Posted By Lori Heine
On January 13, 2011 @ 9:00 am In the wake of the Tucson shooting tragedy, leftists are decrying all the violence. Yet they are clearly out for blood. Sound contradictory? Of course it does, but there it is. Those who hate on the citizen movement for smaller government, as exemplified by the Tea Party, really smell blood now.
The shots from Jared Loughner’s gun truly have been heard around the world. An article in Sunday’s Guardian online describes the sort of feel-good event evidently beloved everywhere. “Paul Wellman laid his handwritten sign among the collection of candles, flowers and messages keeping vigil outside Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords’s office. Then he stepped back and surveyed the scene.”
The scene should, by now, be familiar. “To the right, another sign said: ‘Hate speech = murder.’ But Wellman went further with his angry declaration in large black letters on white cardboard: ‘Blame Palin. Blame the Tea Party.’” He told the reporter that “They’re trying to say that a lone nut was responsible for this, but Sarah Palin and the Tea Party might as well have put the gun in his hand.” Shortly thereafter, a woman comes along and dumps the sign, saying, “Why make it about politics?”
Another sign had already been removed. It said “Republicans are murderers and un-American.” As fast as some people put these signs up, others will take them down. And as fast as they are taken down, more will go up in their place.
It is about politics. Of course it is, because – in not even waiting until the bodies of the victims were cold in politicizing the tragedy– the Left insisted that it must be. And all the protestations to the contrary will not change that. We’ll see more shrines featuring candles and balloons and flowers and teddy bears, and hear more laments about how violent our society has become and how we ought to just cut it out. And then, somewhere, it will happen again.
One course we might take, if we are serious about ending the violence, would be to show at least slightly more sense than people who think flowers or teddy bears are going to change anything. And the first step on that course would be to admit that the problem is, indeed, political. Politics are concerned with the workings of government, with its proper scope, size and function. They are concerned with who runs the government, and how. To claim otherwise is nonsense on a pogo stick.
Those who are now so loudly decrying the terrors of the Tea Party and deploring the use of tragedy to further a political cause are doing exactly what they condemn. They are capitalizing on this as crassly and cynically as possible – all the while engaging in the hypocrisy of claiming that they aren’t. If these people ever had any credibility (and sadly, they have had far too much), now is the time for the wind of truth to blow away the last, sorry shreds of it.
Some of those who voted for Obamacare are going to need to change their position if it is to be repealed. What happened over the weekend in Tucson did nothing to help the cause of those who oppose the health care legislation that has been passed. I’m sure most advocates of smaller government and free-market solutions are aware of that. I’m also pretty sure there is no way they can change the minds of any too unhinged to understand it.
I don’t personally know Rep. Giffords, but I have several friends who know her well and everyone who knows her seems to like her. She favors strong border security and (ironically to some) citizens’ Second Amendment right to own guns. She doesn’t side with conservatives on every issue, but that is no reason to think of her as an enemy. If her health forces her to be replaced by someone so afraid of violent assault that he or she supports strict gun control, how will conservatives be better off? It is actually the Left that is goading such fearfulness into irrationality, and if this tragedy has shown us anything, it is that irrationality is never in our best interests.
We must stop holding sane people responsible for the actions of the crazy. And we must stop pretending what is clearly political isn’t. What else? We can recognize that we will never shrink the size or power of government if one side holds on to the power. This is what the critics of the Tea Party, indeed, hope to do. Even as they claim it’s all “not about politics,” they persist in holding onto big-government power with both hands.
We must refuse to believe them until they show a genuine willingness to let the power go. It can’t stop being about politics until they stop making it about politics. Nor can it stop being about violence until they stop crassly capitalizing on violence to further their own political ends.
In the Guardian article, a nine-year-old boy named Sammy comes to the Tucson shooting memorial bearing flowers. He is there in honor of Christina Taylor Green, the victim of the tragedy who was just his age. Evidently, the reporter asks this little boy a question about the possible political motives for the attack. No step is too low for these people. They’ll cheerfully shanghai children into their cause.
Sammy answers that “he didn’t know what to call the circumstances of [Christina’s] death. ‘It’s just very sad that anyone would shoot anyone,’ he said.”
We might expect Sammy would answer like a child, because he is one. What probably ought to alarm us is how many adults seem to think the same way.
In a Washingon Post article on Monday, Joe Davidson offers more of the sort of pablum we’ve been getting from the leftist media. “I’m writing this column as if there were a heavy, black drape around its borders.” Thanks, Mr. Davidson. I feel so much better knowing that.
The feds have now descended upon Arizona like vultures on a corpse. Whatever the Tucson gunman may have wanted, even more big government is what we’re now going to get. “This has got to stop,” the Post article admonishes. Though it was written by no nine-year-old at a balloon-and-candle memorial, it certainly sounds as if it might have been.
To the federal government, we’re all nine years old. Its minions are, once again, tut-tutting at us to stop the violence. But no matter how many times they put us in time-out, they seem willing to continue their violence against us.
The scene should, by now, be familiar. “To the right, another sign said: ‘Hate speech = murder.’ But Wellman went further with his angry declaration in large black letters on white cardboard: ‘Blame Palin. Blame the Tea Party.’” He told the reporter that “They’re trying to say that a lone nut was responsible for this, but Sarah Palin and the Tea Party might as well have put the gun in his hand.” Shortly thereafter, a woman comes along and dumps the sign, saying, “Why make it about politics?”
Another sign had already been removed. It said “Republicans are murderers and un-American.” As fast as some people put these signs up, others will take them down. And as fast as they are taken down, more will go up in their place.
It is about politics. Of course it is, because – in not even waiting until the bodies of the victims were cold in politicizing the tragedy– the Left insisted that it must be. And all the protestations to the contrary will not change that. We’ll see more shrines featuring candles and balloons and flowers and teddy bears, and hear more laments about how violent our society has become and how we ought to just cut it out. And then, somewhere, it will happen again.
One course we might take, if we are serious about ending the violence, would be to show at least slightly more sense than people who think flowers or teddy bears are going to change anything. And the first step on that course would be to admit that the problem is, indeed, political. Politics are concerned with the workings of government, with its proper scope, size and function. They are concerned with who runs the government, and how. To claim otherwise is nonsense on a pogo stick.
Those who are now so loudly decrying the terrors of the Tea Party and deploring the use of tragedy to further a political cause are doing exactly what they condemn. They are capitalizing on this as crassly and cynically as possible – all the while engaging in the hypocrisy of claiming that they aren’t. If these people ever had any credibility (and sadly, they have had far too much), now is the time for the wind of truth to blow away the last, sorry shreds of it.
Some of those who voted for Obamacare are going to need to change their position if it is to be repealed. What happened over the weekend in Tucson did nothing to help the cause of those who oppose the health care legislation that has been passed. I’m sure most advocates of smaller government and free-market solutions are aware of that. I’m also pretty sure there is no way they can change the minds of any too unhinged to understand it.
I don’t personally know Rep. Giffords, but I have several friends who know her well and everyone who knows her seems to like her. She favors strong border security and (ironically to some) citizens’ Second Amendment right to own guns. She doesn’t side with conservatives on every issue, but that is no reason to think of her as an enemy. If her health forces her to be replaced by someone so afraid of violent assault that he or she supports strict gun control, how will conservatives be better off? It is actually the Left that is goading such fearfulness into irrationality, and if this tragedy has shown us anything, it is that irrationality is never in our best interests.
We must stop holding sane people responsible for the actions of the crazy. And we must stop pretending what is clearly political isn’t. What else? We can recognize that we will never shrink the size or power of government if one side holds on to the power. This is what the critics of the Tea Party, indeed, hope to do. Even as they claim it’s all “not about politics,” they persist in holding onto big-government power with both hands.
We must refuse to believe them until they show a genuine willingness to let the power go. It can’t stop being about politics until they stop making it about politics. Nor can it stop being about violence until they stop crassly capitalizing on violence to further their own political ends.
In the Guardian article, a nine-year-old boy named Sammy comes to the Tucson shooting memorial bearing flowers. He is there in honor of Christina Taylor Green, the victim of the tragedy who was just his age. Evidently, the reporter asks this little boy a question about the possible political motives for the attack. No step is too low for these people. They’ll cheerfully shanghai children into their cause.
Sammy answers that “he didn’t know what to call the circumstances of [Christina’s] death. ‘It’s just very sad that anyone would shoot anyone,’ he said.”
We might expect Sammy would answer like a child, because he is one. What probably ought to alarm us is how many adults seem to think the same way.
In a Washingon Post article on Monday, Joe Davidson offers more of the sort of pablum we’ve been getting from the leftist media. “I’m writing this column as if there were a heavy, black drape around its borders.” Thanks, Mr. Davidson. I feel so much better knowing that.
The feds have now descended upon Arizona like vultures on a corpse. Whatever the Tucson gunman may have wanted, even more big government is what we’re now going to get. “This has got to stop,” the Post article admonishes. Though it was written by no nine-year-old at a balloon-and-candle memorial, it certainly sounds as if it might have been.
To the federal government, we’re all nine years old. Its minions are, once again, tut-tutting at us to stop the violence. But no matter how many times they put us in time-out, they seem willing to continue their violence against us.
Article printed from NewsReal Blog: http://www.newsrealblog.com
URL to article: http://www.newsrealblog.com/2011/01/13/tea-party-foes-smell-blood-shanghai-children-into-their-cause/
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