March 24th 2009
Politics At Its Worst
L
et’s not kid ourselves – politics in America has always been a raucus affair, as the fatal feud between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton proved very early on in our history. The halls of Congress have been filled with flamers and ranters, racists and radicals, and I prefer that to our America becoming some refined, Euro-pansy country. The longer we stay the land of the fronteir, the home of the mountain man, the longer America will be rooted.
But the raucus have always been the target of criticism, and always should be. We wouldn’t want the Hill to be full of these sorts; we just need a few to be out on the edge so we can tell them to shut up and behave themselves.
Shut up and behave yourself, Michele Bachmann. I’m all for rallying the people to the cause, but this?
“I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back. Thomas Jefferson told us ‘having a revolution every now and then is a good thing,’ and the people — we the people — are going to have to fight back hard if we’re not going to lose our country. And I think this has the potential of changing the dynamic of freedom forever in the United States.”
I’m three words short of being with her; it’s that “armed and dangerous” line that puts this out of bounds, even for these intense and troubling times. We might get to that point, but we’re not there now, and saying it just feeds the leftist machine. Now she’s front and center on Huffpo and a passle of leftyblogs, so she’s given the Lefties a deterrent; they can talk about right wing violence and racist attacks on The First African-American President, and blow some more smoke into the smokescreen they’re trying to keep in place over DC.
But Bachmann is nothing compared to Mr. Shut Up and Behave Yourself himself, Barney Frank. No sooner does Frank get caught on tape calling a justice of the Supreme Court a homophobe – that’s hate speech, you know – than he calls for attacks on families that have committed no crime:
Congressman Barney Frank has threatened to summon these [AIG] executives before his committee and force them to reveal their home addresses– which would of course put their wives and children at the mercy of whatever kooks might want to literally take a shot at them. (Thomas Sowell)
The man prattled off “homophobe” as easily as I say “airplane,” and it meant to him that Scalia was to be condemned for hatred (hatred that doesn’t exist, of course, but who cares?), then, practically in the same breath, he exhibits a far greater level of hatred: A desire to see harm against innocent spouses and children for the acts of the fathers.
And if that’s not obscene enough, there are few more responsible for the current mess than Barney Frank himself. No one pushed harder for cheap mortgages to the underqualified than Frank, with the possible exception of the similarly disgusting Chris Dodd, and had the mortgage market not been artificially inflated by Congress, the collapse would not have ensued. AIG would not have floundered, and bonuses would have been none of our business.
Bachmann and Frank, as much as they would be horrified at the association, are birds of a feather, thoughtlessly taking the public discourse to areas well outside bounds. But Bachmann is doing it just from too much passion and not enough good sense, and the harm that results is to her party. Frank is doing it out of immorality, shameless self-preservation and the arrogance that comes from being too long in power, and the harm that results is to our country.
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Comments
March 24th, 2009 at 10:22 am
I have the impression that she is talking about “armed” with information about cap and trade, and therefore “dangerous” to the acceptance of the proposal.
March 25th, 2009 at 7:24 am
go read the whole story:
<http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/03/023152.php>
March 25th, 2009 at 8:15 am
I did read the Power Line piece shortly after posting this, and it changed nothing. The relevant line in the piece is this:
“The Strib wove the Jefferson quote together with Bachmann’s statement that she wants “people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back.” As the paper implicitly acknowledges, Michele was saying that she wants citizens armed with information, which is why they should attend one of her public meetings with the cap and trade expert.”
Note the word “implicitly.” The paper made no such acknowledgment, nor did it have to. Words are words, and carry the power the speaker gives them. Bachmann’s words were careless and thoughtless, and will be used by the loons on the left to challenge and minimize our message and our desire to save our country. The words will fuel the emerging effort by the Left to paint all opposition from the right as militias in the making.
She thoughtlessly gave the loons an opening, and she deserves criticism for it. Without criticism, how will she improve and do better?