If you watch shows like Real Time with Bill Maher, or you read sites like the Huffington Post, you'll hear a resounding theme with regards to the populist uprising that has swept the country, and that is that those who oppose Obama are "stupid", "crazy", "wingnuts", and/or "racist". Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer said the town hall objectors were "un-american." Bill Maher said we are too "stupid" to know whats best for us, so our President should "drag us to" healthcare reform, as would say, a dictator. And there is Maureed Dodd who claims that "Some people just can’t believe a black man is president and will never accept it." The two lines of defense are equally false and ignorant of very recent history.
Let me first say that I cannot pretend to know the hearts of all men, but to dismiss an entire movement based on presumptions of nefarious/racist motives, is itself ignorant as well as detrimental to your own cause.
Let me first address the charge of “stupid.” To me this smells of arrogant elitism. It comes across as if liberals are saying, “If you are not an Ivy League Educated coastal hipster, then you are stupid.” This should be offensive to really anyone who doesn’t have a degree that costs 6 figures. Perhaps it is easier to attack conservatives as "dumb" than it is to defend your own arguments, but I'm growing bored and weary of being called stupid because I dare question The President and his obviously superior ideas for our country. Intelligence is not the sole property of the Democrat Party, nor is it only manifested in liberal enclaves were people theorize if Castro is less evil than Republicans. Nor is intelligence rubber stamped by a degree from an overpriced liberal university (Bush went two of them, remember?). The brilliant men who founded this country were mostly self-educated. Ben Franklin whose vast wealth of knowledge, writings, wisdom, service, and innovation has left an indelible mark on all of human history, dropped out of school and became an autodidact by reading as many books as he could. I'm quite confident than none of the elitist smarty-pants who write op-eds in dying newspapers can come close to the genius found in one pinky finger of a Ben Franklin or Thomas Jefferson.
Here are but a few of the many quotes of Ben Franklin
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote”
"When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic”
“Where Liberty dwells, there is my country.”
“God grant that not only the love of liberty but a thorough knowledge of the rights of man may pervade all the nations of the earth, so that a philosopher may set his foot anywhere on its surface and say: This is my country.”
These are the types of quotes you see written on the handmade signs at Tea Parties and Town Halls…the words of great founders, and intellectual powerhouses of men who framed the single greatest basis for government the world has ever seen: the constitution. They were not saints, but they were the perfect storm of genius whose destiny was to build a country around the idea of self government and liberty that would eventually spread throughout a world where only despotic, imperial tyranny had previously ruled. Conservatives today are reclaiming the ideas of the founding principles of this country. These ideas and the freedom they created changed the trajectory of the world. We don't pretend to be the inventors of natural law, nor did the founders; but as they did, we acknowledge the wisdom that the founders saw in people like Cicero, Adam Smith, John Locke, etc.. and to re-enlighten ourselves on the brilliance of the system that was originally created. Elites have done everything they can to disparage and discredit our founders and their ideas, but the truth is, its these very ideas that we need to fight for the most. They are uniquely American and should be embedded into the fabric of our society starting in elementary school. Unfortunately, principles such as limited government, the rights of the people, the separation of powers, Government as the protector not giver of human rights, emphasis on strong states rights, free market ideals, free speech, individualism, objectivism are no where to be found in the education of our youth. So while people who think they are smarter continue look down their noses with disgust at the "stupid" conservatives whose outnumber liberals 2 to 1, I would argue that the average center right American is probably more well read in terms of founding documents than even the most enlightened liberal.
As far as the charge that we are “crazy wingnuts”, it seems that the elites have been taken aback by the passion of the right. First of all, since when did passion in political activism become so criticized by the left? For the last 40 years we have all seen the passion of the left, and it has been idealized by the media and hollywood over and over again. Now all the sudden, when conservatives are passionate, somehow there is something for everyone to fear. Well there's nothing for citizens to fear, but there certainly is something for the government to fear, and there always should be! Perhaps you've heard this quote "When the people fear the government, that is tyranny, when the government fears the people, that is liberty." -Thomas Jefferson.
It also seems as though, the media tries to pick out the most extreme fringe and act as though they are examples of the entire right, yet they do not do that with the fringe on the left. One popular example of real Wingnutatry (is that a word?) is the “birther” movement. First of all, everyone from Glenn beck and Ann Coulter to John McCain have denounced the birthers from the outset, as have I. This conspiracy seems to have died down now, but its still used as a way to discredit the entire conservative uprising. Well what about the 9/11 truthers that I still have to hear 8 years later after the fact, who spit on the graves of the 3000 dead by making a mockery of that tragedy? Certainly they are making significantly CRAZIER and more enduring claims about 9/11 being an inside job. What is more outlandish? The idea that Obama was born in the country his dad was from and it was covered up, or the idea that a President who was supposedly the dumbest man on earth, orchestrated the greatest cover-up of all time to start a war? No, sorry, the 9/11 truthers movement is by far the craziest conspiracy theory since the Reptilians. (look it up).
Birthers and their craziness aside, There really is nothing looney or nutty about this populist uprising; people are simply tired of the government over-reach in both parties and are for the first time ever, doing what liberals do….protest, let their voices be heard, call themselves “radicals” in the way that 60s activists did and were embraced for it.
There is a double standard…when a liberal is a radical, like say William Ayers (who used bombs to make his point), its endearing and courageous…they are made professors of institutions that we respect. They are not called crazy or dangerous; on the contrary, movies are made about them, directed by eternally nostolgic baby boomer hippies. Hollywood loves to show only the good, righteous, and peaceful intentions behind the counter culture revolution that raged against the machine in the 60s. Radical leaders like Che Guevara are all but idolized by the establishment of the left, while activism on the right is dismissed categorically as “wingnut”, "lunacy", "crazy", "fill in the blank synonym for crazy".
The irony in all of this is, for the first time conservatives are actually deliberately using the tactics the left always uses. This explains why it probably seems so ridiculous to them. What it does not explain, is why they don't recongize their own playbook being used (very effectively) against them. By the way, radical political activism is ridiculous (as laid out in "Rules for Radicals" by Saul Alinksy), and conservatives are the first to admit it. This is a case of demonstrating absurdity by holding up the proverbial mirror, and the bonus is, its actually quite effective. Maybe conservatives should have done this years ago to turn the tables and give liberals a little dose of their own medicine. Amazingly, even with all that superior intelligence, the elite, costal, Harvard grad crowd seems completely ignorant to the fact that conservatives have hijacked the very methods that liberals have successfully used for decades.
Finally, the charge of Racism needs to be addressed. I’ve heard people say that Racism is the ONLY explanation for the kind of opposition Obama has received. That calls of “Nazi” and “Hitler” as well as efforts to paint him as illegitimate, are actually fueled by white America's veiled racism towards a black President. This is where I don’t know if Democrats have short term Memory Loss are simply in Denial of the very recent history of George W. Bush’s presidency. I went to several counter protests during his early years and I saw all of those accusations and far worse, even though the media did not point out the abundance of offensive and radical signs at those rallies.
Here are a few of the ones I found doing a 5 minute Google search. I've organized them into 4 themes by color: (*warning, vulgar images and language*):
Green: use of vulgarity and/or encouragement of violence towards the President.
Yellow: Bush=Hitler/Nazi (it really is funny when liberals get bent out of shape over nazi imagery, since they are the authors of calling the President a nazi)
Blue: a collection to ask yourself what the NY Times would say about these signs if they were at Tea Parties. (these are, in my opinion, the most disrespectful, juvenile and ridiculous)
Red: personal attacks on the President
How short term the memory must be to forget the visceral attacks that were waged at Bush so recently! If Bush would have been a minority, would these attacks have been based on Race? If Condeleza Rice were to have been President with the same policies as Bush, would it be racist and sexist for liberals to protest her? Do conservatives protest Pelosi because she's a woman, and Harry Reid because he's Mormon? Or, even more telling, if there were a black President who was fiscally and socially conservative, do you think that right leaning americans would be protesting? Could it not just be that conservatives have policy differences with the President? Could it not be that they believe the things he himself has said about his very leftist views, and are worried that he is trying to steer the country farther left than ever and have decided to take a stand to try to stop liberalism for once in their lives?
Oh and as far as an elected official calling the President a Liar on the house floor? How about claiming the President likes to watch soldiers die for his own amusement...on the house floor?? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xa5A5yW21I
How about the senate Majority Leader calling Bush a “liar and a looser”? http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0909/Reid_called_Bush_liar_stood_by_comment.html
What about when people rallied behind a reporter who threw a shoe at our President?
Ok, so what about the attempt to decalre that Obama is not a legitamate president because of his birth certificate controversy? That has to be racists right? Hmm, looks as though, once again there is a short term memory lapse. Perhaps you will recall the attempt to illigitamize President Bush with the “selected not elected” charge that was echoed for 8 years..even after Bush won his relection by a definitive number in the popular and electoral count. http://www.papillonsartpalace.com/hillaNWKry.htm
How about the uproar that parents didn’t want Obama to speak to their kids…that had to be race driven right? I’m so tired of explaining this to people who are suppose to be smarter than all of us. So here’s my take on that if you care to read it. http://griffisgazette.blogspot.com/2009/09/another-misstep-by-obama-misunderstood.html
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