Occupy Thugs and Tea Party Citizens

John R. Houk

© November 4, 2011

Remember when Democrats, Left Wing pundits, MSM and race card organizations like the NAACP accused the Tea Party Movement of being a combination of Right Wing Extremists and racists bent toward a path of guns and violence? Let’s compare the real Tea Party Movement to the Occupy Mobs that are spreading across America.

Democrats

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In a video circulated Tuesday by conservative commentator Glen Beck’s website The Blaze, Indiana Rep. Andre Carson said the Tea Party was preventing African Americans from making progress toward equality.

“This is the effort that we are seeing of Jim Crow. Some of these folks in Congress right now would love to see us as second class citizens. Some of them in Congress right now with this Tea Party movement would love to see you and me… hanging on a tree,” Carson said at a Aug. 22 Congressional Black Caucus Job Tour even in Miami.

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Another Congressional Black Caucus member Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., also had harsh words for the Tea Party last week when she said members of the movement could “go straight to hell.”

“I’m not afraid of anybody. This is a tough game. You can’t be intimidated. You can’t be frightened. As far as I’m concerned the Tea Party can go straight to hell,” Waters said at an Aug. 20 “Kitchen Table Summit” which she hosted with her fellow California Democrats Rep. Karen Bass and Rep. Laura Richardson. (Rep. Andre Carson: Tea Party Wants To See Blacks ‘Hanging On A Tree’; By Amy Bingham; ABC New – The Note, Aug 31, 2011 10:51am)

Left Wing Pundits

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We also held the belief that the Tea Party movement was inherently dishonest, and certainly dangerous. One need only look at their signs and their rhetoric at their so called rallies. Or the town hall meetings where they set the standard for thuggish behavior and mob mentality intended to intimidate and threaten. Or how they attack those they disagree with, like the man with Parkinsons at a healthcare reform rally or the woman that three men from the Tea Party beat up at a Rand Paul political rally.

Given the movement’s evil and hateful foundation, we also thought the movement would implode on itself at some point and for any number of reasons. Perhaps the abject greed that is its foundation would cause it to feed on the very people who supported it. Or maybe the core of hatred that sustains it would result in internacine warfare. Or with so many Republican ‘Tea Party’ candidates having taken advantage of the limited attention span of the American voter and getting elected, America would finally see the despicable character of the individuals who expediently rode the anger and vitriol of the movement for their own personal, and the GOP’s gain, like dead-beat dad Joe Walsh of Illinois, and realize they had been duped into supporting people that represented a movement that could care less about effective governance, or the well being of the United States of America as a whole.

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Of course, this does not mean that the Tea Party is gone, or that it won’t still pose a threat to fair minded and patriotic Americans. In the months ahead, we can expect to see the movement become more angry, more volatile, and even more dangerous as it desperately seeks to remain relevant. However, as the recent polling has shown, it is far, far too late for the Tea Party Movement to save itself or the hateful doctrine it embraces. It was always a movement founded on lies, disinformation and fear, and such a movement cannot, and will not survive in the greatest country on earth. (The Tea Party doctrine of hate makes the movement less popular then Gays and Muslims!; By E. Gray; Don’t Tea on Me, September 6, 2011)

Mainstream Media

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And while the public image of the Tea Party focuses on a desire to shrink government, concern over big government is hardly the only or even the most important predictor of Tea Party support among voters.

So what do Tea Partiers have in common? They are overwhelmingly white, but even compared to other white Republicans, they had a low regard for immigrants and blacks long before Barack Obama was president, and they still do.

More important, they were disproportionately social conservatives in 2006 — opposing abortion, for example — and still are today. Next to being a Republican, the strongest predictor of being a Tea Party supporter today was a desire, back in 2006, to see religion play a prominent role in politics. And Tea Partiers continue to hold these views: they seek “deeply religious” elected officials, approve of religious leaders’ engaging in politics and want religion brought into political debates. The Tea Party’s generals may say their overriding concern is a smaller government, but not their rank and file, who are more concerned about putting God in government.

This inclination among the Tea Party faithful to mix religion and politics explains their support for Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota and Gov. Rick Perry of Texas. Their appeal to Tea Partiers lies less in what they say about the budget or taxes, and more in their overt use of religious language and imagery, including Mrs. Bachmann’s lengthy prayers at campaign stops and Mr. Perry’s prayer rally in Houston.

Yet it is precisely this infusion of religion into politics that most Americans increasingly oppose. While over the last five years Americans have become slightly more conservative economically, they have swung even further in opposition to mingling religion and politics. It thus makes sense that the Tea Party ranks alongside the Christian Right in unpopularity.

On everything but the size of government, Tea Party supporters are increasingly out of step with most Americans, even many Republicans. Indeed, at the opposite end of the ideological spectrum, today’s Tea Party parallels the anti-Vietnam War movement which rallied behind George S. McGovern in 1972. The McGovernite activists brought energy, but also stridency, to the Democratic Party — repelling moderate voters and damaging the Democratic brand for a generation. By embracing the Tea Party, Republicans risk repeating history. (Crashing the Tea Party; By DAVID E. CAMPBELL and ROBERT D. PUTNAM; New York Times – The Opinion Pages, August 16, 2011)

Left Wing – Race Card Organizations

“A watched tea pot never boils.”

That’s the rallying slogan of a new online “watchdog” site launched by the NAACP, in conjunction with partners ThinkProgress, George Soros’ Media Matters and a group called New Left Media.  TeaPartyTracker.org advertises itself as a site that “monitors racism and other forms of extremism within the Tea Party movement.”

According to the Daily Caller, the NAACP reached out to the various groups for help in compiling information implicating the Tea Party:

Media Matters and Think Progress representatives said their content and reporting haven’t changed and that the NAACP approached their organizations seeking only to republish select content they’ve produced. The NAACP’s new teapartytracker.org is aimed specifically at highlighting “racism” in the Tea Party.

New Left Media, the duo of Chase Whiteside and Erick Stoll who use a “Trojan trick” to get interviews with Tea Partiers, is also a partner organization on the new site.

As for what Media Matters, New Left Media, Think Progress and the NAACP plan to do with teapartytracker.org, Think Progress editor Faiz Shakir and Media Matters Vice President for Research and Communications Ari Rabin-Havt said the NAACP contacted them about sharing content related to the Tea Party.

Tea Partiers beware — the NAACP is watching you, and they now have a website where people can post “evidence” of racism and extremism.  But despite Andrew Breitbart’s offer of a sizable reward for solid evidence, there remains none. (NAACP Joins Left-Wing Groups to ‘Monitor’ Tea Party Groups; By Meredith Jessup; The Blaze, September 3, 2010 at 1:39am)

In their report, “Rage on the Right: The Year in Hate and Extremism,” Intelligence Report, Spring 2010, asserts that the Tea Party movement is “shot through with rich veins of radical ideas, conspiracy theories and racism.” They quote radical scribe Chip Berlet, who breathlessly charges, “We are in the midst of one of the most significant right-wing populist rebellions in United States history.” The SPLC goes on to complain that only 25 percent of respondents to a recent NBC News/ Wall Street Journal poll think the federal government can be trusted. And, according to the SPLC, another dangerous sign of the times is the introduction in 37 state legislatures of “Tenth Amendment Resolutions,” based on the constitutional provision keeping all powers not explicitly given to the federal government with the states. (Targeting the Tea Parties; By Wayne Lutton; The Social Contract Press, Volume 20, Number 3 (Spring 2010), Issue theme: "The Southern Poverty Law Center - A Special Report")

All of these fears that are actually propaganda lies from the Left are pointed to the Tea Party Movement. NOW, after the Occupy Movement is spreading across the nation, there is an extreme lack of reporting on the real violence and thuggery going on inspired by the Left.

Jeff Jacoby has written an article entitled, “Occupiers, Tea Partiers, and the Tenth Amendment.” Jacoby exposes this Leftist hypocrisy of accusing the Tea Party Movement rallies of all kinds of despicable acts when the reality is these dysfunctional Occupy kids not only have no idea what they are protesting but are receiving an education on how to protest from Left Wing interests that are promoting violence and anarchy against the legal authorities AND also exacting vandalism, theft and rape. I dare anyone that is not a lunatic that say this same action occurs at Tea Party Movement rallies.

JRH 11/4/11

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Occupiers, Tea Partiers, and the Tenth Commandment

By Jeff Jacoby

Nov 3, 2011 / 6 Mar-Cheshvan, 5772

Jewish World Review

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | At the Occupy Phoenix demonstrations, fliers encourage protesters to violently resist police officers, asserting that "you will usually have only two options: submit, or kill the cop." At Zuccotti Park in Manhattan, an Occupy Wall Street protester was sexually assaulted in her tent; according to the New York Post, a woman was raped at the same site a few weeks earlier. In Denver, "Occupy" activists turned on the police, screaming obscenities and knocking a motorcycle cop to the ground. Occupy Oakland grew even more violent, as police were pelted with bottles and rocks, and had M-80 firecrackers thrown at them. And in cities from Boston to Berkeley, Occupy encampments have coincided with surges in vandalism, assault, and theft.

Some individuals have strained to compare the Occupy Wall Street protests to the Tea Party movement. "They're not that different," President Obama told ABC's Jake Tapper. "Both on the left and the right, I think people feel separated from their government." The Daily Show's host Jon Stewart argued: "Here's a group of Americans, disenchanted, railing against big government bailouts. These protesters, how are they not like the Tea Party?"

But the contrast between the Occupiers and the Tea Partiers could hardly be greater. Tea Party rallies haven't turned public squares into squalid slums or incited protesters to curse the police. What the Occupy movement descended to in less than two months -- the hundreds of arrests, the vandalism, the anti-Semitic rants, the all-night drumming, the public urination -- is like nothing the American public saw in more than two years of Tea Party activism.

That isn't a fluke. When you flout the Tenth Commandment -- "Thou shalt not covet" -- things are apt to get ugly.

The ranks of both the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street are filled with the frustrated and the fed-up; both movements seek dramatic change in the nation's policies. But the values that propel them are poles apart. The Tea Partiers advocate limited government, personal responsibility, lower taxes, and economic freedom, all within a framework of constitutional restraint. What the Occupiers appear to want above all is to punish the wealthy, to demonize corporations, and to wallow in their own victimhood and sense of entitlement. They claim to represent "the 99 percent." Many would like to "Shut Down the 1 Percent."

Such class hostility pervades the Occupy movement. It is ubiquitous among the signs and chants at the demonstrations ("Wall Street Is Our Street," "Tax the Millionaires," "Human Need, Not Corporate Greed"). It is echoed by media cheerleaders as well. Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson last week condemned income growth among the highest-earning Americans as "theft," while NBC's David Gregory observed that the Occupiers' demands "dovetail nicely" into Obama's "big message ... of going after Wall Street and the banks, talking about unfairness."

Democratic pollster Douglas Schoen, interviewing some 200 Zuccotti Park protesters, found that most of them share "a deep commitment to left-wing politics: opposition to free-market capitalism and support for radical redistribution of wealth." They favor stiffer taxes on the wealthy (77 percent) and more regulation of business (70 percent), and 31 percent say they would engage in violence to advance their agenda.

The violence is not tangential to the agenda. As the mounting hooliganism at Occupy encampments suggests, where class resentment takes root, predatory lawbreaking frequently follows. When politicians rail against "millionaires and billionaires," when social-activist campaigns scapegoat the "1 percent," it is only a matter of time before thugs feel emboldened to steal, rape, and worse. Class envy is not benign. At its most extreme -- the communist tyrannies of Lenin and Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot -- it unleashed the bloodiest genocides of the 20th century.

Economic envy may cloak itself in rhetoric about "inequality" or "egalitarianism" or "redistribution of wealth," but its oldest name is covetousness. That is the sin enjoined by the last of the Ten Commandments: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house; thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his ass, or anything that is thy neighbor's."

At first blush it may seem odd that God would ban a mere desire. After all, the other nine commandments concern behavior: idolatry, theft, perjury, and so on. But as a matter of moral and social hygiene, the Tenth Commandment is indispensable. Covetousness -- particularly when it takes the form of class hatred -- is the root of innumerable other evils. From the belief that you don't have enough because others have too much, it isn't that great a stretch to the belief that those who have too much should be forced to make do with less. It shouldn't be surprising when a movement obsessed with what rich capitalists earn rather than with what they produce starts treating other people's property and persons with contempt.

Occupy Wall Street preaches that the "1 percent" got rich by exploiting the "99 percent." The Tea Party believes that with greater freedom and less government, we could all be more prosperous and productive. One is rooted in envy, the other in self-respect. What distinguishes them, you might say, is the culture of the Tenth Commandment. That distinction is showing up in many ways, not least in the latest police reports.

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Occupy Thugs and Tea Party Citizens

John R. Houk

© November 4, 2011

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Occupiers, Tea Partiers, and the Tenth Commandment

Jeff Jacoby is a Boston Globe columnist. Comment by clicking here.

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