Suppose that someone accused you of doing something and you didn't think the accusation was fair. How would you respond?
Well, we know how the Tea Party responds. This past week the NAACP passed a resolution aimed at the Tea Party, specifically for not confronting racist comments, signs and other displays from within its ranks (for example, Kentucky Senate candidate Rand Paul suggesting that we go back to segregated lunch counters.)
So how does the Tea Party handle this? By the official spokesman of the Tea Party Express, Mark Williams, proving the NAACP's point by writing a hypothetical letter from the NAACP President to Abraham Lincoln, not only full of racist language but even telling him that he should not have ended slavery.
And then they follow that up by listening to a video from David Duke, the former Klan Imperial Wizard who a few years ago ran for Governor of Louisiana and then later for President.
This isn't how you prove you aren't racist!
I think, having listened to all the Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage and Sean Hannity I could stomach, that this is the result of the 'alternative media' coming to full fruition. They keep preaching about how the First Amendment guarantees the right to use 'politically incorrect speech' and they make a big deal out of doing it on air. So this kind of comes natural to them and their followers by now.
The issue of politically incorrect speech of course is NOT a first amendment issue. Nobody disputes that the first amendment gives you the legal right to call anyone any name you want to. You won't be prosecuted in a criminal court for it.
But that's not to say that you won't be held accountable for the consequences of your speech. Just as someone whose Constitutional right to free speech can be sued in civil court for slander or libel if they say or write falsehoods about people, so too if you insult someone using racist language you have to accept the consequence, which is that you will be judged a racist and an ignoramus for using it. You can't have it both ways. Go on all the racist rants you want, and listen to speeches by all the bigots you can find, but don't then be upset when someone calls you a racist. Because by your words and the associations you keep, so will you be judged.
Eli,
ReplyDeleteWe saw these people at the Palin rallies in 2008 and the Lou Dobbs/Baye Buchanan Minutemen events before that. We know, and they know, who they are. Only the MSM hasn't figured it out yet.
Have you noticed how Dick Armey and Palin have become as scarce at Teabagger rallies as most of their people who were turning out for the Town Halls last year? The "movement" has lost all its steam since since the Healthcare bill passed.
The new Deficit WMD lie just isn't jelling among unemployed and underemployed American, much less the Birther faithful. People are sick of waiting for those Wall Street bailouts and bonuses among the top 2% to "trickle down" to the middle class.
Republicans really think they can talk about extending tax cuts to those rich crooks right before an election without alienating everyone...again?
The only Teabaggers you see in public these days are either the Aryan Nation types patrolling the Mexican border or those crazies running for office like Bachmann, Angle, and Haywood. Even that money-grubbing Libertarian Rand Paul is keeping a low profile of late.
The hundred or so who used to assemble along the highway crossroads in St. Charles Co., Mo, waving angry signs have packed up their SUVs and moved back into the bars where they came from to cry in their beers over how lame their leadership is.
The only thing keeping the "movement" going is the rants of the racists and nitwit tweets from their Mama Grizzly.
Drat, foiled again, Karl Rove. You can't continue to blame 40 years of failed conservative policies on Democrats when your own base doesn't believe it any longer.
Try as the Bush Crime Family will with the same old dirty tricks this fall which only huge amounts of "corporate citizen" money can buy, the Teabaggers' hearts just aren't in it anymore. Even Bristol and Levi have gotten over it and are moving on.
The American people are sick of waiting for the Republican obstructionists to move out of the way so the recovery can finally pick up some momentum.
How does race have anything to do with anything that ails this economy? Nobody is buying what the Republicans and their bully boys on the Far Right are selling...racism or supply side.
I just don't get how come they are so stupid, handing bricks to break over their heads like this.
ReplyDeleteYeah, Mark Williams had to resign but that was too little, too late.