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My personal musings about anything that gets on my radar screen--heavily dominated by politics.

2009-08-08

The Left is BATHING Itself in Glory 

Before I dive into the meat of this post, do a little thought experiment for yourself. What would the reaction have been if, in 2002, the Bush administration had asked American citizens to log on to a White House website to report any activity by anybody appearing Muslim that seemed "fishy"? Just think about that for a moment.

Now . . .

Remember, oh, about six years ago, when everybody on the Left was screaming "open debate" and "don't rush into this" and "they're trying to stifle opposition"? Remember that? I do.

Of course, the topic at the time was the invasion of Iraq, and the slowest punch in the history of armed conflict actually took about six months to get thrown, and the result was that the Iraqi army had a chance to plan and to blend itself into the landscape and to build an insurgency strategy that bottled up the U.S. military for years.

And now that the Obama administration and its allies in Congress are trying to take over another one-sixth (don't forget that they already own banks, a few car companies, and an insurance company or two) of the U.S. economy, all in the course of about a week and a half, it seems stunned--SHOCKED!--that there are a few brave Americans who are willing to stand up and say "whoa!" Which leads to the lovely spectacle of the administration's mouthpieces describing the opposition as "fringe", as "well-paid professional protesters", as "tools of corporations" and so on.

What we can't defeat in open debate, we'll silence through rhetorical marginalization.

[all video courtesy of Powerline and YouTube]Turns out that that strategy isn't really doing the job very well, either. So, the administration's allies have actually resorted to clear, obvious intimidation (as seen here--note the gentleman at the 1:00 mark asking to take pictures and then refer back to the question I started this post with) without so much as a self-aware "ahem." And when that doesn't quite do the trick, they resort to open violence (as seen here).

I'm not sure if "irony" is quite the right word to describe two goons getting picked up for hitting a guy while wearing their SEIU t-shirts, all on the same week that the political hacks at Justice decided to drop a case that they'd already won against two guys wearing Black Panther gear carrying nightsticks outside a polling place last November. "Irony" comes close, but doesn't quite make it.

If the Left--the very well-funded, organized, FRINGE Left--is already starting to feel their victory slipping so badly that they have to resort to this, exactly what do you think they're going to be willing to do in the next few weeks as this gets further and further our of their control? The Left has never, in the last forty-five years, had to deal with organized, vocal opposition that takes its case directly in their face; do you have any expectation that they'll handle the situation with class and the Marquis of Queensbury rules? I don't.

Which brings me back to my original question. Of course, the above scenario never played out in real life. No, no, those sort of McCarthy-esque Nixon-esque tactics had to wait for their moment in the White House under Barack Obama. And, of course, in typical Leftist fashion, they're not asking for anything so trivial as a national security tip; no, no, they're just asking for information about people who oppose health care reform. Leave it to the Left to maintain perspective.

This is getting scarier by the moment. Rep. Ed Perlmutter has a town hall tomorrow morning in Brighton, CO--I wonder if he'll have union bodyguards waiting to keep out protesters.

But what interests me most is whether or not the kind of behavior we're already seeing around the country gets duplicated in Brighton, and--MORE IMPORTANTLY--whether the "professional journalists" decide it's important enough to make it on the evening news. Because the Denver press got several stories out of the so-called "Denver Three"--three individuals who were politely asked to leave a Pres. Bush townhall meeting--so I would expect them to get several stories out of the ACTUAL supression of free speech and potential for violence that is possible tomorrow.

HA HA HA. I actually typed that with a straight face! Whew . . . actually, I expect the press to bury any and all references to violence and to protests and to opposition to health care reform because that would go against their dominant paradigm. The "professional journalist" class has sunk so far from its role of watchdog and honest arbiter that it can't be trusted with any information.

If it could be, it would probably bother to report information like this from England. Note the conclusion in particular:

We cannot afford all that we can do so healthcare will have to be rationed further. We can do this by price, by availability, or by time. Patients can be charged for some services that are currently free; some elective and non-catastrophic services may have to be excluded from the core set of NHS interventions; or people will again have to get used to waiting a long time.

And this is the system the Left wants us to rush headlong towards without even reading the actual bill.

Brilliant.

Posted by: Michael / 8/08/2009 12:05:00 AM

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