To leftists, dissent equals hate
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To leftists, dissent equals hate
Posted: March 25, 2010
1:00 am Eastern
© 2010
"In case anyone thought this was about [health-care reform]," sneered a popular progressive novelist on his Twitter page. He was "retweeting" – sending again to his own followers on this popular social networking site – the assertion that tea-party protesters (speaking out against the inexorable, impending doom that is Obama's nationalizing of a breathtaking percentage of the American economy) had shouted racist and sexual epithets at lawmakers.
The implication is, of course, that the protests weren't against socialized medicine and government power-grabs at all. No, according to the hand-wringing, wide-eyed, incredulous progressives, standing on the sidelines with their bottom lips trembling, the protests were an orgy of racist hatred, a tsunami of barely contained rage washing over the poor, innocent masses working earnestly toward a re-imagination of government second only to the civil-rights movement itself. Why, what manner of blackguard, what kind of monster, could possibly oppose free health care for all? Such a person must surely be motivated by a desire to choke the breath from those he irrationally despises, if only from the sheer meanness that popular culture teaches us motivates the shriveled hearts of Republicans, conservatives and libertarians. Why, these naysayers would have the less fortunate lying dead and dying in the streets if they had their way – even as these same villains struggle to shunt the black ichor they call blood through bodies shrunken and desiccated by miserly pettiness and greed.
Have you had enough of this tripe yet?
Far worse than the technology of libel is the technology of marginalization. It is a latter-day scarlet letter designed to make dissenters unpersons. Because it is a function of emotion, this brand is immune to reason. Because it is unsubstantiated, it cannot be refuted. Because it is invective hurled at the whim of the "victim," it is a rhetorical ploy that becomes "real" only insofar as it is believed. In our media-driven, multimedia-saturated, technologically drenched culture, it is believed because it is repeated, ad nauseam and without critical analysis, by legions of pop-culture drones who lean left only because they lack the intelligence, the willpower or the independence of thought to examine their beliefs against even the flimsiest of logical standards.
The best tea-party signs ever -- compiled in a striking book with foreword by Chuck Norris: "Don't Tread on US! Signs of a 21st Century Political Awakening"
The scarlet letter of which I speak is the branding of all dissent, all opposition to Barack Hussein Obama and his progressives, as racism or, worse, as the raving of violent killers who must be stopped before they hurt someone. These are classic techniques of marginalization – the redefining of one's political enemies as something less than legitimate. If the progressives, if the liberals, if the leftists, if the socialists succeed in painting their ideological opponents as irrational, the reasoned arguments (not to mention the points of constitutional law) brought up by conservatives and libertarians need not even be considered. They can be dismissed outright – and if the socialists further succeed in redefining their enemies as violent criminals, all opposition to Barack Hussein Obama can be effectively silenced as illegal and as a danger to the public.
The technological branding of Republicans, conservatives and libertarians as violent racists began with the crocodile tears forced from the surgically paralyzed, bug-eyed mask worn by Nancy Pelosi. Meanwhile, progressives were desperately trying to claim, however disingenuously, that "socialist" was the new "n-word." The drumbeat of dissent-equals-dangerous-racism has continued throughout the long, grinding months of argument over Obamacare, as Obama tried multiple times to declare, autocratically and unilaterally, that the time for debate was over and that the proles had best fall into line behind his bright, shiny new future of hope and change.
As the vote on Obama's socialization of American medicine loomed, Democrats couldn't resist claiming that they'd been called unkind names by those dangerous, racists tea-party people (whom they derisively call "tea baggers" because of its sexually vulgar associations). It didn't matter that such comments, if they were made, were immediately and roundly condemned by those in charge of the tea-party movement. No, the damage was done, and the fact that all protesters of health-care "reform" are violent, racist hatemongers was firmly established in the "conventional wisdom" of popular culture.
The only problem is, it isn't true, and never was.
"This morning," wrote talk-show host Bill Colley, "MSDNC's highly experienced Capitol reporter, Luke Russert, just said, 'Republicans had hate in their eyes' as Democrat Bart Stupak spoke last night. Does MSDNC have a hate measuring device? Yes, it's borrowed from an unnamed CNN photographer making a claim that a demonstrator said something naughty to Representative Barney Frank. Again, the video aired by CNN doesn't contain the word. Some House members of color claim they were 'victims' of racial slurs. … Thousands of people there and nobody else heard any of this? Anyone willing to come forward after 48 hours and corroborate the accusation should be highly suspect, as Washington is a place where lies and fictions are frequently penned."
Colley went on to describe a crowd that "consisted of people walking dogs, people pushing baby strollers, and people known to some children as grandma and grandpa" at the protests ... all while two members of the Capitol Police stood "with rifles poised at the hip, parallel to the ground." The Obama administration, it seems, views all dissent as armed rebellion.
The Huffington Post called the protest an "ugly scene," but when liberal thugs beat one conservative protestor and bit the finger from another, it wasn't ugly and it wasn't representative of their movement as a whole. When a deranged conspiracy theorist attacked an IRS building, he was wrongly labeled a "tea party" protester ... yet when an ultraliberal Obama supporter turned to violence, her motives were presumed to be unknown to the popular media.
Look beyond the hypocrisy and the lies of the "progressives" and you will see a simple truth. To "hate" a socialist, all you must do is disagree with him. To argue with him is to "threaten" him. To the leftist, dissent is an act of violence. He sees every opposing opinion as a brick through his window.
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