Tea Party Pushback: Now I’m a Traitor, Racist, Communist, and Nazi

My Christian Science Monitor op-ed on the Tea Party movement is spurring some uplifting responses.

My article concluded, America needs real champions of freedom – not poorly informed Republican accomplices.” A phalanx of Tea Party activists rushed to vindicate their movement and prove me wrong.

Following is their rebuttal to the article:

Comments from the Yahoo.com posting of the article:

PAUL: The “Christian” Science Monitor is so far LEFT that what they have to say is as meaningful and valuable as the trash I set out for pickup once a week!!
++++
RAGNAR: Just another dihonest bit of editorializing nothing new to see here just move on everyone
++++
Ed: Just ready Michael Savage’s book, “liberalism is a mental disorder” get off your lazy buts and get a job or open a business and stop mooching off the government.
++++
MichaelA: A truly socialist article. I thought Christian Scientists were conservative. What a shock. Traitors
++++
D.D: I wonder if Mr. Bovard is part of the 50% who pay no income tax?
++++
GBM : more liberal racist crap
++++
JamesM : The Report of this artical built a straw man and put words in the straw mans mouth. Of course our reproter won the argument with his straw man. I saw no resemblance between this reporter’s straw man, and the Tea Party.
++++
Scott: Its funny how WE stand up for our RIGHTS and BELIEFS and get attacked and told to shut up.. But we are subjected to your apathetic ideas by force of Gov’t. HOW VERY COMMUNIST OF YOU… We will start by removing some of this cancer in 2010.. Then two years later we will remove the ONE… Will you defend your beloved Obama? Not, you are afraid to even step out from behind your screens.. We, the Tea Party, show our faces in public on a daily basis and WHERE ARE YOU??.. We know we’re on the right path.. What are you going to do about it? Nothing but showing your true colors and IQ here in these forums
++++
MARY: what is wrong with your head? The tea party isn:t fighting the liberals they are fighting the taxes this government is putting on us and we are already taxed enough. The liberals are making it that way because they cannot stand the protesting so they start with bone breaking name calling , encouraged by their messiah. What are on the signs. taxed enough already. don;t tread on me. what are they saying about liberals? They are talking about the government.
Why aren:t you beefing about the liberals making fun of a handicapped child or calling bristrol Palin filthy names or the filth they say about Sarah. You whiny bunch of girls.I don:t know who cries more you or your leader.
He has sent in the seius to threanten or try to scare of the tea party people. Guess what. They are still going strong.Just as his did with the acorn people at voting time. Bribe people for votes. casting fradulent votes and people voting more than once. Your weeping is getting on everyones nerves.
And who the hell cares about what the christian Science people think. They are so full of crap . I would use their magazines for the same purpose the democrats use the constitution For toilet paper.
++++
Cowboy : Just more propaganda to those who spread it best, the little people who can’t wait to lable the Tea Party with something, anything, oh my what can they do,nothing is working. The Demacrats, Liberal Demacrats,Progressives, Socialists, what ever you call yourselfs are just falling apart. The Tea Party is Growing every day and there is nothing you can do about it, ain’t it just Grand. It’s AMERICANS that LOVE AMERICA more than what’s trying to destroy it and it is that simple. GOD BLESS AMERICA !!
++++
Buzz: Libs are traitors and should be treated as such.Traitors have very few rights. I can only think of 2, and they are more of a courtesy then rights. (blindfold,smoke).People like myself have no more to give to those that refuse to help themselves.The government using my $ to kill our enemies no problem. Gov. giving my $ to feed people that have cell phones computers,big screen tvs,cable,500 $ rims on their cars,3000 $ worth of tats,but no food or clothes for the 4 kids they have not ok. I know the libs are going to read this and say I am a racist.My answer,ever been to a trailer park in Alabama.
++++
Gary P: Bouvard, you are a liberal idiot. Warring, wiretapping, or waterboarding. A movement that started out denouncing government power apparently has no beef with some of the worst abuses of modern times.
So you don’t think cutting a journalist’s head off is a worse abuse than wiretapping. You don’t think bombing the U.S.S. Cole is a worse abuse than waterboarding. You don’t think 9/11 was a worse abuse. You liberals are so quick to write about “our” abuses yet you let things ten times worse slide because you are anti U.S. Let me tell you what I am for. I am for the U. S. A. And if it takes waterboarding to save American lives, I am for it. If someone bombs us, then I’m ready to bomb them back. I hate it when we fight with our hands tied behind our back. You talk about Bush and his deficit. Has Obama spent more in one year than Bush did in eight? You say Bush misled about the Iraq war, but Obama lied. Were you not for the prescription drug bill? Give all your Libs a pass and blame Bush. It’s the same old same old. Ridicule the ones that are trying to stop the big spending and later, when the bills come due, you can blame someone else.
++++
RJ: The first Liberal since the beginning of time, a Lier, a Thief and a Murder, satan.
++++
JH in Atlanta: What make him a Nazi and not just a Liberal? Why a Nazi, as Nazi must defend and promote a position with lies and not stand on facts.

And it’s not name calling if you calling a spade, a spade.

Notice the author article attempts redefine the Tea Party movement.

I believe in the Tea Party and I was against the Iraq War and the Sr. Drug Benefit Program.

But his argument, that one action justifies or requires another bigger action like “if you were for Sr. Drug Benefit you must be for Obama Health Care” or your a hate group.

Gee with his logic, if I shoot my neighbor I must shoot my neighbor’s kids and wife. Just proves another point about Nazis they want to rob you of “free will”.

With “Free Will” I can choose to stop. Even if I was for the Sr. Health Benefit I can realize the mistake and be againts Obama Health Care.

And this statement from his article takes the cake:

“Many of the attendees seemed to hate liberals far more than they loved liberty. A CBS/New York Times poll conducted in April showed that two-thirds of tea party members have a favorable opinion of Sarah Palin, and 57 percent have a favorable opinion of George W. Bush.”

So, if you have a favorable opinion of Bush or Palin your hate liberals.

With a statement like this I doubt even if this person could ever grasp the understanding of a bill rights.

And I do have a favorable opinion of the 2nd Bush when compared to Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, but not compared to his father.

Yes, I heard of this type before, seems I remember a group of people who said “hate Jews like we do or you not a good citizen”.
Can you spell N-A-Z-I?

Even under guise of “free speech”, How can the Christian Science Monitor justify printing such hate?

They deserve to have neither the word Christian or Science in their name.

I could go and discredit the authors other faulty syllogisms, however, I doubt if a Liberal would ever understand reason, as most liberals say logic is racist or hateful.
Yes, When face with logic or facts they now resort to the R or H word.

++++
SAM: “James Brovard writes, “Many “tea party” activists staunchly oppose big government, except when it is warring, wiretapping, or waterboarding.”

Warring, wiretapping and waterboarding are tools of war. The government’s biggest and most important job is to protect American Citizens. That means protect our people from enemies who want to take our way of life, our safety and and our precious freedoms. If the terrorists can’t take waterboarding then they better not get caught, huh? The main purpose of war is to win. Waterboarding is a walk in the park compared to what they would do to one our own people. It is effective and it really does not permantly damage the prisoner, injure him, or cause a lot of pain. We have to get information out of them some way. These terrorists want to kill us all! Thanks to other irresponsible journalists, all the terrorists now know how we extract information. If you are not engaging with terrorists you have nothing to fear so don’t worry about being wiretapped. The government will only wiretap you if are suspected of engaging with terrorists.. A perosn who does is an terrorist themself. As for the warring, just remember that we didn’t start this war and the US has the right to protect her people and territory.This story is typical leftist, twisted garbage rhetoric and as usual, it makes no sense.

++++
Moderate Conservative Democrat: Nope…I listen to your lies and half truths every day..and I respect your right to spew them.. Support liberty for all.Have taken a look at your peace loving party?Go and watch them protest..Now that is scary..Your party is only now coming out saying “yes we are socialist” so integrity is not part of our core.
You want all the freedoms except when it comes to other people freedoms …such as the national Day of Prayer…Your rights but nobody elses
You will steal from others to take care of those who will not work.
So as a tea party participant I believe in gay marriage…mine is before God and your is not so who cares about your paper
You have the right to pray or not to..God calls this free will
You have the right to make something of your life or sit back and let life roll by…And I grew up dirt poor so yep I get it
So your question you should ask yourself is do I think so little of the last 200 years that I would throw it away..make the death of hero’s nil and void to give somebody a free ride and a half butt life just so everyone has a free fair share..Or will I fight the good fight so just maybe our kids can work hard and find the American dream so many men and women have died for?Do you love your ideas so much that you will live ignorant and throw the Constitution out the window?
++++
Patriot1: I have not kept up with the christian Science Monitors beliefs, but to come out with a story like this is really being against the true American conservative and independent way of thinking. Is it wrong to want a strong national defence and a strong police department to protect the people of this nation. No, I don’t think so, but this story makes a point of being strong against bad people evil.That sounds like a very, very liberal attitude. Sounds to me like an Obama way of thinking.
++++

******************

Here’s are comments from http://libertarianblue.newsvine.com/ – a site that characterizes itself as “free thinker, pro-liberty, anti-statist, pro-market, anti-authortarian.”

KyleN: Different people have different focus or issue points. Which is worse a government overstepping it’s legally granted power or one overstepping an illegal non-granted power? Military adventures while bad are however inside the actual duties of the federal government while deciding tanning salons are evil and should be taxed away is not
++++
DEVIL1 – Yes I have a favorable opinion of GW Bush and Sarah.Except GW spent money like a liberal.I am in favor of wiretaps and waterboarding.Both have proven to be successful.For the most part I dislike liberals and the Christian Science Monitor .So there you have it. Properly pigeonholed.
+++
joe-1280782 Tea Party activists..do they hate liberals more than they love liberty?
I don’t know the answer to that one..But Liberals hate freedom more than they hate conservatives..as a matter of fact freedom is the antithesis of liberalism
+++++

Here are some comments from another Yahoo website that featured the question in the article’s headline (“Tea Party Activists: Do They Hate Liberals More than they Love Liberty?”)

++ Liberty first and hating liberals is just part of being free from government control.
++++
Joe in Texas: You are just making more noise to distract from American’s legitimate concerns about the rising national debt, out of control spending, and the generations of high taxes that will be needed to pay it all back.
+++
*********
Here are some Saturday comments from the Yahoo.com reposting of the article:

Gasman: The liberals are the one’s slinging all the hate speech. This is just another attempt to put a label on people that don’t believe the way they do.
++++
Bryan: It is unfortunate that Mr. Bovard cannot see the forest through the trees… If there is one institution within government that conservatives do advocate, it is the military. Tea partiers do not rail against defense spending because they understand its purpose and need. I will freely sacrifice my money for the collective good and not the individual special interests of a collective few… Please correct me if I am wrong, I have never heard of an instance in which federal wire-tapping has been used to blackmail, coerce or indict an individual outside of terrorist circles?…. One other point I wanted to note was Mr. Bovard’s comments about police officers. I find it shameful to read an article that casts a wide net on those officers that have never broken the law, have provided comfort and safety in difficult times and have been pillars of their departments and communities. The beating of the college student is inexcusable and will be handled within the confines of the law when the officer’s guilt has been proven by a jury of his peers. Not before.
++++
Thomas S: Since libs hate liberty, I guess supporting liberty translates into disliking libs.
This article is a pile of leftist BS.
Pure party line propaganda.
++++
John: This article is nothing more than a liberal rant against the Tea Party. It includes misleading statements and outright lies in a vain attempt to cast patriotic Americans in a bad light. He also offers a number of insults like, “Seeking enlightenment from most tea party speakers is like searching in a dark room for a black cat that isn’t there.” Wow, what a theep dinker. When liberals lose an argument they resort to name-calling and insults and these days, they lose a lot of arguments. They are still stinging from the realization that obama fooled them into electing him. Hey, Libby, how’s that “hopey-changey” thing working out for ya? It must be embarrassing to be a liberal in America. You betcha.
++++
[no name] “The fact that the cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq thus far roughly equals the projected cost of the first decade of Obama’s health-care program is irrelevant.” For the people who question this, it is the job of the Federal Government to PROVIDE FOR THE COMMON DEFENSE. It is not the job of the Federal Government to force it’s citizens to purchase consumer products not of their choice. I disagree with the running of the war but not it’s purpose. I wish you sneering elitists would also read the Constitution. It’s enlightening.
++++
Mark: None of the author’s comments can withstand a fair and open debate. If one was to fairly generalize the character of the Tea Party protesters it is the opposite of this propagandist’s flawed spin. The protesting Tea Party bunch are mostly informed and above average educated. Exactly what the continued good health of a successful democracy requires. The liberal left continually support the basic tenets of the failed government models of the world. THEY were still violently demonstrating their support for the East German communist government (which gave us the infamous police state enforcers..the Stasi) as the Berlin wall was coming down. Joiners is how Penn & Teller labels them. The reality is that our Constitution with minimal government capitalism provided more people with more personal freedom, opportunity and prosperity than the world has EVER seen! The Tea Party movement advocates REAL change to avoid the progressive slide toward anything similar to the world’s unsuccessful communist/socialist experiments. Characterizing these involved citizens as anything less than patriots is clearly uninformed.
++++
Al: Socialism has reached its high point in America. Rational, humane public policy is returning, and right now it’s packaged in tea bags. Get used to the taste, liberals.
++++
MockingZ: The Tea Party is not a monolithic group. Cherry picking from a gathering and cover with bias. Your Teachers must be so proud of you.
++++
Ed: WOW, MOST OF YOU FOLKS HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE TEA PARTY MOVEMENT IS REALLY ALL ABOUT…..
PAINFUL TIMES ARE AHEAD OF US IF FISCAL CONSERVITIVES GAIN CONTROL OF THE ELECTORATE BUT PROGRESSIVES WILL MERRILY LEAD US TO CHAOS AND RUIN FOR THIER OWN GAIN. READ THE BOOKS THE PROGRESSIVES PUBLISH. THEY ALL SAY THE SAME THING,”DESTROY THE CAPITIALIST SYSTEM AND REPLACE IT.” REMEMBER TOO THAT PROGRESSIVE DOCTRINE IS DIRECTLY DESCENDENT OF SOCIALISUM. IF YOU DON’T BELIEVE THAT PLEASE DO SOME RESEARCH.

SO WHAT WOULD A SOCIALIST REPLACE THE CAPITALIST WITH?………………HMMMM.
++++
********************************
This is “deliberative democracy” at its best.

If you see lively criticisms of the article, if you could post a comment or link or extract here, I’d be obliged.

Share

, , , , , ,

31 Responses to Tea Party Pushback: Now I’m a Traitor, Racist, Communist, and Nazi

  1. alpowolf April 25, 2010 at 7:15 am #

    Ow, speaking of cognitive dissonance…I had trouble understanding what relationship these comments had with the article. I don’t know if I would even call them strawman arguments; it’s more like they’re just saying out loud the argument that they’re having in their own heads, where they imagine what the “evul librul” says and how they cleverly rebut.

  2. D. Saul Weiner April 25, 2010 at 6:01 pm #

    I think that the hard-core modern conservatives are more hopeless than the modern liberals. They are blind to the fact that the modern warfare state is utterly incompatible with any notion of limited government. Any critic is smeared as a liberal and that is the end of the story, no critical thinking required.

  3. Jim April 25, 2010 at 10:04 pm #

    Alpowolf – I give the commentors credit for sincerity. I was mystified by several of them riffs.

  4. Jim April 25, 2010 at 10:05 pm #

    Saul – it is unfortunate that the hardcore conservatives don’t take the time to watch or listen to Eisenhower’s great exit speech on the Military-Industrial Complex.

  5. Kevin Carson April 26, 2010 at 2:46 am #

    What astonishes me more than anything is these people’s pig-ass ignorance of their own ostensible historical tradition. They know so little about the history of the Right that they pigeonhole someone who opposes military adventure and police statism as a “librull.”

    What’s even scarier is that when Palin appears at a Tea Party event, she’s probably the smart one in the room. And I’m surprised she’s got enough neural juice to talk and metabolize glucose at the same time.

    D.D.’s comment about the 50% who pay no income tax says it all. A majority of people in the TP movement probably think their income is in the top 50th percentile. Beautiful illustration of how neoliberal state capitalism has brainwashed people with fake, corporate manufactured populism. Anyone who thinks the state’s main function is to take money from rich people (like the yahoos at TP rallies) and give it to ACORN and the SEIU, or that some cracker who doesn’t own one pair of undershorts is a victim of class warfare just like Good Ol’ Bill Gates, is an idjut pure and simple.

  6. Lawrence April 26, 2010 at 10:45 am #

    Jim:
    My, my, my: you are one nefarious character based on these comments — even though they appear to have little or nothing to do with the words in your article. You pegged it correctly about what they really hate, and it applies to both the progressives and the Tea Party types. Both hate the opposition more than they want to increase liberty — or even stop the hypocrisy within their own ranks. Just as the Tea Partyers are still drinking the pro-war Kool Aid while supposedly opposing government spending and discovering a reverence (sic) for the Constitution, the Obamatons are continuing to support the One even though he continues the mass-murder by video-controlled drones (make up your own mind about which ones are the drones — the operators or the machines). They just did a little “calculus” on human life and decided that the continuation of the wars was “worth it” as the price for their new war on health care. PS: we just returned from Germany, but I didn’t see your beer available as we only had it on draft when possible. Nonetheless, it was good to visit a country that already has had its fling with Nazism. We just wonder how far it will go here. Now they only have to get rid of the rest of their socialism. But even then they aren’t perfect. My wife and I noted that that Germans are way behind the Nanny Staters in the USA when it comes to things like smoking and physical barriers designed to prevent you from walking off the edge of a cliff. We enjoyed seeing real (yes real) cigarette machines out in the open, and there were barriers that could easily be evaded even by non-suicidal children. How refreshing!

  7. Gus S. Calabrese April 26, 2010 at 12:40 pm #

    Some of us love you Bovard Thanks for being a freedom lover.
    Gus

  8. liberranter April 26, 2010 at 1:37 pm #

    Jim, take the backlash as a compliment. As others here have been quick to observe, today’s (neo)conservatives, who have successfully co-opted and come to dominate the Tea Party movement, are so blinded by their hatred of liberals that there is absolutely no other guiding principle behind their political ideology. Indeed, the reaction to your article should serve as yet more proof, as if any more is needed, that the average “conservative” today hates liberty as much as the average liberal. It’s past time that libertarians stop trying to make allies of either side.

  9. Sam Adams April 26, 2010 at 2:45 pm #

    As a Christian, MD AFP Volunteer, Tea Party Activist, and Ron Paul Republican I resent Mr. Bovard’s characterizations.

    It’s as if he is saying all Tea Party folk are of a single mind.

    For clarification, many of

    “us”

    “get”

    exactly what you are saying, but at the same time, many of

    “us”

    don’t entirely agree with all of

    “your”

    assertions.

    Look, the Tea Party movement has few real leaders and many banners under which they organize.

    It is my opinion that if there is one concept of the tea party that is shared by all it is that our current federal government has grown to large and has become to irresponsible with our money to lead, no matter the party.

    Would you agree or disagree?

    Might I add that those of us that are actually trying to

    bring about

    a restoration of fiscal sanity, find ourselves walking the precarious tightrope of base energization while herding the bulls of Pamplona alongside several thousand wet and angry cats.

    It seems to me that the Author of this piece and many other libertarians I know enjoy taking potshots from the safety of the ambivalent, non committal, literary, and almost ivy league high ground that allows the lobbing of arm chair quarterback grenades from afar, without having any, to use an Obama-ism, skin in the game.
    The safety of sitting on the sidelines without joining either team, as if they aren’t good enough for you, does allow you a certain vantage point, but perhaps Sir, you would be better served by putting your bespectacled cranium where your mouth is and run for an office of some type, or perhaps you could read a few books on how to be a grass roots leader, and then go out and actually do something for the good of the country, because your party, and your writing, as evidenced by the current state of affairs, doesn’t seem to be helping now does it.

    It is then and only then that you might might be able to actually test your high minded ideals in the real world instead of the printed one.

    But no no

    You are a LIBERTARIAN.

    You are neither a Democrat OR a Republican, you are a superior synthesis of both aren’t you?

    Well Sir, to you I say

    enjoy the sidelines

    as both teams beat each other to a bloody pulp and the field catches fire.

    Stay Warm!

  10. Lawrence April 26, 2010 at 3:17 pm #

    Dear Sam:
    Unlike your namesake, we simply do not believe you. With one side of your mouth you say government is too big, but meanwhile you work to enlarge it in other, more dangerous ways. As the framers knew, war is the enemy of freedom and the source of taxation and corruption and deficits, and the T-Babies love both the military and the police power of the state. You are holding true to the stereotype, however: instead of acknowledging the truth of what Bovard says and fixing up your act, you attack the messenger. The finger-pointing between right and left is merely an exercise in throwing the red herring — a hope that by distracting the viewer, nobody will look to closely at what you are doing. It really is tiresome. Synthesis, you say? You really don’t get it, do you?

  11. Lawrence April 26, 2010 at 3:18 pm #

    Excuse me, that’s “too,” not “to.”

  12. Sam Adams #2 April 26, 2010 at 4:56 pm #

    Tea Partiers love the police state and our foreign policy?

    I’ll not engage in back and forth but accusing ME and our movement of seeking to enlarge governments attack on the constitution while condoning US foreign policy is an exercise in, grammatical errors aside, pure stupidity, because the majority agree with me, and to a lesser extent some of what many libertarians espouse.

    As far as attacking the messenger, I’d say much the same to you, Clinton, Bush, Obama, how has policy changed, and what have YOU and your ilk done to effect change for the average American.

    You and yours rather than making the existing system better from within either side, seek only to split the votes in order to keep your own personal lesser of two evils inpower, and the rest of the time, you like Bovard, offer nothing but holier than thou grenades, while watching the fire burn Rome to the ground. I wonder, are you a Libertarian seeking to improve the lot of freedom and liberty, or a Liberal Apologist seeking division rather than unity, towards your own ends.

    Make up your mind to make either party better from within

    Please

  13. Tom Blanton April 26, 2010 at 6:21 pm #

    Jim – There’s some great stuff here. I looked around the web and couldn’t find anything good, so I offer this:

    Boovaurd, your no libertaryan because Glenn Beck is a reel libertaryan and he is a tea party. Your a secret muzlum marksist because you hate America and you is not for tax cuttings. That is worst then being a librall. I bet you don’t got no birth sirtificate neather just like you’re Obama.

    Maybe I can find a good place to post this in all CAPS. Maybe you’d better stay inside until this thing blows over or get a disguise. Maybe a Sarah Palin t-shirt and a styrofoam red, white and blue top hat?

  14. Jim April 26, 2010 at 7:42 pm #

    Tom, I haven’t seen that spelling of my last name since I left the small Southern town where I was raised.

    That’s a great comic riff! Thanks for carving and posting it. It reminds me of some of the great riffs in Huckleberry Finn where Huck’s father was railing about how Illinois allowed the wrong color of people to vote.

  15. Jim April 26, 2010 at 7:45 pm #

    Kevin Carson – bingo! Excellent points.

    I have dealt with some Tea Party folks who were quite sharp. But perhaps as the Tea Party became a mass movement, the stampede left the brains in the rear.

    Your recent writings on the hypocrisy regarding free markets and welfare for the rich are superb.

  16. Jim April 26, 2010 at 7:46 pm #

    Gus – thanks for the kind words and encouragement!

  17. Jim April 26, 2010 at 7:48 pm #

    Lawrence – I think you’re dead-on as far as the calculus that the war is worth it – especially when it is other people who will be doing the bleeding.

    I have been surprised at the Tea Party comments that automatically accept that we must ‘fight the enemy’ – and then blindly defer to whoever politicians label as an enemy.

    Sounds like y’all had a fine time in Germany! I hope the draft beer was at least as good as what you find in San Diego.

  18. Jim April 26, 2010 at 7:49 pm #

    Liberranter – I think you’re right – the NeoCons have co-opted much of the Tea Party. Perhaps there are some places in the country where that hasn’t happened – but…

  19. Jim April 26, 2010 at 7:53 pm #

    “Sam Adams” – As for the notion that I should make myself useful by running “for an office of some type” – That is even more confounding than your spacing and punctuation.

  20. Robert April 27, 2010 at 7:59 am #

    The military is a sacred cow to these people. Doesn’t matter who it is fighting, or why; or how we got to this point; or whether this foreign policy is making them more or less safe; or whether it is morally right; or how much it costs; or how much of the military budget is essentially largesse for government contractors and career officers. They do not ask any questions. They are true believers.

    And don’t you love the mantra, regarding wiretapping: “If you’re not doing anything wrong, then you’ve got nothing to worry about.” This is truly an amazing sentiment. It embodies absolute trust in government.

    Even worse is their support for torture and denial of due process, which they rationalize by declaring, once again, that “only terrorists have to be concerned.” They seem to have forgotten that the whole point of due process is to determine whether the person arrested has actually committed the crime of which he is being accused. But why bother? Governments never lie, or abuse their powers, or just plain get things wrong.

    Of course, if the government were so virtuous and wise and competent as to deserve absolute, unquestioned power over matters of war, spying and detention, then it could surely be trusted to run the health care system and, indeed, the whole economy. This escapes the so-called conservatives.

    Such childish, pie-in-the-sky trust for Big Daddy Government on the one hand, and, simultaneously, such hatred for Obama and his policies on the other, points to a serious psychological aberration.

    These people are deranged.

  21. Viking April 28, 2010 at 8:31 am #

    One of the problems I think we have is that there is essentially a dualistic view of the world that human beings are most comfortable with and Americans are no exception. Paleoconservatives, Libertarians, Left Libertarians, Christian Conservatives who are anti-war ect, don’t fit the narrative. Thus progressives see the word “conservative” and assume that TAC readers are on the same page as Sean Hannity and Karl Rove, Fox viewers see anything anti-empire, anti-war, anti-police state and assume its written by a “commie God hating Librul”.

    Until we get some control of the narrative we’re going to be stuck here at TAC congratulating ourselves on being smarter than the rubes while they run conservatism into the ground.

  22. Dirk W. Sabin April 28, 2010 at 12:49 pm #

    Personally, I had hopes for the Tea Party after seeing many of them out in the freezing cold over the winter, protesting big government and some of them protesting the Military Industrial Complex.
    But then the Palin Media Sensation kicked in and all
    bets were off. Most political efforts these days are like some kind of operatic farce ..jam packed with Divas and elaborate sets.

  23. Powell Gammill April 28, 2010 at 9:38 pm #

    The best part for me was that half the commenters clearly had never heard of “The Christian Science Monitor” before some blog obviously — and undoubtedly in outrage — directed them to your article there. Talk about uninformed.

  24. Jim April 28, 2010 at 9:54 pm #

    Good point. I was surprised that they were indignant that the Monitor was not a conservative publication….

  25. Jim April 28, 2010 at 9:55 pm #

    Dirk, if we are doomed to have divas, can’t we at least get some that are brighter?

  26. Dirk W. Sabin April 30, 2010 at 1:08 pm #

    Actually, you may have a point. Perhaps the best option would be to at least turn the Congress into a Hooters Restaurant .The building itself seems fittingly formed for it. All these years, we thought the dome form was a salute to antiquity and the history of Republics. Little did we know it simply provided the imagery of a gigantic mammary to attach one’s self to and commence to suckle.

    But wait just a minute here buster, are you intimating that the former guvurnur of Alaska is a dim bulb? Wait just a doggone minute you Mr. hirsute smarty pants, she has glasses dontchaknow wink wink yak yak god help us can i blow my brains out .

  27. Jim April 30, 2010 at 4:13 pm #

    I’ve never been called “Mr. hirsute smarty pants” before.

    Dang, that one rocked me back on my heels.

    Another way the Hooters analogy fits: most of the people on Capitol Hill are greaseballs, and Hooters serves the greasiest food imaginable.

  28. Lawrence April 30, 2010 at 10:15 pm #

    Jim and Dirk:
    It’s interesting how that whole Rorschach thing works with the Capitol buildings. Whenever I see those pics of the Capitol dome and the Washington Monument, I somehow can’t help but thinking that the dome looks like a giant pimple in need of popping, and perhaps the Washington Monument is the needle? After all, think about all of the pustulating critters oozing underneath. Who says we can’t paint a visual picture?
    Best to you.

  29. nfdunne October 29, 2010 at 12:45 pm #

    Thanks for the hilarious read. It’s needed as we approach doomsday on Nov. 2.

  30. Ronald Libby September 21, 2013 at 3:12 pm #

    I have a new book on the Tea Party which should clarify many of the issues discussed in the blog. The author is Ronald Libby and the book is “Purging the Republican Party: Tea Party Campaigns and Elections.” It is published by Lexington Books and will be released on November 16, 2013.

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. Drinking Government Kool-Aid Along with the Tea - May 3, 2010

    […] Tea Partier comments at the Yahoo News posting of Bovard’s piece  referred to Bovard—to Bovard!—using such words as “far LEFT,” “a truly socialist article,” “liberal,” “HOW VERY COMMUNIST OF YOU,” “your beloved Obama,” “The Demacrats, Liberal Demacrats, Progressives, Socialists, whatever you call yourselves,” “a pile of leftist BS,” etc.  Not to mention some reaffirmations of wiretaps and waterboarding, and dismissals of anyone who objected to them as a “liberal idiot.” […]