Imagine if Liberals Were Capable Of Reasoned Debate
This post was occasioned by the Beast’s comment to a link put up by Drowning Creek in Dave’s Sabotaging the Tea Party post. DC speaks admiringly of a certain blogger’s effort to cast the Tea party issue in racial terms (like we haven’t seen that done before). The Beast’s response began small but grew and grew until he decided to give it its own post. To wit:
It’s amazing how much effort is spent on flabby reasoning. Case in point, Blogger Tim Wise (self-billed as “… among the most prominent anti-racist writers and activists in the U.S.”) labors mightily to make the Tea Party racist, violent and probably hostile to weatherizing, while at the same time complaining of a double standard in its coverage. The title of his post is “Imagine If The Tea Party Was Black”:
Let’s play a game, shall we? The name of the game is called “Imagine.” The way it’s played is simple: we’ll envision recent happenings in the news, but then change them up a bit. Instead of envisioning white people as the main actors in the scenes we’ll conjure – the ones who are driving the action – we’ll envision black folks or other people of color instead. The object of the game is to imagine the public reaction to the events or incidents, if the main actors were of color, rather than white. Whoever gains the most insight into the workings of race in America, at the end of the game, wins.
This is actually not such a bad idea, but to make it work you have to approach the topic fairly. See if you think he succeeds:
Imagine that hundreds of black protesters were to descend upon Washington DC and Northern Virginia, just a few miles from the Capitol and White House, armed with AK-47s, assorted handguns, and ammunition. And imagine that some of these protesters —the black protesters — spoke of the need for political revolution, and possibly even armed conflict in the event that laws they didn’t like were enforced by the government? Would these protester — these black protesters with guns — be seen as brave defenders of the Second Amendment, or would they be viewed by most whites as a danger to the republic? What if they were Arab-Americans? Because, after all, that’s what happened recently when white gun enthusiasts descended upon the nation’s capital, arms in hand, and verbally announced their readiness to make war on the country’s political leaders if the need arose.
Guess we know where this is going, don’t we? Now, the Beast read the whole thing but in the interest of full disclosure, his mind bailed after that paragraph. It was obvious to him that this is the vision of the Tea Party movement filtered through the lefty ideological prism which tars an entire movement for the actions of a tiny fringe element and bears no resemblance to reality. It’s just another “Racist Right Wing Militia” smear job. Call me back when you manage to come up with an example of white people dressed in paramilitary garb standing outside polling places wielding batons.
Since you’ll probably be gone a long time waiting for the above to happen, check out Jack Kelly’s piece today explaining why liberals are smearing this movement so desperately: Thin-skinned Liberals Smear Critics.
Money quote:
What really terrifies Democrats is not just the number or size of tea party rallies, but that they are occurring at all. For more than a century, the protest demonstration has been almost exclusively a left-wing thing. Conservatives just don’t demonstrate. The tea party indicates a level of street activism on the right unprecedented in our history.
An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released Dec. 16 indicated the tea party was more popular than either Democrats or Republicans. Respondents approved of the tea party, 41 percent to 23 percent. More disapproved of both the Republican Party (28-43) and the Democratic Party (35-45) than approved of them.
Libs are praying fervidly to Gaia, Christ, Marx, Wood and Wei for something violent to happen. Efforts to manufacture this (anybody remember the Hanged Census Taker fizzle?) have failed repeatedly. So the left hyperventilate over what “might” happen, forced to denounce future fantasies because reality stubbornly refuses to provide them what they want in the here-and-now. The Southern Poverty Law Center, for example, has been predicting a “rise in right wing militia groups” since 1990. These hate groups are like Ellie Mae Clampett’s biscuits – they’re always on the rise but never manage to actually do it.
As one wag put it: “The specter of Fascism is always descending on the United States but it always manages to land somewhere else.” Libs ought to check their own back yard.
Posted on April 26, 2010, in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. 15 Comments.
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The movement as a whole is certainly not about race, and that is pretty clear. There are those who want to make it about that, but that’s merely spin and pr tactics that anyone can see right through it they choose to look at reality. Defending the constitution, the rule of law, small government, and the concept of liberty is what the TEA party is all about. It’s a bottom up movement with no real leaders or membership lists and because of that may occasionally be ‘amateurish’ or attract a “person of the fringe’ but that’s true of any large social movement whether it may orginate on the Right, Left, or somewhere else on the political spectrum.
The red herrings and strawmen experience a dramatic resurgence in the age of instant communication and spin. Be smart enough to not fall for it.
The red herrings and strawmen experience a dramatic resurgence in the age of instant communication and spin. Be smart enough to not fall for it.
…he says without a trace of irony
You run a spin site. You dream of running a bigger spin site that can more effectively rip off your heroes. All your posts are red herrings, and you complain that we caricature you when you yourself mused idly about supporting violence. Though you’d prefer to forget that.
Ugh, I can’t keep coming here. You are easily the most boring blogger I’ve ever read, and you’re so full of yourself that you chased away the talent.
Well, you sure have disproved the premise of this post, Wes. Only Liberals can get everything they want and come out even more bitter and unhappy than before. Cheer up – the Dems are in power!
Til November, at least…
Who’s “the talent” Wes? Please. No one’s been “chased off.” Most of the writers here don’t know how or have the commitment to be a blogger. That’s the problem. I really like THB’s blogging style and I invited him here. A choice I do not regret in the slightest.
Dave, for a “boring” blogger you sure get him excited.
Far from turning this into a “spin” site controlled by me. In fact, it has been made abundantly clear that I exercise little administrative power over the site. Whether Conclub lives or dies, or who chooses to participate is no longer any concern of mine. I haven’t lifted a finger since January except for posting. I bought a domain name and spruced up the site as a “peace offering” to those who continued to be grumpy far too long after November’s incident. If you don’t like something feel free to bring it up with the absentee landlords of the site, not me.
Ha, I thought he was talking about you. lol.
How could he say that? The Farmer Dave stuff was awesome…
No, that’s you, Dave. The Beast is a “half-assed Humorist” or something. You have to work harder to keep your Wes insult categories straight.
It is telling, though, that Wes jumped into a post devoted to liberal irrationality and their predilection for smearing and name calling-instead of reasoned discourse and called names and smeared. No rebuttal, just a hissy fit.
And all I said was TEA party types aren’t racist. Geez.
Just an FYI…. here’s yet another example of violence from the LEFT that the media is ignoring.
And frankly, I can’t really respond directly to Wise since he incorrectly characterizes the Tea Parties and the gun rally as all white, which they were not, and as calling for violence against the govt, which they didn’t. My response is “I reject your flawed premise,” not allowing these people to set up a straw man they want you to fight against instead of against the actual facts.
Sometimes you have to pick the low hanging fruit.
Yes, you’re judging unfairly. Point to a single example of racial animus, please. Then refer to the section in the Beast’s post where he writes “this is the vision of the Tea Party movement filtered through the lefty ideological prism which tars an entire movement for the actions of a tiny fringe element and bears no resemblance to reality. ”
While we’re at it, didn’t Obama National Security Advisor General Wes Jones crack a Jewish joke at the Washington Institute For Near East Policy this weekend? He must have issues with anti semitism, and so do the Dems, right?
And then you can cite examples of violence perpetrated by and not directed at Tea Partiers. While you’re Googling, this is what actual violence at a political protest looks like, in case your memory needs refreshing.
It does if you’re not thinking clearly, but if you were, you’d reject the obvious smear job Mr. Wise and pals are foisting on the American people. Or so it “seems” to this Beast.
Oh, there’s a double standard on race in this country, all right.
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