The Pied Pipers of Political Piety

I'm using a new format for blogging, after relenting to a three year campaign by my brother and webmaster to revamp the look of the site. I liked the old site because it was clunky and accessible, with no doodads and flashing thingies to distract you - like that seedy motel room Barney Frank rents every other weekend for what Jefferson might have called "extra-constitutional purposes." I have to admit he did a great job with the overhaul, and the general consensus seems to be "Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific", so I guess I'm going to stick with it - not that I have a choice. The treacherous little bastard made certain there was no way to revert back to the old format, so I'm sure he's still cackling in his basement, petting a gray cat and stroking his chin like the bad guy in a James Bond movie. Nah, seriously, he did a wonderful job, and if you bat your lashes over to the right, you can see a live, real time scroll of all my latest tweets which the all knowing, all seeing Ali Velshi has called "neo-con" and "idiotic." How many times a day does that guy google himself?


Lots of readers have been lobbing ideas across the court for me to blog about, and I'll touch on all of them in the next blogging by numbers. What I'm itching to address is that rash I got from...I mean, the coconut shuffle game the Administration and left wing pseudo-intellectual columnists and bloggers have been playing as of late.

The left is acutely aware of two things - If you control the language, you control the debate, and once you control the debate you can set the parameters of that debate in the media. If you're not quite sure where I'm going with this, why is the opposing conservative viewpoint always considered "anti?" We're never "pro-life", we're "anti-abortion." We're never "pro-border enforcement", we're "anti-immigration." We're never "pro-second amendment" we're "anti-gun control." We never think to question these labels because they've become so embedded in the national psyche we take them for granted. A colleague of mine was gently chiding me for being critical of my company's carbon emission reduction program.

"Oh. You're an anti- environmentalist?" she asked.

I grinned and responded, "No. I'm pro-common sense."

As the Democratic party continues to implode and the President's approval ratings dip to all time lows, conservatives are asking some tough questions:

Why did an obscure financial institution called ShoreBank got a 20 million dollar Tarp bailout from the Administration, and why does the President appear in a video on their website talking about overseas micro-management?

How could a judge rule on in favour of the DOJ on a facial case regarding Arizona's immigration law when she opened her judgement by conceding it was impossible for the Administration to meet the standard required? The administration had to prove that the law could never be carried out in accordance with the Constitution. Judge Bolton admitted that standard of proof could never be met, but ruled in favour of the Feds anyway.

If Republicans are the so-called "party of the rich", why are career Democratic politicians like Charlie Rangel and Maxine Waters facing numerous ethics violations over tax evasion and financial fraud? Why is big business sharing so much pillow space with the left?

But most troubling of all, why is so little attention being paid to the "Amnesty Memo" which states in no uncertain terms that the Administration will simply skip over the legislative branch altogether if they can't get satisfaction from an activist judiciary? These are all hot button issues, but if you try and engage in a scholarly debate about any of these things in the MSM or the blogosphere, you will either

A - Be accused of calling members of the adminstration communists;

or

B - Be ridiculed about the tea parties while being peppered with sexual inuendo about tea bagging.

The other day I read a column by some obscure left wing New England blogger who rambled on in pitch perfect 'above the fray' sanctimony about how conservatives were debasing the political discourse by "listening to Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck" and actively accusing members of the administration of clandestine meetings with communists.  He wrote that the right needed to act like adults and talk about issues instead of hurling insults. Funny thing is, about an hour after he had posted his self righteous sermon about maturity, I peeked over at his Facebook wall, and he was posting comment after comment laced with X-rated tea bagging jokes and mocking Sarah Palin's down syndrome child. Class act, this guy.  


I don't know what the tea party has to do with the 13 ethics charges that have effectively put an end to Charlie Rangel's career. I also don't know what tea-bagging has to do with the Harlem Urban Development Corporation, a corporation Rangel set up under the guise of helping the community that turned out to be nothing but a slush fund to line his pockets and evade taxes.

I don't know what communism has to do Judge Bolton's brazen disregard for Federal law when the Justice Department succeeded in mounting a bogus and weak challenge to Arizona's proposed immigration law. I don't watch much Glenn Beck or listen to Rush Limbaugh, but I do read enough National Review and James Bowman to know that Judge Bolton stacked the deck to deliver a predetermined decision.

There's nothing wrong with Glenn Beck or Limbaugh, I find them entertaining and very good at what they do - but why do conservative pundits constantly have to defend something Beck said 3 weeks ago when they were called on a cable news show to talk about Federal preemption?

They have to because the media and the left are engaging in political misdirection.  Ask a conservative like Andy McCarthy about SB 1070 and you'll get an air tight argument about the multiple errors in judge Bolton's decision. If you head over to NRO's "The Corner", you'll see a variety of conservative opinions about immigration law, both pro and con.

The right is not some monolithic, glassy eyed cabal of like-minded people.  It's a vibrant intellectual movement that spends very little time engaging in conspiracy theories about the President's birth certificate, but click on any cable news network and you're led to believe we're all a bunch of yokels with a mouth full of rotting teeth screaming about how "Dem Eemeegrints needs to git back to Mexico!"

Since this morning, conservatives have been talking about reforming rule 501 and the so-called "Stealth Energy Tax". No one is talking about communists or dubious birth certificates - but if you turn on MSNBC or CNN, you would think the only thing we're discussing is building up a network of state militias to overthrow the government.

Again, I hate seeing my conservative colleagues appear on cable news programs only to spend 10 minutes defending talk radio hosts when they were asked on air to discuss different demographics and how they might affect incumbent Senate seats. 
 
The media doesn't want you to see the real conservative movement, the one William F Buckley started 50 years ago - and the media doesn't get the intellectual conservative movement. They know it's not to their benefit to try to understand it.
 
Remember that CNN video that went viral showing disgraced reporter Susan Roesgen getting lippy with  peaceful tea party protesters? What struck me the most was not the exchange between Rosengen and the protesters.  It was her smug, condescending attitude, going as far as to openly suggest they didn't undertand the historical impact of the Lincoln adminstration, or the American constitution itself. It's the type of pinched nose, intellectual elitism that's rampant in the media and within the current Adminstration that says "we know what's best for you, you ignorant peasants."  
 
So the next time someone starts laughing at you about being a stupid tea bagger, just smile right back and ask;
 
"That's funny, but all jokes asside, don't you feel that a facial challenge in a constitutional case can't be satisfied by using anectdotal evidence?"
 
You'll quickly find out that their liberal intellectual chest puffing is just a lot of hot air and insults with little substance beyond blaming everything on George Bush.   
 
Cordially
 
Joe