You all remember Bush Derangement Syndrome when George W. Bush was blamed for virtually everything that went wrong from the Iraq War to your leaking faucet? [It hasn't really gone away.-ed. I know. I know. Maybe in 40 or 50 years] Well, we now have the arrival of a new phenomenon we can call Tea Party Derangement Syndrome. In TPDS tea party participants are accused of everything from being closet racists to armchair Timothy McVeighs. You can see some amusing examples of this emerging syndrome in the latter comments to my post of the other day – Tea Party role reversal: how to deal with agent provocateurs from the left.
Of course, what’s interesting about the Tea Party movement, whatever its success, is that it is pretty much about what it says it is – lower taxes and less government spending. A lot of people, Republican and Democrat, are concerned about our escalating debt and what this might mean for future generations. This is clearly a serious subject for serious discussion from whatever side of the issue you fall out on, but… no matter… the moment something gains momentum out comes the derangement crowd. In a certain way, it’s a sign of success.
Are these syndromes a product of the Internet? Well, partly. Never before in history have so few been able to accuse so many so often and so pervasively of so much they didn’t say and don’t mean. On the other hand, the Tea Party movement wouldn’t exist without the Internet (Twitter, etc.). So in a way, it’s equal.
I was interviewed early this morning by CNN’s Jim Acosta (for broadcast Wednesday morning – don’t know what they will use) and he asked me if I thought the Tea Party movement was the right’s response (via the Internet) to the ‘netroots. It well may be. And if it is anywhere near as successful as moveon.org, Kos, etc., we are headed for some big changes indeed.
Then you will really see some Tea Party Derangement Syndrome!
PJM Home
Pajamas Media appreciates your comments that abide by the following guidelines:
1. Avoid profanities or foul language unless it is contained in a necessary quote or is relevant to the comment.
2. Stay on topic.
3. Disagree, but avoid ad hominem attacks.
4. Threats are treated seriously and reported to law enforcement.
5. Spam and advertising are not permitted in the comments area.
The clause regarding "hate speech" has been deleted because readers criticized it as being too loosely defined. We agreed.
These guidelines are very general and cannot cover every possible situation. Please don't assume that Pajamas Media management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment. We reserve the right to filter or delete comments or to deny posting privileges entirely at our discretion. If you feel your comment was filtered inappropriately, please email us at story@pajamasmedia.com.
72 Comments
1. Lightnin' Hopkins:Trolls commence flailing wildly in 3, 2, 1 ….
Apr 14, 2009 - 3:47 pm 2. Terrye:I don’t get why the left is so bound and determined to trash these people. The people going to these events are American citizens expressing their views. It is their right to do so.
We have to watch everyone from Code Pinkers, to PETA people, to ANSWER people, to ACORN people, to anti war people, to anarchists, to rabid environmentalists, to communists, to socialists, to feminists to God only knows who else go public with their feelings, beliefs and concerns. Why can’t these folks do the same thing without all the accusations and raving paranoia of the left.
What exactly are they afraid of?
Apr 14, 2009 - 4:36 pm 3. Mike_K:The tea parties that I am familiar with are basically libertarian events. The Republican politicians have been trying to attach themselves but sense a lot of anger at the Republicans too because of the spending last year and the failure to rein in the housing bubble. Gingrich has said it could lead to a third party but he may be just trying to graft himself to it also. I’d be interested to see what Dick Armey has to say as I think he was one of the few 1994 Republicans who stuck with the original message. He quit Congress a few years ago. I think it had to do wjth a lot of the excesses.
Apr 14, 2009 - 4:53 pm 4. Barry Dauphin:What burns the netroot crowd so much is that the people going to the tea parties are… you know… actually employed. I often wondered how many of the netroots held down steady jobs, outside of working for PACs. Protesting is what many of them get paid for. The tea party folks are pissed enough to go during off hours, ’cause they actually work.
The limited organization is testimony to the fact that these people have things to do and have responsibilities and aren’t getting paid to make signs, knock on doors, forge signatures, comb the voting rolls to include dead people, practice throwing bricks through windows. Also the nonviolent nature of the protests gets under the skins of the Kos-types like nothing else, because they think any people who don’t love the new government must be knuckle-dragging, inbred illiterates.
Apr 14, 2009 - 4:58 pm 5. kbdabear:You might want to chat with your buddy Charles at LGF, Roger. He’s painting all Tea Parties as Ron Paul loonies and Black Helicopter paranoids.
Apr 14, 2009 - 5:26 pm 6. jacksonhunted:The Left’s derangement is full-blown. The only reason I can see is they realize the detrimental effect their Cindy Sheehan-type propaganda fests had on Bush, and unlike those this has the benefit of authenticity.
Apr 14, 2009 - 6:06 pm 7. Steve:I agree kbdabear. Charles says the DHS assessment was begun more than a year ago yet the report is titled “Rightwing Extremism: Current
Economic and Political Climate Fueling
Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.”
Maybe Charles can explain what anger the rightwing radicals were feeding off of before the economic crisis began. Charles is being a useful idiot.
Apr 14, 2009 - 6:08 pm 8. Paul:The reason the left hates the idea of the free expression of opposing viewpoints is that they are totalitarians plain and simple.
“The way to implement socialism is to remove all opposition to socialism”.
I live and work amongst these people and I know how they think. They believe the only way to “save” America is to make it more like the social democracies of Europe (or worse) and that the “right wing extremists”, i.e. everyone who’s not a Democrat or socialist, must be silenced or crushed.
Apr 14, 2009 - 6:33 pm 9. j. crampton smith:How is it that the richest, most prolific nation is in deep debt to foreign powers ? How is it that our government that manages two massive social programs [social security and medicare] that are both bankrupt and deeply in debt. How is it that our national leaders are asking to manage a federal health care program with the pretense of cost reduction ???
Apr 14, 2009 - 8:15 pm 10. Victor Erimita:The Left is no longer composed of liberals, for the most part, and I wish people like Rush would stop calling them that. They aren’t any more.
Today’s Left is composed of Marxists, conscious or unconscious, people whose unexamined, knee-jerk opposition to enterprise and individualism has mostly been absorbed by cultural osmosis, not thought or analysis. They wear their politics like jewelry. Mix that college dorm Marxism with narcissism and immaturity, and you get tantruming at the audacity of any other expressed views.
Another strain of contemporary leftism is an ironically quasi-religious contempt for humans and individual endeavor, a kind of New Age of asceticism (always to be practiced by others) expressed in “environmentalism,” the so-called animal rights movement, the hatred of automobiles, the suburbs and other symbols of individualism. Half-baked notions of “The Planet,” big government and collectivist symbols like mass transportation have replaced God and the spiritually transcendent in the unformed minds of these solipsistic rejectors of the only kind of organized religion they can see—like Bill Maher they can only see the rigidly formed worldviews of others, not their own, and certainly not their own metaphysical assumptions. Tea Parties are an expression of the celebration of individual endeavor, a sin against their secular god of the state (or The Planet,) so they see it as evil, beneath civilized discourse, which ironically they themselves are no longer capable of.
Apr 14, 2009 - 9:33 pm 11. WillDoMathForFood:A guy I work with said to me today, “So, are you attending one of the tea parties tomorrow?”
“No”, I said, “but my sympathies go with them.”
“I went to one last weekend.”
“And?”
“I never knew we had so many white people left in the Antelope Valley [California]“, he said archly.
“Weren’t there any minorities there at all?” I asked, more than a bit appalled.
“Not that I saw. And another thing I didn’t see: anybody under 30.”
“So we’re a bunch of angry old white guys”, I said.
“That’s about right.”
I found this discussion deeply disturbing. It says an awful lot about America: tribalized, Balkanized, parochial. It says that we aren’t educating our children about what it takes to run a successful Republic. And I submit that this country should have no African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Asian-Americans, or any other hyphenated Americans: we should all just be Americans, and we just aren’t. We have the liberals to thank for that. This movement is just too narrowly defined. And it means that Obama is in no immediate danger. Those of us who see the light in the tunnel and recognize that it’s a train have our work cut out for us.
Apr 14, 2009 - 10:19 pm 12. Instapundit » Blog Archive » TEA PARTY DERANGEMENT SYNDROME: It’s here!…:[...] TEA PARTY DERANGEMENT SYNDROME: It’s here! [...]
Apr 14, 2009 - 11:51 pm 13. Yehudit:Excellent description, Victor Erimita.
Apr 15, 2009 - 12:08 am 14. Toads:“I don’t get why the left is so bound and determined to trash these people. The people going to these events are American citizens expressing their views. It is their right to do so.”
You have answered your own question.
Leftists don’t want democracy. They want leftist dictatorship by any means necessary. If you don’t believe it, then you have been judging them by their talking points, not by their actions.
Have no doubt : If leftists could send tea-party participants, devout Christians, and black conservatives to the gas chambers, they would.
Apr 15, 2009 - 12:09 am 15. Toads:Sadly, the tea parties will not amount to anything. Virtually all the people there are white, and they are all men or married women.
Blacks vote 90% Democrat
Hispanics vote 67% Democrat
Single women vote 70% Democrat, and more women are single than married.
The left will have a permanent majority soon enough. The fact that 45% of the US population still believes in small government and personal responsibility is not going to save America. It is not enough to win elections.
The Tea Parties are the last stand of conservative/libertarian values.
Apr 15, 2009 - 12:13 am 16. Toads:“… everyone who’s not a Democrat or socialist, must be silenced or crushed.”
Or exterminated. Recall the left-wing genocides of the last 70 years : Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Kim Il-Sung, etc. Yes, Hitler was left-wing.
We are already starting to see lefty enviro-nuts calculating that the population of developed countries has to reduce by half to protect the environment. This is merely their process of rationalizing genocide as being for the ‘greater good’.
Never let them take your guns. NEVER let them take your guns.
Apr 15, 2009 - 12:18 am 17. Toads:Amnesty for Illegals = Tea Parties are irrelevant.
The newly legalized illegals will vote 80% Democrat, meaning that Democrats will never need the votes of conservatives/libertarians/centrists again. Obama knows this. The voter block opposed to socialism has dropped below 50%.
Apr 15, 2009 - 12:21 am 18. Kiril:I don’t believe that to be successful the Tea Parties must become Obama Bashing Spectacles.
The Far Left will be there hoping to capture for posterity just such moments, and attack us with them.
I will have a homemade poster that will not please the Liberal Loons in this regard, and it will still use the words Socialist, and Socialism 1 time each.
Just because the Left will claim we are engaging in O-bashing does not make it so.
Apr 15, 2009 - 12:23 am 19. Some Guy:“The tea parties that I am familiar with are basically libertarian events. ”
The first of them was a Ron Paul campaign Rally in Austin in December, 2007. Don’t take my word for it, you can find it on YouTube by searching for “ron paul tea party”.
Now that it’s catching on, a lot of the clowns who spent the last eight years destroying the credibility of the Republican party by cheering on every mistake GWB made have been trying to jump in front of the parade and pretend that it’s all their idea.
Apr 15, 2009 - 12:37 am 20. Some Guy:Regarding Charles at LGF, he’s the textbook example of Ron Paul Derangement syndrome. He’s so incensed at Ron Paul for not supporting the war, that he’ll make shit up to smear his supporters.
Apr 15, 2009 - 12:40 am 21. Tom W.:Sadly, the tea parties will not amount to anything. Virtually all the people there are white, and they are all men or married women.
The left will have a permanent majority soon enough. The fact that 45% of the US population still believes in small government and personal responsibility is not going to save America. It is not enough to win elections.
The Tea Parties are the last stand of conservative/libertarian values.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEGCeWTcs64&feature=related
Apr 15, 2009 - 12:54 am 22. Fen:“Charles is being a useful idiot.”
I’m starting to read him less, and I was kicked off a gaming site for defending LGF from charges of being a racist hatemongering site.
Yes, I get that Creationists are a problem, but he’s on them 24/7. Gets old.
Apr 15, 2009 - 12:55 am 23. Brad:“I don’t get why the left is so bound and determined to trash these people. The people going to these events are American citizens expressing their views. It is their right to do so.” — Terrye.
Why? Well because to todays American Left all politics is warfare, and their current doctrine is full spectrum total warfare. So no possible threat to their power, no matter how small and innocent, is to be overlooked or tolerated. And all methods within the law will be used to destroy political opposition. (And methods outside the law are good too if you don’t get caught!)
Apr 15, 2009 - 12:56 am 24. Ogre:The Tea Party movement isn’t a right-only phenomenon. I’m certainly not on the right. I’m quite liberal on social issues, but I don’t think having the government throw money at every tiny thing is the answer. I want a smaller government that is fiscally responsible AND stays out of everyone’s personal business. That means I don’t care if people are gay and I don’t care if they want to get married. It also means I believe in abortion choice (at least in the first trimester). Just don’t ask me to pay for it.
If other conservative ideals become part of the Tea Party platform I will not participate. Stick to the fiscal matters and we’ll be just fine.
Apr 15, 2009 - 1:24 am 25. Ed Driscoll » This Is The Way Bipartisanship Ends:[...] of so much they didn’t say and don’t mean”, Roger L. Simon writes, in his look at “Tea Party Derangement Syndrome.” Filed under: Bobos In Paradise, Liberal Fascism, The New Puritans, The Return of the [...]
Apr 15, 2009 - 1:27 am 26. Lili von Shtupp:Terrye, I guess you didn’t get the memo. Dissent was patriotic, until about noon-ish on Inauguration Day, 2009. After that, it became doubleplusungood thoughtcrime in certain circles.
Maybe the tea parties won’t add up to much in the long run. Ok, fine.
I’m also guilty of being a married (to a guy!) white woman, so according to Toads, I’m wasting my time.
I’m also a tool of the Paulistas according to Charles at LGF. (People still read that site? Who knew?)
Label me all you want. I don’t care. I may get shunned at the co-op, have to wait a little longer for my Subaru to get serviced at the dealership, and get a few more little indignities thrown my way, but I am a big girl and can deal with it.
See you in Iowa City around noon!!!
Apr 15, 2009 - 2:12 am 27. Dissent Is The Highest Form Of Patriotism:“The newly legalized illegals will vote 80% Democrat”
In Chicago, they don’t even need to be legalized.
Check out the FBI advice on profiling from 1999:
“Extremists’ vehicles may sport bumper stickers with antigovernment or pro-gun sentiments”
Apr 15, 2009 - 2:21 am 28. Some Guy:Lili,
Got any sisters? You sound like my kind of woman. Anyone who’d pick the name of my favorite Madelyn Khan character is a friend of mine.
Apr 15, 2009 - 2:40 am 29. Peg C.:TPDS and DHS labeling any dissenters from the Marxist doctrine of this administration and Congress as extremists is only galvanizing this family. We were going to attend 1 tea party today; now we are attending 3 (we all took the day off to do this).
I don’t believe this doesn’t matter and I also don’t care how I’m labeled. I’m a former lefty and a big girl, too. This is only making me a bigger activist.
Apr 15, 2009 - 2:54 am 30. Tina Trent:Anyone who has ever watched a news photographer squirming around on the pavement trying to make the seven professional activists who turn out for every protest look like a crowd, or, conversely, watched a news station fail to cover a protest march of thousands, had better be prepared to record and cover these events themselves. But don’t forget the “old media”: make sure to make your voices heard if your hometown paper or local news station don’t cover your tea party. Daily media is at a turning point, but the bones still matter — and they are learning fast that their biases are one luxury they can no longer afford.
Apr 15, 2009 - 4:05 am 31. thenakedemperor:Tina, I’m a Citizen Reporter for PJTV.
I’ll be in Baton Rouge, doing live reports. So far PJTV has over a dozen of us to do live, and we hope for many more. Plus, we also have over 500 registered CR’s for text and photo coverage of the events.
A protest of the people, covered by the people, for the people….
Apr 15, 2009 - 4:55 am 32. beth donovan:I am also a citizen reporter for PJTV and I will be covering the Topeka, Kansas Tea Party (not live, unless there is wi-fi available there I’m unaware of, but video, photo and tex).
Apr 15, 2009 - 5:13 am 33. This is the Way Bipartisanship Ends. Not with a Bang but a Slander. : The Sundries Shack:[...] 2: Linked by Ed Driscoll who also links this companion piece on the newest derangement sydrome by one of the evil corporate sponsors of these [...]
Apr 15, 2009 - 5:23 am 34. vigilant:TOAD IS A TROLL. It’s true most TEA PARTY pictures show few minorities. But, this may be due to brainwashing by people like TOAD who want them to be “cared for” by government and loose initiative to develop their full potential. THIS WILL NOT HAPPEN TO TRUE PATRIOTS. Google LLOYD MARCUS.
The Left declared war on the middle class. April 15th is our first shot accross the bow, with MORE TO COME.
Apr 15, 2009 - 5:36 am 35. Lili von Shtupp:Some Guy, sorry….I’m the only pink bundle my parents ever claimed. But thanks for the compliment!
Apr 15, 2009 - 5:38 am 36. Gary Ogletree:WillDoMath smells like a troll. Toads is ready to surrender already. You guys are greatly outnumbered.
Apr 15, 2009 - 5:45 am 37. tree hugging sister:Our party in Pensacola was almost completely derailed by a young Ronulan/Truther (I realize they are not all one and the same) and it’s my original post (multiple follow-ups on our site) that someone sent to LGF. As for his Paulian Derangement and “he’ll make shit up to smear his [Paul] supporters”, as far as the Pensacola Tea Party’s concerned, it’s all gospel. And it’s been a complete cluster.
We may have a chance to salvage it, even at this late date, considering the apology/explanation that arrived in my inbox this morning.
Wave your signs proudly, folks. And don’t let anyone TELL you what to write on yours or why you’re there.
Apr 15, 2009 - 5:57 am 38. WillDoMathForFood:Gary @ 29: No, sir. I very much want to see this movement succeed. I’m only relaying my experience. I sincerely hope yours is better…that would give me hope that I’m sure not getting from Obama.
Apr 15, 2009 - 5:59 am 39. Andrea:In Charles at LGF’s defense, he has a reasonable point in asking to tone down the right’s Obama bashing over a report begun a year ago. Hey, we’re the reasonable ones, remember? Not like those histrionic nut jobs on the left.
BUT the right/center right is correct to be angry over the MSM’s fear mongering over this report, the left’s flame fanning, and
Apr 15, 2009 - 6:04 am 40. Agoraphobic Plumber:that the report on left wing extremism (supposedly released in January) seems to have disappeared.
I’ve noted posts by WillDoMath on other sites (Belmont Club for one, I believe). I don’t think he’s a troll. Just realistic. And I agree with him. While there are still hyphenated Americans, we’ve still got problems.
RE Charles at LGF, I’ve sort of tired of his creationism hobby horse too. He’s got some sort of personal issue with them that gets old fast.
RE the tea parties, I only wish I could be at one. The nearest one I could find is about 100 miles away, and I just have too much going on. I hope it goes over in a BIG way, though. So many people seem to be focusing on the taxation level, and I guess a spirited discussion could and should be had there, but my main issue is spending. Holy crap. When you start talking about a 1-point-something TRILLION deficit for a single year, with many more like it to follow, a few points of marginal income tax is very much a secondary problem, people.
Where the hell is all this money even going? Why is the government the ones spending it all? Even China is getting leery of our credit rating. The boomers are about to explode our SS expenses. Nobody in a position to do anything about it is talking about how we’re going to cut budgets.
The time is ripe for a third party, focused primarily on fiscal issues, to absolutely explode and drub both major parties in many, many local, state and congressional elections, if they are able to organize at all. I’d say the Libertarians have a gigantic opening right now, but they seem never to have missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
Apr 15, 2009 - 6:26 am 41. Oh, bother:I live in a Dallas exurb, and was planning to attend their Tea Party. I was concerned about rumors of unpleasantness (in Dallas, all politics is race). Much to my surprise we found out yesterday that our little county is having a Tea Party, too. My husband is a photographer/correspondent for our little county newspaper as well as PJM. Thus I will be accompanying Gillie the Protest Dog and my husband to my local Tea Party (I suppose by DHS standards that makes me an extremist). It will be small — even the paper found out about it just yesterday. What concerns me is that at least two Republicans are scheduled to speak. I’ll be interested to find out who organized it.
Apr 15, 2009 - 6:39 am 42. John Galt:LGF has fallen off my must-reads list as well…he’s got a Sullivanesque boner for Creationists that I’m not really interested in.
Apr 15, 2009 - 6:45 am 43. jaafar:Is this the unofficial LGF-bashing site? I read that site every day, just about, and right now I can’t recall Charles saying anything negative about the Tea Parties — at all. I find him — usually — to be thought-provoking and/or funny: about Truther idiots, about the new Nirther idiots, about subliterate Evangelicals being appointed to School Boards, about the curious fact that these Creationist always turn out to be Republicans, and recently about Obama Derangement Syndrome. But he has really done yeoman service in constantly publishing the truth about the jihadists among us, and the jihadists abroad. He gets called a “racist” by fools who think that radical Islam is a race: any race which includes both Arabs and Persians is no race at all, but an ideological movement. If somebody got kicked off a game site by some cretin who can’t understand difficult ideas like these, then that’s just awful. Life isn’t fair. Find another game site or something.
Apr 15, 2009 - 6:57 am 44. jaafar:Agoraphobic Plumber, you have been reading my mind, or I have been reading yours. Wouldn’t it be refreshing to see a party devoted to economic growth and government shrinkage? Can you imagine a President taking office, and making his first act an across-the-board 10 percent headcount reduction, followed 30 days later by a 20 percent salary cut — both of them in the Federal government? Can you imagine a President who said that he had no reason for stating his position on abortion, since he had already made it clear that abortion was never a federal issue, but should have been handled by the states and the people?
Ah well, hope is the thing with feathers….
Apr 15, 2009 - 7:03 am 45. jaafar:(Sorry for three posts in a row) And isn’t it absolutely brilliant, just insanely smart — now that the Boomers are retiring and putting a huge strain on Social Security — well, shouldn’t we just RUSH to sign them up for free healthcare, just as their truly enormous doctor bills are starting to come in?
You have to go to Harvard to get that smart!!
Apr 15, 2009 - 7:06 am 46. njoriole:A perfect (and easily anticipated) example of the phenomenon was illustrated by Paul Begala in an interview on Imus this morning, where he called the Tea Party people “whiners,” and said we should all be glad to pay our taxes. He even went so far as to say the anti-tax protestors are unpatriotic. Free speech in the Age of Obama! As I recall from recent history: 1) No one has the right to question another’s patriotism, and 2) Dissent is the highest form of patriotism. Except, now a Democrat is in the White House, so never mind; just pay up, and shut up, that’s what our new overlords require of us.
Apr 15, 2009 - 8:03 am 47. kynna:RE: lack of diversity in Tea Party movement. I’ve seen plenty of pictures of ethnic people at tea party protests on Instapundit. Not that the MSM will ever show any, but there are plenty of people of non-white heritage getting involved.
RE: LGF. Charles was right to point out who had taken over the one protest. They were making it into a totally different thing. That’s actually what has happened to the dems who wanted to protest the war in Iraq. They just didn’t care that the organizers were tacking a bunch of other things on — and potentially agreed with them. But it wasn’t their original goal, IMO.
The thing with the Tea Party movement — which I support in its purest form — is that anyone can co-opt the name and use it for anything else. Like the Paulian Troofers. And the Mobys who want to make a spectacle so it will be reported. I think it’s good for LGF to point this out. Trashing Charles for putting honest information out there — regardless of whether or not you agree with it — mimics the Left who want no view except their own. He doesn’t seem to support the movement, but other bloggers do. Accept that others don’t feel the same way and move on. He’s really not doing anything to actually harm it by warning honest protestors about the Paulian takeover.
RE: Republican involvement. I was thrilled that the one tea party protest turned down Steele’s offer to speak. Last thing the movement needs now is association with the GOP or any other set party. Better to be what it is, a collection of taxpayers from across party lines. That’s more frightening to politicians than anything.
RE: counter-protests and infiltration. And to take another turn in this scattered post, I really hope protesters are prepared with cameras, particularly video. I think the infiltrating counter-protestors should be engaged and exposed for trying to make a dishonest scene. The more images the true protestors can flood the internet with, the more chance of the protests being reported fairly. And these images don’t just need to be all the shiny happy people protesting, but the exposure of the moles and ugliness of the counterprotests. Show them for what they are at the same time you show the TP’s for what they are.
Apr 15, 2009 - 8:08 am 48. Oh, bother:jaafar #45: No kidding. I’m so sick of carrying water for the whiny, grasping boomers I could just spit. And chronologically speaking, I am one!
Apr 15, 2009 - 8:11 am 49. Agoraphobic Plumber:“Trashing Charles for putting honest information out there — regardless of whether or not you agree with it — mimics the Left who want no view except their own. He doesn’t seem to support the movement, but other bloggers do. Accept that others don’t feel the same way and move on.”
Just to be clear, my post wasn’t “trashing” Charles for anything except being boring with his fixation on bashing creationists. Bash them if you want, but to do it every day for months? Boooring. I started reading Johnson in 2002 or so, and this is new with him. John Galt hit it…there’s something “Sullivanesque” about it. And that’s Not A Good Thing.
So I’ve done as you suggest, and sort of moved on from LGF. I still drop in and check out the front page fairly regularly in the hope that he loses the fixation, but I guess it’s getting longer between visits.
Apr 15, 2009 - 8:29 am 50. Pat J:I take issue with the whole idea of this being some sort of “grassroots” protest. When I hear about such people as Dick Armey, Steve Forbes, Newt Gingrich and others throwing their financial support behind these demostrations, I worry. Look closely at such entities as FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity and you see people who are not behind the average working class individual.
Seems to me like it’s the protesters who are getting “teabagged” by GOP Corporate interests.
Apr 15, 2009 - 8:29 am 51. Lightnin' Hopkins:You must be worried, Pat. You pasted the exact same comment onto the next thread.
Apr 15, 2009 - 9:09 am 52. AD:Pat J.: Can you help me? I’m a sole-proprietor, but if I form an LLC, do I become a “Corporate interest”?
Apr 15, 2009 - 9:11 am 53. Pre-Tea Party Roundup | Christopher Howell:[...] Roger L. Simon coins TPDS, which we’ve already seen here. You all remember Bush Derangement Syndrome when George W. Bush was blamed for virtually everything that went wrong from the Iraq War to your leaking faucet? [It hasn't really gone away.-ed. I know. I know. Maybe in 40 or 50 years] Well, we now have the arrival of a new phenomenon we can call Tea Party Derangement Syndrome. In TPDS tea party participants are accused of everything from being closet racists to armchair Timothy McVeighs. You can see some amusing examples of this emerging syndrome in the latter comments to my post of the other day – Tea Party role reversal: how to deal with agent provocateurs from the left. [...]
Apr 15, 2009 - 9:36 am 54. George:Is it not our right as US citizens to protest what we feel is unfair. These events are not my cup of tea (LOL) but I would not belittle those who chose to participate. I also hope when the President asks his supporters to come out into the streets they will not be belittled as well.
Apr 15, 2009 - 10:40 am 55. Norris Hall:Attention Conservatives who are serious about reducing spending
Let’s cut the bloated military budget.
This year’s Pentagon budget runs about 500 billion dollars…that’s 20 times more than the entire military budget of China…a growing rival power with 3 times the population of the US.
Just the Pentagon’s cost overruns and waste would be enough to finance China’s entire military budget.
Apr 15, 2009 - 12:54 pm 56. Seerak:I don’t get why the left is so bound and determined to trash these people. The people going to these events are American citizens expressing their views.
Your second sentence answers the question in your first.
Apr 15, 2009 - 1:17 pm 57. zefal:Norris Hall
The defense budget ran at 4% GDP for the Bush years.
JFK years: 10% GDP
Reagan Years: 5.5% GDP
Clinton: 3.5%
Those are the ones I remember offhand. It ran as high as 39% GDP at the height of WW2. Don’t remeber the average during WW2.
Apr 15, 2009 - 2:51 pm 58. zefal:This is a post by Andy McCarthy over on NRO that’s worth reading:
The Obama Administration Is Criminalizing Dissent? Intimidating Its Ideological Opponents? You Must Be Joking
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MDkyMDNiNjZjNGM4OTkzZmI0NWJkMGMyODE0NjY2YzE=
Apr 15, 2009 - 2:54 pm 59. Toads:As long as Tea Party participants are a) white, and b) over 30, they have no demographic future.
Tea Parties, sadly, are the last stand against the inexorable march to socialism, voted in by black, Hispanic, and single-woman supermajorities.
Apr 15, 2009 - 3:15 pm 60. JoeP2:John Galt: I really like your label for Charles Johnson’s problem: a “Sullivanesque boner for creationists.”
Personally, I’m strong believer in evolution, but Charles became monomaniacal. After following him for years, I finally deleted his RSS feed, and haven’t been back. It’s sad, given how much other great work he’s done. But his posts were just getting tedious, and I had the distinct sense that he was more about scratching a personal itch than anything else.
Apr 15, 2009 - 4:45 pm 61. Above The Fold, Tax Day Edition « The Lone Maryland Conservative:[...] Roger Simon discusses the latest mental disorder to make its way into the DSM – Tea Party Derangemen…. It was bound to happen. The Tea Party movement is the Right’s (mostly) answer to [...]
Apr 15, 2009 - 8:31 pm 62. Fen:Is this the unofficial LGF-bashing site?
Oh lighten up. I’m just saying his fixation with creationists has gotten stale.
But he has really done yeoman service in constantly publishing the truth about the jihadists among us, and the jihadists abroad.
Haven’t seen much of that lately.
If somebody got kicked off a game site by some cretin who can’t understand difficult ideas like these, then that’s just awful. Life isn’t fair. Find another game site or something.
The point was that I was an LGF fan, willing to lose friends to defend him. Now, not so much. I haven’t changed, Charles has.
Apr 16, 2009 - 3:25 am 63. Lightnin' Hopkins:The non-stop creationist angle at LGF has become tiresome for me as well (have you heard about Bobby Jindhal?!!). Throw in the DHS report and the blase semi-dismissal of the tea parties due to a Paulian taint and I have nearly ceased visiting LGF altogether.
To each his own. Charles can write about whatever interests him, after all, and readers can take the same approach.
Apr 16, 2009 - 8:20 am 64. Lightnin' Hopkins:That’s spelled Jindal, of course.
Apr 16, 2009 - 8:24 am 65. Jukejointjumper:Let’s see…
An administration that uses intimidation & bullying tactics, ruthlessly pummeling anyone who questions the means used to further it’s extremely partisan agenda: Check
An administration displaying a growing sense of paranoia & secrecy, acting out on a mounting fear of having it’s true, ulterior motives discovered & exposed & basing it’s policies on the ideals of a small group of people, fully aware that whole nations will feel the effects when these policies are implemented: Check
An administration that knowingly releases false information & exagerrates excessively on national security issues to play upon the fears of American citizens & to clear the pathway for implementation of it’s self-serving agenda: Check
Protesters, dissenters, people who question or openly disagree with governmental policies, & even everyday citizens who choose to excercise their First Amendment rights experiencing open, unabashed persecution of a quasi-violent nature, while being labeled as “unpatriotic” by a public & a media that has been whipped into a frenzy by the administration’s propaganda: Check
An executive officer who has designs for furthering the power of the office, perhaps even aspiring to establish a permanent state of totalitarian rule, while simultaneously using the power & discretionary nature of the office to reap a financial harvest for himself & his inner circle of trusted, morally-bankrupt cronies: Check
A federal government that has ballooned into an all-encompassing entity and forced it’s way into everyday American’s lives, giving orders in lieu of choices, all the while meticulously stripping away the god-given & Constitutionally protected rights of the individual: Check
What it all adds up to is a massively dysfunctional & corrupt administration, bent on imposing it’s will on the nation & the world & polarizing all those in it’s wake for the benefit of a relative handful of rich & powerful individuals who possess the proper ties to the White House. All to the detriment of the middle & lower classes of society.
Given all this, it’s easy to understand the outrage currently being displayed across the nation, mostly by people of a conservative idealism.
Funny thing is, I was describing the administration that had previously occupied the White House for eight years, not the one that succeeded it. The descriptions outlined above echo the characteristics many conservatives are using to condemn the current administration. It must seem to these newly minted protesters of government that a vast amount of time has passed since the current President took office. Otherwise, how could the hypocrisy-drenched accusations & complaints they are making not leave them with the skull-crushing, unavoidable mountain of irony that their indignant whining has produced? What they all once defended so defiantly, they now condemn so righteously. It’s hypocrisy in it’s highest form, and it’s pathetic.
Apr 16, 2009 - 11:02 am 66. The Historian:THE LEFT IS LYING ABOUT THE ECONOMY
Tea Parties are a pushback against manipulation
http://greensrealworld.blogspot.com/2009/04/economic-reality-minus-manipulation.html
Apr 16, 2009 - 12:11 pm 67. yoyo:jukejointjumper, you get no argument from me, except you forgot an adminstration that places their relgious values on public sphere decisions. However the tea party attenders have bee moved like complacent cows to fight shadows at the behest of rich demagogues like Beck and Ron Paul and Limberg
Apr 16, 2009 - 6:11 pm 68. TexasPatriot:Attention Conservatives who are serious about reducing spending
Let’s cut the bloated military budget.
Uhhh. Obama did……..DOH!
Apr 17, 2009 - 6:53 am 69. Jukejointjumper:You can go back to sleep now.
Man I wasn’t expecting anyone to have my back on this page. Glad to hear the wisdom you both brought to the table.
yoyo- thanks for adding the finishing touch to my post, couldn’t have said it any better myself.
tx patriot- I’m right there with you.
Now I’m wondering, is it really possible that you two somehow managed to get the last word(s) on all this? I’m somewhat mystified by the absence of even a single rebuttal from any of the overbearing, teabag-waving blowhards that preceded the refreshing infusion of sense & logic you gents added to this discussion.
Silence truly can be golden.
Apr 18, 2009 - 1:12 am 70. Lightnin' Hopkins:Juke, you may want read TexasPatriot’s comment a few more times. I would bet a case of cold Lone Star that someone with that handle is not a fellow traveler of yours. Besides that, the comment was in reference to #55 Norris Hall, the first two lines of which TP quotes and then humorously chides him for.
Anyway, you want some irony?
http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/04/obama_appeals_bagram_detainee_ruling.php
More?
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/03/13/video-signing-statements-then-and-now/
How about some “intimidation & bullying tactics”?
http://faustasblog.com/?p=10979
One last chart (couldn’t find the original on short notice, so scroll down this Hot Air post for it) of what people are upset about, primarily, that is…
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/04/15/tax-day-and-tea-parties-the-writing-on-the-wall/
Even better, let Stephen Green clarify it still further:
“A common theme amongst the editorial hand-wringers was the supposed irony of Americans protesting high taxes on a day when 95% of us would be receiving a tax break. Unless, of course, you’re one of the 15-20% of adult Americans who smoke. Or maybe one of that tiny little percentage of Americans who use any electricity after Washington imposes a cap-and-trade system of energy taxation. Or if you own (or own stock in) a business facing $353 billion in increased taxes over the next ten years. Or if printing dollars by the trillions results in inflation and you happen to be an American who uses … money. But let’s not let a perfectly good meme get in the way of ridiculing taxpaying Americans.”
Sorry to harsh your mellow and break the golden silence. Troll on!
Apr 18, 2009 - 5:39 pm 71. tehag:The people peaceably assembled to petition their government for a redress of grievances. That’s something alien to Democrats, the press, academia, nomenklatura, apparatchiks: both the concept and the words. The people’s demand for justice and liberty are even more alien.
My prediction: next year’s tea parties will be crushed by volunteer ’students’ counter-protesting. For years colleges have had violent student groups attack unpopular speakers while authorities stood aside. Next year this behavior will move to the streets.
tehag
Apr 19, 2009 - 3:53 am 72. GayPatriot » Roger Puts the Tea Party Phenomenon into a Nutshell:[...] Roger sums up the tea party movement and addresses its adversaries: Of course, what’s interesting about the Tea Party movement, whatever its success, is that it is pretty much about what it says it is – lower taxes and less government spending. A lot of people, Republican
May 7, 2009 - 2:04 am