by Humphrey Stevenson
The liberals figure if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em and the liberals certainly have been taking their lumps from the tea parties of late. With this in mind they are going to start themselves a Tea Party. According to an article in the Washington Post the coalition of some 170 liberal and civil rights groups will be called “One Nation.” (It would seem that “Under God” didn’t make the cut.) They are hoping to counter the Tea Parties’ power and influence and “help the progressive movement find its voice again.”
The major groups involved are the usual suspects. They include the National Council of La Raza, the Service Employees International Union, the NAACP, the AFL-CIO, and the United States Student Association.
They think that in working together they can defeat the conservative resistance. They came to feel their strength in unity when the Health Care bill passed earlier this year. They feel that they were instrumental in getting the bill passed against “heavy resistance.” Heavy resistance? The Democrats had and continue to have majorities in both Houses of Congress. All it took was bribing a few squeamish Democrat members of Congress and the bill was assured of passage.
While the Tea Parties differ on some issues, on major issues they tend to agree. This is done without some central authority to coordinate the tea parties stand on these matters. This agreement is shocking to the liberal left and has led them to undertake fruitless searches for the Tea Parties’ leadership. The Tea Parties agree on limited, decentralized government, lower taxes, the right to personal property, reverence for God, respect for the family, and maximizing liberty for the people. The left does not understand that the reason for the general agreement between the various Tea Parties is not because of some central authority. It is due to the fact that these are heartfelt, deeply held beliefs that define us as conservatives and our basic core values guide our position on issues.
With the left, every position is a political calculation. They have no core values other than maximum governmental control and they are generally a coalition of disparate groups. Therefore, they must carefully consider the effect of a particular position on one or more of their groups. Further, the central authority must make sure that any group that might get short-shifted in a position decision does not leave the fold. This must be no mean feat. For example, I have never understood why minority parents who want a better education for their children could stay so beholden to a group dead set against school vouchers out of deference to the teachers’ unions.
It seems curious why at least one of these founding groups would want anything to do something “Tea Party-ish.” The NAACP is drafting a resolution condemning racist elements in the Tea Parties. Softening the language of an earlier draft, the civil rights organization settled on, "What we take issue with is the Tea Party's continued tolerance for bigotry and bigoted statements. The time has come for them to accept the responsibility that comes with influence and make clear there is no place for racism and anti-Semitism, homophobia and other forms of bigotry in their movement.”
NAACP Chairman Benjamin Todd Jealous went further in his speech to the convention. He compared the Tea Parties to the White Citizens Council of the 1950s and ‘60s and suggested that Tea Party members routinely carry signs calling for the lynching of Barack Obama and Eric Holder. The evidence he provided was the discredited claims that Tea Partiers shouted racial epitaphs and spat upon black congressmen outside of the Capital back in April.
The first part of the second sentence of the quote points to what the NAACP really has a problem with, the Tea Parties’ influence. The Tea Parties are making a difference while the NAACP sees its own, once formidable, influence waning. So, though childish, it is understandable that the NAACP would lash out at the Tea Parties. But, can’t they come up with something more original than racism. It seems that is all they have anymore. Of course, this charge is coming from a group that supports a political party that up until a couple of weeks ago had a Senator that was a former Klansman.
Once again the left reveals that it has zero understanding of what the Tea Parties are and why they are becoming a force in resisting tyranny.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
The Dirtiest Word
by Humphrey Stevenson
The late comedian George Carlin used to do a bit about the seven words you can’t say on television, the seven dirtiest words. However, I think Mr. Carlin forgot one. He probably overlooked it because you can say this word on television; it is no “four letter word.” In fact, it is held up as possibly the greatest of words and it only has two letters. It is nonetheless the dirtiest (or at least the most damaging) word in the English language. The word is “we.”
I love our Constitution but I question the opening phrase of it. I’m not the only person who has a problem with the phrase that opens our Constitution. No less than Patrick Henry questioned the phrase in 1788 during the Virginia Ratification Debate when he said, “My political curiosity, exclusive of my anxious solicitude for the public welfare, leads me to ask who authorized them to speak the language of ‘We, the People,’ instead of ‘We, the States’?”
Patrick Henry was pointing out two facts. One, the states were being asked to ratify the Constitution and thereby join the Union, not the people and two; our Union is a union of free and independent states and not a nation of people. The people are citizens of their state. Henry thought of himself as a Virginian much more than an American.
Back during the Barack Obama campaign for President, there were mindless chants of “Yes, we can!” That phrase did not mean “Yes, this group of free thinking individuals can!” It meant “Yes, the collective can!” or “Yes, the State can!”
When used in this way, “we” destroys individual responsibility and thereby individual rights and freedoms. In the mind of the collectivist there are no individual rights, only collective rights. The needs, wants and desires are of the individual no relevance. They are to be subjugated to the good of collective.
My father, a World War II veteran, once told me that when the bullets start flying, you’re not fighting for your country anymore; you’re fighting for yourself, for survival. General George Patton expressed a similar sentiment when he said, “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.”
My dad and General Patton’s wisdom has application to undertakings other than war. You don’t improve your country by giving up your personal ambitions for the collective. You improve it by unapologetically working toward your own accomplishments and success.
You think Henry Ford developed the assembly line because he was altruistic and just wanted to provide good paying jobs to thousands of unskilled workers? Maybe he did it so he could make the automobile affordable to the common man and improve the lives of millions of average citizens. No, these laudable results of Mr. Ford’s work were incidental to his actual motivation; to sell cars at a profit and become filthy rich. You want solar energy? Great, figure out a way someone can get rich off of it and you will have it.
There is nothing wrong with that motivation. However, the collectivist has no regard for individual accomplishment. He would agree with “the Scholars” in Ayn Rand’s great novel Anthem when they said, “What is not done collectively cannot be good.” To a collectivist, all must be done by “we.” It matters not how long it takes or how much it cost or how shoddy it is once done. What is accomplished by the individual is fraught with danger or greed or racism or any other manner of evil but that which is done by “we” is pure and good and right and when it fails you are not to question the results, only praise the intentions.
I have great faith, not in the American people (as harsh as that may sound) but in the American person, the individual. I believe that individuals pursuing the betterment of their own lives, unencumbered by the burdens of the collective, results not only in the improvement of the individual, but society as well.
On that final day, when you stand before the Judge of the Universe, you will stand there alone. You will answer for your actions as an individual. He will care little (and maybe not at all) about the collective.
The late comedian George Carlin used to do a bit about the seven words you can’t say on television, the seven dirtiest words. However, I think Mr. Carlin forgot one. He probably overlooked it because you can say this word on television; it is no “four letter word.” In fact, it is held up as possibly the greatest of words and it only has two letters. It is nonetheless the dirtiest (or at least the most damaging) word in the English language. The word is “we.”
I love our Constitution but I question the opening phrase of it. I’m not the only person who has a problem with the phrase that opens our Constitution. No less than Patrick Henry questioned the phrase in 1788 during the Virginia Ratification Debate when he said, “My political curiosity, exclusive of my anxious solicitude for the public welfare, leads me to ask who authorized them to speak the language of ‘We, the People,’ instead of ‘We, the States’?”
Patrick Henry was pointing out two facts. One, the states were being asked to ratify the Constitution and thereby join the Union, not the people and two; our Union is a union of free and independent states and not a nation of people. The people are citizens of their state. Henry thought of himself as a Virginian much more than an American.
Back during the Barack Obama campaign for President, there were mindless chants of “Yes, we can!” That phrase did not mean “Yes, this group of free thinking individuals can!” It meant “Yes, the collective can!” or “Yes, the State can!”
When used in this way, “we” destroys individual responsibility and thereby individual rights and freedoms. In the mind of the collectivist there are no individual rights, only collective rights. The needs, wants and desires are of the individual no relevance. They are to be subjugated to the good of collective.
My father, a World War II veteran, once told me that when the bullets start flying, you’re not fighting for your country anymore; you’re fighting for yourself, for survival. General George Patton expressed a similar sentiment when he said, “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.”
My dad and General Patton’s wisdom has application to undertakings other than war. You don’t improve your country by giving up your personal ambitions for the collective. You improve it by unapologetically working toward your own accomplishments and success.
You think Henry Ford developed the assembly line because he was altruistic and just wanted to provide good paying jobs to thousands of unskilled workers? Maybe he did it so he could make the automobile affordable to the common man and improve the lives of millions of average citizens. No, these laudable results of Mr. Ford’s work were incidental to his actual motivation; to sell cars at a profit and become filthy rich. You want solar energy? Great, figure out a way someone can get rich off of it and you will have it.
There is nothing wrong with that motivation. However, the collectivist has no regard for individual accomplishment. He would agree with “the Scholars” in Ayn Rand’s great novel Anthem when they said, “What is not done collectively cannot be good.” To a collectivist, all must be done by “we.” It matters not how long it takes or how much it cost or how shoddy it is once done. What is accomplished by the individual is fraught with danger or greed or racism or any other manner of evil but that which is done by “we” is pure and good and right and when it fails you are not to question the results, only praise the intentions.
I have great faith, not in the American people (as harsh as that may sound) but in the American person, the individual. I believe that individuals pursuing the betterment of their own lives, unencumbered by the burdens of the collective, results not only in the improvement of the individual, but society as well.
On that final day, when you stand before the Judge of the Universe, you will stand there alone. You will answer for your actions as an individual. He will care little (and maybe not at all) about the collective.
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