Finding some inconvenience in the truth

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Finding some inconvenience in the truth

Opinions

Friday, 23 April 2010 13:35

Ross Mackenzie
Tribune Media

Let’s talk Tea Party – and the press.
Last week included Tax Day (April 15) and a lot of local Tea Party rallies drawing thousands of primarily middle-class citizens protesting the growing role of government in their lives.
These rallies heard much about federal abuses to capitalism, liberty, the Constitution, individual responsibility and national sovereignty. Perhaps the earliest indication of public disaffection happened Feb. 27 of last year with small rallies in 50 cities at which taxpayers protested the $786 billion stimulus bill. Those rallies began the Tea Party movement.

Protest is the essence of America. It formed the nation. To say people attending these rallies are loons is to say the same of those who dumped tea into Boston Harbor to protest British taxes.
Yet to read in much of what remains of the mainline press, many teapartiers at Tax Day rallies are nothing good – racists, fascists, gun nuts, gay-bashers, militant separatists. They are described as generally hateful, ignorant, unhinged and, of course, extreme.
Most are none of those things. Rather, they are largely independent voters angry at relentless Democratic leftism, frustrated by big-spending Republicanism (primarily under Bush II) and outraged by the hubris, pretension, shameless immoralism and patronizing arrogance so widespread among the lofties in both political parties.
Talk radio, cable and the Internet liberated today’s independents and teapartiers – gave them niches where they could go for news and comfort. Long subdued (remember the Silent Majority?), they now find themselves emboldened and vocal. They are turning out to make their voices heard – and their votes count.
In many cases, neither Republican nor Democrat can win without many votes from independents, whom many teapartiers typify. Your average teapartier will give his vote to whichever candidate, of whichever party, deserves it most.
What moves the teapartiers? Perhaps these sentiments and beliefs....
They tend to wonder – despite the fall of the Berlin Wall – whether ObamaCare, federal bailouts for everyone with a lobbyist, and government takeover of General Motors and the student loan industry suggest socialism has won. Whether the coming debt/inflation tsunami – with Obama having obligated, pre-ObamaCare, more federal debt in just one year than his 43 predecessors combined – will make the Greek and European Community debt problems look like spring showers. Whether punishing those who tell the truth about ObamaCare, as Congressman Henry Waxman proposes to do April 21, is a prudent course.
They tend to wonder why the mainstream media do not hold liberals and Democrats to the same standards of behavior they impose on conservatives and Republicans. Why it is fiscally responsible to add trillions in debt for ObamaCare when Social Security, already with a negative cash flow, will have no cash at all in just eight years. Why it is OK for members of Congress to pass a health plan for the everyday rest of us, yet one exempting them.
And teapartiers tend to wonder why it makes any sense to cozy up to our declared foreign enemies and insult our foreign friends, to enhance the power of unions (most noticeably public-employee unions), to expand federal regulation and federal intrusion, and to permit Iran to move unfettered toward development of nuclear weapons.
With all that, would it be too much to suggest the teapartiers are riding
to the nation’s rescue on the political/ideological inconvenience of the truth?
Ross Mackenzie may be contacted at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .