly, things are much, much worse. Government bailouts, "stimulus," ObamaCare, etc., now push the nation's deficit to record non-World War II levels and debt to an all-time high.
Bush-bashing left-wing New York Times columnist Paul Krugman inadvertently explained why today things are different. In March 2006, he wrote about Bush's (nonexistent?) conservative critics who were "rushing to distance themselves from Mr. Bush." But he pointed out that a lot of Bush's increased domestic spending came from entitlements on automatic pilot. He accused Bush's critics of creating a "false impression" that Bush was a "big spender": "The great bulk of this increase was accounted for by increased spending on defense and homeland security, including the costs of the Iraq war, and by rising health care costs." In other words, as to increased domestic spending, Krugman argued that Bush wasn't as bad as his conservative critics claimed.
Bush, the so-called fiscal conservative, irresponsibly increased domestic spending, including the decidedly non-fiscally conservative prescription benefits bill. But under Obama, the Democrats and some unprincipled Republicans, Americans now bear dramatically increased, brand-new domestic spending. With ObamaCare, taxpayers now support 30 million people who are guaranteed health insurance. Taxes must go up, and the middle class is not spared. Economics adviser Paul Volcker, along with others, even floats the idea of a European-style value-added consumption tax -- on top of the current taxes.
Tea Party supporters, at least many of them, did complain about the size of government pre-Obama. Now things have changed -- for the worse. Government is larger than ever -- with no sign of abating unless and until this administration is stopped.
As Vice President Joe Biden so eloquently put it, "This is a big f---ing deal."
All the left has is straw men.
In the marketplace of ideas they don’t even have a card table with 2 college dudes with pimples selling used Slinkys.
This is a brilliant observation by Mr. Elder.
bttt
Related article:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2498053/posts
The left doesn’t get it because they don’t want to get it. Getting it would overturn their cherished world view.
And yet the Left has no problem at all with the existence of a Congressional Caucus that has a “No whites allowed” membership policy.
I know one of those.
A conservative’s worldview doesn’t give him personal aggrandizement, but a leftist’s worldview is ALL ABOUT personal aggrandizement.
If you believe in free markets, that’s no “comment” on your own personal moral condition,
but if you believe in “wealth redistribution”, then you can automatically consider yourself morally superior to those “greedy” people that don’t.
This is why the left’s worldview is impervious to empirical evidence and logic. To give it up would be to give up their reason to esteem themselves.
I have to somewhat disagree.
The left absolutely ‘gets’ the Tea Party movements as a form of protest.
Since most of the left came of age during the 60’s protests against the ‘establishment’,suddenly, they have now become the ‘establishment’ and it does not FEEL GOOD when the other side protests/challenges you or your ideals.
Which has no black or other minority hosts.
Using MSNBC's own perverse standard MSNBC itself is a racist organization.
The left will never get it because they do not relate to the regular folks in what they call “flyover country.” The left constantly champion their “good intentions.” My Grandpa used to say “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” The left is all about controlling the folks that is the bottom line. People are engaged and frustrated by the their leaders and ready to change them.
“Why the left doesn’t get it.”
Psychotics never do.
IMHO
My recent college graduate/indoctrinated son has been giving me those very talking points...where were the tea party members during Bush’s spending spree?
Well, as shown by graphs on this site as well as a number of others (eg Instapundit),you could show him that Bush’s “spending spree” pales in comparison to what is going on now.
Answer:
1. Democrats have controlled Congress since January 2007. They were in control for the last two years of the Bush Presidency. They did not rein in spending, but added to every budget bill proposed by Bush.
Remember when the Lefties were apoplectic about Bush’s last deficit of $ 400 billion dollars? Why are the lefties silent about a $ 1.6 trillion deficit, which is FOUR times as much?
2. A $ 400 billion deficit in one year is not good, but sustainable.
A $ 1.6 trillion deficit, on top of a boondoggle $ 857 billion “stimulus” bill which was nothing but a payoff to Blue states and urban centers for useless projects, along with a takeover of the auto industry and the banks through TARP, administered by Obama, along with a string of deficits totalling $ 10 TRILLION over the next 10 years is
NOT SUSTAINABLE.
3. The past is past. Your son will be a serf working for the Chinese the rest of his life thanks to this ruinous financial policy.
How he started his Chinese language classes yet?
I stopped contributing to Republican party and Republican candidates and blasted them on every survey they sent me telling them they were no different than the other guys. I voted against Republican offenders in primaries, but voted straight Republican in general elections because I knew what the Democraps would do. I haven't given to a Republican since they went on the spending spree to buy votes like Democraps.
One TP critic put it this way: "...They said nothing and did nothing while Bush and the Republican Congress were getting the country into deeper and deeper trouble. The conservatives...did nothing...when the balanced budget was destroyed,...when Bush exploded the deficit, ... when Bush cut taxes instead of raising them to pay for the war he started."
And when the election of 2006 came, the conservatives...did nothing (in quiet protest) and allowed the Dems to take control. They had been betrayed. Now the conservatives are so over everything, they are taking to the streets in the form of Tea Parties, in not so quiet protest.
I think we were in disbelief. I think we saw Bush's spending as aberrations in his otherwise pro-Constitution, conservative stances.
The difference now is that brocko told us what he was going to do, and then proceeded to to it, by hook or by crook (mostly the latter). He has moved in utter disregard of the Constitution, and promised to do more of the same, again and again, "because that is what I've been elected toodoo." This reckless, America-hating pattern has brought us out of the woodwork, as we see the desperation of the left to cram, jam and bully its way to one-party rule by creating perpetual dependent classes. The tea party movement is a desperate demonstration against all that. It is amorphous, leaderless and utterly spontaneous.
That is why the left doesn't get it.
Your right. When Bush was approving the higher spending, it was totally against what we think is right, but the obama regime took that plan and accelerated it to the point where it is no longer a small problem, but it is a direct threat to our financial stability. IMO, the lib dims look at govt as their religion and obama as their spiritial leader. We are seen by them as attacking their religion. This is all emotionally driven. If a lib ever will shut off the emotional aspect and look at the situation logically, they cannot support obamunism. Kind of like a lib who gets mugged is less inclined to be a lib.
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