Mark Steyn: "Live Tea or Die!"

As always, Mark Steyn offers his inimitable analysis on the issues of the day, in "Tea Party Animals Not Boiling Over":

The American media, having run their own business into the ground, are certainly qualified to run everybody else's into the same abyss. Which is why they've decided that hundreds of thousands of citizens protesting taxes and out-of-control spending and government vaporization of Americans' wealth and their children's future is no story. Nothing to see here. As Nancy Pelosi says, it's AstroTurf – fake grass-roots, not the real thing.

Besides, what are these whiners so uptight about? CNN's Susan Roesgen interviewed a guy in the crowd and asked why he was here:

"Because," said the Tea Partier, "I hear a president say that he believed in what Lincoln stood for. Lincoln's primary thing was he believed that people had the right to liberty, and had the right …"

But Roesgen had heard enough: "What does this have to do with your taxes? Do you realize that you're eligible for a $400 credit?"

Had the Tea Party animal been as angry as these Angry White Men are supposed to be, he'd have said, "Oh, push off, you condescending tick. Taxes are a liberty issue. I don't want a $400 'credit' for agreeing to live my life in government-approved ways." Had he been of a more literary bent, he might have adapted Sir Thomas More's line from "A Man For All Seasons": "Why, Susan, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world … but for a $400 tax credit?"

But Roesgen wasn't done with her "You may already have won!" commercial:

"Did you know," she sneered, "that the state of Lincoln gets $50 billion out of this stimulus? That's $50 billion for this state, sir."

Really? Who knew it was that easy? $50 billion! Did those Navy SEALs find it just off the Somali coast in the wreckage of a pirate skiff in a half-submerged treasure chest, all in convertible pieces of eight or Zanzibari doubloons?

Or is it perhaps the case that that $50 billion has to be raised from the same limited pool of 300 million Americans and their as yet unborn descendants? And, if so, is giving it to "the state of Lincoln" – latterly, the state of Blagojevich – likely to be of much benefit to the citizens?

Amid his scattershot pronouncements on everything from global nuclear disarmament to high-speed rail, President Obama said something almost interesting the other day. Decrying a "monstrous tax code that is far too complicated for most Americans to understand," the Tax-Collector-in-Chief pledged: "I want every American to know that we will rewrite the tax code so that it puts your interests over any special interests."

That shouldn't be hard. A tax code that put my interests over any special interests would read: "How much did you earn last year? [Insert number here] thousand dollars? Hey, feel free to keep it. You know your interests better than we do!"

OK, to be less absolutist about it, my interests include finding a road at the end of my drive every morning, and modern equipment for the (volunteer) fire department and a functioning military to deter the many predators out there, and maybe one or two other things. But 95 percent of the rest is not just "special interests" but social engineering – a $400 tax credit for falling into line with Barack Obama and Susan Roesgen. That's why these are Tea Parties – because the heart of the matter is the same question posed two-and-a-third centuries ago: Are Americans subjects or citizens? If the latter, then a benign sovereign should not be determining "your interests" and then announcing that he's giving you a "tax credit" as your pocket money.

Doing the job the Boston Globe won't do, Glenn Reynolds, the Internet's Instapundit, has been posting many photographs of tea parties. For a movement of mean, angry old white men, there seem to be a lot of hot-looking young chicks among them. Perhaps they're just kinky gerontophiliacs. Or perhaps they understand that their generation will be the principal victim of this grotesque government profligacy. Like the original tea party, it is, in the end, about freedom. Live Tea or die!

Read the whole thing at the link.

Photo Credit: Orange County Register:

Demonstrators hold up signs during a Tax Day Tea Party in Pleasanton, Calif., Wednesday, April 15, 2009. Protests took place around the country to demonstrate against recent bailouts and excessive government spending. Protesters gathered at state Capitols and in neighborhoods and town squares across the country Wednesday to kick off a series of tax-day protests designed to echo the rebellion of the Boston Tea Party. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma).

Russell Dunham, 89, World War II Veteran Awarded the Medal of Honor

I noticed the guys over at Protein Wisdom posted a couple of obituaries last week, for Harry Kalas (with an update for Marilyn Chambers) and Mark Fidrych. Be sure to check all the links.

I normally post obituaries on those who seemed to touch me in personal ways. I think Paul Newman was like that, although I never met the man. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid had a huge impression on me when I was a kid, so it's hard to lose even people like that, strangers who've meant something dear to me at one time.

Yet I'm often moved by the loss of others with whom I've had no personal connection. And so it is with Technical Sergeant Russell Dunham, a World War II veteran of the European theater who killed nine Germans singlehandedly on January 8, 1945. Here's the obituary from the Los Angeles Times' obituary:

Russell Dunham, a World War II Army veteran who was awarded the Medal of Honor, the military's highest decoration for valor, after he assaulted three German machine gun emplacements, killed nine German soldiers and took two prisoners, died of congestive heart failure Monday at his home in Godfrey, Ill. He was 89.

On Jan. 8, 1945, Tech. Sgt. Dunham's company, part of the 3rd Infantry Division, was facing a formidable German force at the small town of Kaysersberg, France, on the Franco-German border. The men were issued white mattress covers as camouflage in the deep snow.

Heavily armed, Dunham scrambled 75 yards up a snow-covered hill toward three German machine gun emplacements. He took out the first bunker with a grenade.

Advancing toward the second, he glanced around to call up his squad and a bullet hit him in the back, leaving a 10-inch gash. As he struggled to his feet, a grenade landed nearby; he kicked it away before it exploded.

He then crawled through the snow to the machine gun emplacement and lobbed his own grenade into the bunker, killing two Germans. His carbine empty, he leaped into the foxhole and hauled out a third enemy soldier by the collar.

In excruciating pain, his mattress-cover overcoat stained a conspicuous red, Dunham ran 50 yards to the third emplacement and took it out with a grenade. As German infantrymen began scrambling out of their foxholes, Dunham chased them down the back of the hill. He and his elder brother Ralph, who was in the same unit, encountered a fourth machine gun; his brother took it out.

A German rifleman who shot at Russell Dunham at point-blank range but missed became the ninth German he killed that winter morning.

His back wound had yet to fully heal when Dunham returned to the front. On Jan. 22, his battalion was surrounded by German tanks at Holtzwihr, France, and most of the men were forced to surrender.

Dunham hid in a sauerkraut barrel outside a barn but was discovered the next morning. As the two German soldiers who found him were patting him down, they came across a pack of cigarettes in his pocket and began fighting over it. They never finished their search, so they missed a pistol in a shoulder holster under his arm.

Later in the day, his two captors transported him toward German lines. The driver stopped at a bar, the second soldier's attention wandered and Dunham shot him in the head. He set off toward American lines in subzero temperatures.

By the time he encountered U.S. engineers working on a bridge over the Ill River, his feet and ears were frostbitten. A medic working to save his feet from amputation told him that the commanding officer had intended to recommend him for the Distinguished Service Cross but had changed his mind. The young man from Illinois, the officer had decided, deserved the Medal of Honor.

Dunham was born in East Carondelet, Ill., on Feb. 23, 1920, and grew up in Fosterburg, Ill. After the war, Dunham worked for 32 years as a benefits counselor with the Veterans Administration in St. Louis.

His marriage to Mary Dunham ended in divorce. His second wife, Wilda Long-Bazzell Dunham, died in 2002.

Survivors include a daughter from his first marriage, Mary Neal of Cobden, Ill.; two stepchildren, Annette Wilson of Godfrey and David Bazzell of Jarreau, La.; three sisters; and three granddaughters.

What struck me about Dunham is not just his bulldog fighting spirit, but especially the businesslike manner in which he killed his captor before heading back to American lines. When we fight, we fight to survive. Dunham's valor on the battlefield demonstrates it, but few people today outside of the armed forces understand it.

Rosa Brooks, Antiwar Radical, Appointed as Top Pentagon Advisor

I just found this at Blonde Sagacity: "Rosa Brooks: the Pentagon’s far left adviser":

In what has to be one of the most extreme appointments yet by the Obama Administration, ex-Los Angeles Times columnist and Georgetown law professor Rosa Brooks has just been made an adviser to Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michelle Fluornoy - a move Brooks describes as "my personal government bailout."Bailout is certainly the right word for someone who appears to have no relevant national security qualifications for the position. She does though have experience working as Special Counsel for George Soros's Open Society Institute in New York, and as a former adviser to Harold Koh, the hugely controversial nominee for Legal Adviser to the State Department.

Brooks' new boss Fluornoy holds one of the most powerful posts in the Pentagon, and is already playing a key role in shaping the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan as well as the wider war against al-Qaeda. She will also be a central figure in shaping U.S.-UK defence cooperation and Washington's policy towards NATO. As an adviser to Fluornoy, Brooks will wield an extraordinary degree of influence in helping shape U.S. policy. Her extreme views should therefore be closely scrutinized.
Brooks' description of the previous occupant of the White House as "our torturer in chief" is hard to square with President Obama's call for bipartisanship. Nor is her ludicrous comparison of the Bush Administration's legal arguments on the war on terror with Adolf Hitler's use of political propaganda.

She has also accused civilian White House and Pentagon officials from the last administration of being "eager to embrace the values normally exemplified by military juntas," while urging "military personnel to speak out, regardless of the cost, when they think our civilian leaders have gone beyond the pale" - little more than an open-ended call for the politicization of the armed forces.

Writing in the LA Times, Brooks has compared being a citizen in George W. Bush's America "to being a passenger in a car driven by a drunk driver," and compared the Bush Administration ("our local authoritarians") to the leaders of North Korea or Iran. Quite what Defense Secretary Robert Gates makes of all this hate-filled talk remains to be seen, especially as he is himself a former Bush official.

Brooks, a fierce opponent of the Iraq War, mocked the White House's "desperate flailing" and arguably belittled U.S. sacrifices in Iraq in a sarcastic 2006 piece she wrote at the height of attacks on Allied forces by al-Qaeda backed insurgents. She condescendingly noted in her article that "it's a good thing our troops have The Google over there - like Bush, they can use Google maps to recall how their hometowns look and wonder if they're going to make it back before this administration sends them on any more misconceived missions." She further argued that "with so many thousands dead, and so many thousands more embittered, 'winning' isn't really on the table anymore. The only question now is whether we can mitigate the damage."

Let's hope this is isn't the kind of advice the new administration takes on for the war in Afghanistan. In fact it is hard to think of a more inappropriate political appointment at a time when America needs a hard-headed approach to winning a global war instead of defeatist, far-left rhetoric.

This is precisely why I opposed candidate Obama last year, and for me, this stuff is a major reason why I've joined the Tea Party protests.

This administration's in the pocket of the radical left in this country.

Rosa Brooks has no business being anywhere near the Defense Deparment. This is a disgrace.

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Interesting Note: All of Brooks' posts have been removed from Democracy Arsenal, a far-left wing "progressive" foreign policy blog. And that's telling: Brooks has even less credibility if she can't even stand behind her own leftist netroots opinions.

Also, I missed Brooks' last column at the Times, becuase I rarely read the editorial page anymore (and I'm a subscriber!), but she goes out with a bang in calling of a government bailout for th e newspaper industry: "Bail out journalism: Other democracies pay for accurate reporting, so why shouldn't the U.S.?"

God, leftist demands for more bail outs, bail outs, bail outs ... more evidence for the Tea Parties.

Obama and Chavez: Birds of a Feather?

I'm snagging this photo of President Barack Obama and Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez from Protein Wisdom:

Here's this, from the Washington Post:

AT THIS weekend's Summit of the Americas in Trinidad, President Obama can expect to be importuned by Latin American leaders to go further than he already has to remove U.S. sanctions on Cuba. Leading the chorus - or trying to - will be Venezuela's Hugo Chávez, who has been propping up the hemisphere's oldest dictatorship with petrodollars ...

One odd aspect of this is that nothing much has changed in Cuba, despite the transfer of power from 82-year-old Fidel Castro to his 77-year-old brother Raúl. Political prisoners have not been released, nor have controls on the press been eased; desperate Cubans are still denied even the right to flee their country. Meanwhile, quite a lot has been happening recently in Venezuela, where democracy has been under relentless and escalating assault. The Latin presidents seemingly would prefer that Mr. Obama ignore this news while rewarding the oppressive stasis in Havana.

What has Venezuela's would-be "Bolivarian revolutionary" been up to while the U.S. media have been focusing on Cuba? Well, in the past month, his prosecutors and rubber-stamp legislature have brought corruption or treason charges against four of the opposition governors and mayors elected in November. Manuel Rosales, the mayor of Maracaibo, has gone into hiding to avoid arrest; former defense minister Raúl Baduel, who denounced Mr. Chávez as a dictator in the making, is already in jail. Opposition newspaper editor Teodoro Petkoff is under investigation for crimes allegedly committed in 1974.

Hat Tip: Dogwood Pundit.

Related: Jake Tapper, "Chavez Gifts Obama With Book That Assails U.S. for Exploiting Latin America" (via Memeorandum).

Congressman J. Gresham Barrett Booed at Greenville Tea Party

Here's the video from Greenville, South Carolina, where Congressman J. Gresham Barrett was booed:

See also, Michelle Malkin, "Another Republican booed by Tea Party protesters":

At the Greenville SC Tea Party last night, via Palmetto Scoop, an estimated 3,000 people booed and heckled GOP Rep. Gresham Barrett, who supported both the trillion-dollar TARP and now supports the trillion-dollar porkulus package. The crowd blew air horns as he tried to speak. Do you think the politicians are getting the message yet? And do you think someone in the MSM might grow up, stop wallowing in sexual teabagging jokes, and report these newsworthy developments? The anger at reckless spenders in Washington is palpable, deep-seated, bipartisan, nationwide, and not going away ...

And about those "teabagging jokes, "Nihilist Noon over at Lawers, Gays and Marriage* is taking Scott at Power Line to task for "his ineptitude with the spell checker" and his "apparent inability to use the intertubes to find stuff out." And that reference to the "intertubes" would be for Urban Dictionary's entry for "Teabagger," where it says:

Teabaggers do not feel it is their responsibility to provide for the lazy socialist liberals who pollute our great country.

Yep, that sounds about right! Thanks Buttercup!

* See, "David Hoogland Noon, Abominable Academic Wretch."

Full Metal Saturday: Tea Party Reach-Around

I thought it'd be fitting to do a Tea Party extravaganza for today's Full Metal Saturday (it's a "Right-Wing Reach-Around" post for anti-tax extremists!). The beautiful woman here is attending an event in Des Moines, Iowa, via Glenn Reynolds. Call Janet Napolitano! (Oh, wait, maybe not!)

For some perspective, via Robert Stacy McCain, William Jacobson offers a take on the left's backlash to the anti-tax demonstrations: "When Fascism Comes To America, It Will Look Like Tea Party Crashers."

Now, let's go to some of our friends: Freedom Eden provides a comprehensive Janeane Garafalo takedown, "Janeane Garofalo and Keith Olbermann: Racist Tea Party Goers," with transcription and video. Lance Burri, a Tea-Party blogging stalwart, took some time off for some "Rule 5" Padmi Lakshmi action! And well, so did Monique Stuart! ("Rule 5," not Padmi, that is.)

Now, check Joy Kennelly in Hermosa Beach for some hot Victoria Jackson resistance! And boy, does the former SNL hottie sure know how to piss off the lefties!

And speaking of hot, Duece at The Skeptocrats wants to know, "Are they watching Fox News with beer goggles? My outrage over “The 11 Hottest FOX News Reporters”." And Joy at Little Miss Attila show some links love to Ace of Spades on Tea Party "astroturfing." But don't miss my friend Joseph at Valley of the Shadow, who's getting into the spirit of '76! Speaking of valleys, Cranky Greg in Fresno has got some Central Valley Tea Party information as well (and lots more here).

Kate at an Ol' Broad's Ramblings reports that the Nashville Tea Party turnout hit 10,000 activists, and she's got an awesome roundup of additional Tea Party posts. Ol' Broad reports that activists are planning another rally for April 24! And for a bit of a surprise, our old buddy Texas Fred got up off his fanny to do some Tea Partying! Way to go Fred! Now, if you could just get back to work securing our southern border I'd be mightly obliged!

My friend Sarge Charlie's got some Tea Party photos ... no wait, it looks like Miss Bee's having a genuine tea party social, what the heck!

Okay, let's not get carried away!

Check out Dr. Rusty Shackleford, who's got some Dallas Tea Party action! And my good friend Skye is irrepressible! She and her Sheepdogs are getting together for another Tea Party in Philadelphia today! God, what a bunch of right-wing extremists! Hey, wait a minute: What about those left-wing extremists? They can't just run around shutting down free speech, you know! Er, better hold that thought for minute, yo Tom Tancredo! There's more on this: Check out Pundit & Pundette, "Media creeps should be fired for "tea-bagging" remarks." Also, Dave at Point of a Gun and Nice Deb have more!

Okay, that's getting back to some regular old politics, so check out Dan Collins', "Stacy McCain Rouses the Rabble." You got that right ... that's, "The Other McCain" who's been getting all of us conservative bloggers linked up with some raging reach-around blogging! Check out Smitty's Tea-Party-palooza to see what I mean!

Until next week!

And as always, e-mail me with any posts I may have missed, and I'll add them here!

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UPDATE: Hey, I almost forget the Third Party Tea Party guy! And The Rhetorican! Don't miss The Vegas Guy as well! Ditto for Sister Toldjah, "Revealed: Photos of “bitter Americans” in Escondido, CA.

And check out Stephen Green's analysis of the lefty Tea Party smear campaign, "Media Hacks Sandbag the Teabaggers," plus Sissy Willis, "The MSMs "day is done, yours is coming."

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UPDATE II: Check out a couple from Virginia: A Little Revolution has, "Richmond Tea Party," and Lynn from Virginia's, got "Silent Majority No More! Staunton's tea party in Gypsy Hill Park."

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UPDATE III: This just in from Doug at Political Pistacio, "Tea Parties Not About Republicans and Democrats." See also, Saber Point, "The Tea Party Aftermath: Vigorous Debate."

Jackbooted Tea Party Youth on the March!

Here's this young Tea Party sweetie I found at United Conservatives, "Richmond Tax Day Tea Party - Success!":

What a wonderful little darling! But wouldn't you know it: The leftist campaign to smear Tea Partiers as "extremist" continues, for example, with Sam Stein's essay at the Huffington Post, "Tea Party Fallout: Independents Turned Off, Some GOPers Worried" (via Memeorandum):

It's been two days now since angry conservatives hosted a series of tea parties across the country, and the fallout has some Republicans nervous.

While the anti-tax sentiment of the protests may have been sincere, the images pulled from the events have often been offensive, embarrassing, or politically problematic.

It is a development that has tripped up the GOP before. The rallies outside McCain-Palin events included some of the same bile that was seen at the tea parties: charges of fascism, terrorism and other malicious criticisms leveled at Barack Obama. And it did the Republican ticket little good in its efforts to bring moderate voters to the cause.

There's an inverse relationship here: The more intense is the leftist scourging of the grassroots Tea Parties, the more utterly terrified are members of the secular progressive left.

Barack Obama's in power now, and these stupid idiots are blaming the GOP for the "mess." Newsflash! It just ain't going to fly. The "blame Bush" game's going to be as effective as arguing that "caterpiller torture" is a war crime. What a freaking joke!

These folks are utterly clueless as to what's really going on in this country. Perhaps if some ACORN cadres actually infiltrated some the the rallies leftists could get a clue. In the meanwhile, the secular progressive media Solons will continue sit on their studio throwns and say ah, look at the "astroturfed" little people. We'll get them on a DHS watchlist just for their own good ...

Glenn Beck Hammers Charles Johnson

Michael van der Galien is my good blogging friend, but we're in disagreement about the internecine battles on the conservative right. A couple of weeks back, Michael suggesedt that conservatives "should stop going after" Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs.

In a post today, citing Beck's KILLER response to Johnson in his Fox News broadcast (above, at about 7:00 minutes), Michael sides with Little Green Footballs and he suggests that Beck's basically flipped his lid: "The best way to deal with such “loons” is to simply ignore them. Do not bash them, do not go after them. Let them do their thing while you do yours. Besides, even “crazies” are right every now and then."

The funny thing is, I was just having lunch a month or so ago with a former student who's now retired from the Navy. As I noted in an essay where I cite Beck's hypothetical "anarchy in America" scenarios, good people who are decidedly not crazy have enough legitimate concerns about the direction and stability of this nation that they're considering relocating and downsizing to a simpler life - my friend is thinking about a move to Montana or the Rocky Mountain States.

If Glenn Beck's insane, his imbalance is giving him unparalelled insights into the excesses, outrages, and perversions of American government today. If he seems overboard to some, well, folks need to get a grip themselves - that's the guy's schtick! He's going to push buttons and inflame sensitivities. If he's making irrational and unsubstantiated claims, yeah, call him out. But that's not what I see. I see Beck challenging so many of the orthodoxies that neither side is willing to challenge themselves. Charles Johnson doesn't like it, of course, because he's on some weird jihad against anyone who utters politically-incorrect unmentionables about Muslims and people of color. Gasp! You have voiced a negative word about radical Islam, ahh!, you're a fascist!

Johnson is entitled to his views, and I'm NOT druding up a confrontation with him, but there's little doubt that he's carried his war on the "extremist" right so far that's he's aiding and abetting those secular progressives who really do want to destroy our nation, and who are doing it one network newscast at a time. Indeed, the New York Times is a "training ground" for sectarian radicalism. And frankly, at some point people have to choose up sides.

Like Dan Collins, I'm with Beck on this, and I'm urging Charles Johnson to chill a little. Everyone's got something to say worth hearing, but when Andrew Sullivan starts pumping up the postings over at Little Green Footballs, folks might really want to think twice about not just the issues, but the stakes.

See also, Snooper Report, "Another Little Green Turtle Turd Moment."

Tea Party Activists: Make it Count!

I'm just so fired up with the Tea Party movement it's hard to pull away and focus on something else - but that's just a report, not an apology! I love it!

El Marco sent me his report from Denver on Wednesday night, "Evil Right Wing Extremists Who Would Destroy America Gather in Denver":

Also, Darleen Click has some beautiful shots from the Rancho Cucamonga Tea Party:

Also, Michelle Malkin's syndicated column is up, and she exorts conservatives to make it count, "The Million Taxpayer March":

Let’s use liberal math to calculate attendance at this week’s nationwide Tax Day Tea Party protests. When left-wing activists make crowd estimates, the algorithm is: Six figures = one million. An incomplete survey of newspaper accounts and organizer estimates pegged the Tea Party protest population at a minimum of 250,000. We can now, therefore, officially call it the Million Taxpayer March.

Or the Million Rightwing Extremists March if you work for the Department of Homeland Security.

To George Soros-funded grievance professionals, 250,000 is an insignificant number. But unlike recent anti-war and pro-illegal immigration rallies padded with union workers, college students, and homeless people, the Tax Day Tea Party demonstrations featured small business owners, working taxpayers, and families. This wasn’t a weekend or holiday, mind you. A quarter million people took time off in the middle of the work week to raise their voices against reckless taxing and bipartisan spending.

Read the whole thing, and God Bless Michelle Malkin!

Related: Bruce Bartlett tries to throw water on the movement, in "Tax Tea Party Time, Part Two" (via Memeorandum). But the notion that "it's all about taxes," seen in Bartlett's piece, misrepesents the diversity of outrage we're seeing on the ground.

Conservatives: Don't Give Up Marriage Fight!

Steve Schmidt, who was a top archictect of John McCain's campaign, and who served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Counselor to the Vice President in the Bush administration, has come out in favor of gay marriage. Schmidt is expected to call on the GOP to embrace the gay marraige agenda at the Log Cabin Republicans' convention today. Schmidt, according to the New York Times, "has a sister who is a lesbian, plans to say that there is nothing about gay marriage that is un-American or that threatens the rights of others and that in fact it is in line with conservative principles." Check the additional links at Memeorandum.

I don't know how the party's going to reconcile the "postmodern conservative" push by many top GOP officials and strategists, and as much as I love gay Republicans as fellow Americans, I see this ideological shift only strengthening the forces of sectarian radicalism on the left, and I'll continue to resist the gay marriage agenda.

Rod Dreher had a great interview with Maggie Gallagher earlier in the week, and she really captures what's happening on secular progressive gay rights front:

Rod Dreher: Maggie, you and I are on the same side of the gay marriage issue, but I am pessimistic about our chances for success. You, however, are optimistic. What am I missing?

Maggie Gallagher: Vaclav Havel mostly. "Truth and love wlll prevail over lies and hate." On that basis Havel took on the Soviet empire. Where is that invincible empire now?

Same-sex marriage is founded on a lie about human nature: 'there is no difference between same-sex and opposite sex unions and you are a bigot if you disagree'.

Political movements can--sometimes at great human cost and with great output of energy--sustain a lie but eventually political regimes founded on lies collapse in on themselves.

I don't think of myself as optimistic: just realistic. What does losing marriage mean? First the rejection of the idea that children need a mom and dad as a cultural norm--or probably even as a respectable opinion. That's become very clear for people who have the eyes to see it. (See e.g. footnote 26 of the Iowa decision).

Second: the redefinition of traditional religious faiths as the moral and legal equivalent of racists. The proposition on the table right now is that our faith itself is a form of bigotry.

Despair is gay marriage advocates' prime message point. All warfare, including culture war, is ultimately psychological warfare. You win a war when you convince the other side to give up.

So now you want to decide we've lost on an issue where, in the March 12 CBS News poll two-thirds of Americans agree with us. I mean, does this make sense?

Public opinion hasn't changed much at all. What's changed is the punishment the gay marriage movement is inflicting on dissenters, which is narrowing the circle of people willing to speak. This is a very powerful movement, no question. Nobody understands that better than I do.

But in the end--and this is not necessarily "optimistic" -I think civilizations that can't hang onto an idea as basic as to make a marriage you need a husband and a wife aren't going to make it in the long haul.

So I'm not worried about the progressive myth that 200 years from now gay marriage will be the new world norm. I'm somewhat more worried about the kind of cultures around the world that might survive. It's not clear to me they'll have the virtues of American civilization for gay people or anyone else.

Really, this marriage idea has been around for a long time. I think it has legs.

Finally there's a third reason I'm not in despair. I've learned from five years in this fight--especially the last two years--that there are many things I can do that make a difference. I was told--by good people who agree with me, really smart people too--that California was impossible; you can't raise the money, nobody cares about marriage, if you get it on the ballot, we'll lose anyway because there's a generational shift. And none of that turned out to be true. Here's the good news: as civilization collapses the opportunities for intelligent and committed people to make a profound difference actually increase.

People are flocking to the National Organization for Marriage (www.nationformarriage.com), not because we try to scare them about how bad things are going to be--but because we offer them a chance to come together with other people of all races, creeds and colors to stand up for a core and timeless good.

Here's what I know that maybe you can't see: There are enormous untapped energies out their waiting for someone to organize them effectively.

The entire interview is avaible at the link.

California is "Fertile Ground" for Anti-Tax Demagoguery!

Pat in Shreveport offers her "Final Reflections on the Nation's Tea Parties." But I'll tell you what: I'm just getting going, LOL!

Seriously, I'm looking at this from the political science perspective, and that's why I'm interested in the theme of Jim Geraghty's post this morning, "Where Do the Tea Parties Go From Here?" Geraghty focuses on the local level, and updates with a letter from reader Teresa in Virginia, who notes:

Our Board of Supervisors have been drunk on spending the last few years. They raised all taxes including an enormous increase on declining home values two years ago. Last night they met to vote on the budget. They have a shortfall of over two million due to exorbitant spending sprees in the last year. In this small community over two hundred citizens showed up to protest any tax increases. It worked. The real estate taxes will not go up this year, although personal property taxes will rise. Unfortunately most of the board members are Republicans. For two hundred people to show up at a board meeting here is unprecedented. Citizen outrage matters.

This is what's going to bring about a more state-centered federal system, and California's going to be a leading laboratory on this question over the next month. We're going to have a huge debate over Proposition 1A, which is a ballot proposal to raise $12.5 billion for the state, which is supposed to be "a temporary two-year extension of an already-agreed-to two-year tax hike." George Skelton, at the Los Angeles Times, notes that some Assembly Republicans are pushing the measure, and then writes off popular anti-tax sentiment as hysteria: "Voter anger at the economy and disgust with dysfunctional Sacramento provide fertile ground for anti-tax demagoguery."

Yeah. Right. "Demagoguery." This measure's got the support of less that 4 in 10 Californians. According to the Public Policy Insitute:

About four in 10 support the measure (39% yes, 46% no, 15% undecided) to change the budget process by increasing the state “rainy day” fund. Less than half say the measure would be very (7%) or somewhat (38%) effective in helping California avoid future state budget deficits.

The California budgetary process has been out of control for years, under both parties. Taxing more to "shrink" the government sounds almost like science fiction, but that's what being proposed.

For more information, see California Tax Revolt 2009.

Image Credit: Gay Patriot, "Reader Reports from Pasadena Tea Party."

Collectivists Against Tea Parties

I've been ignoring the left's despicable treatment of the patriots who turned out by the hundreds of thousands on Wednesday for the Nationwide Tax Day Tea Party rallies (see Maggie's Farm's roundup).

Mona Charen lays out the media's total irrelevance, in "CNN Versus the Tea Parties." But I had to share with readers this letter I found at yesterday's Seattle Times:

I am appalled by these manufactured tea-party protests ... That there are Americans who are so self-centered that they have no sense of responsibility to America is repulsive.

We live in a country that asks very little of us in the way of sacrifice. There is no draft for national military service to protect this country. There is no requirement that we offer a certain amount of volunteering to make this country a better place.

All that is asked of our citizens is that we provide a small amount of the money we earn to share the cost of basic necessities that would be exorbitantly expensive for each of us alone.

I cannot afford a private firefighting force, but by paying my taxes, I can share in the cost of a fire department that protects my family and me.

I cannot afford a single private acre of recreational land, but by paying my taxes, I can share in the cost of a national-park system that includes such glories as Mount Rainier, Crater Lake and Yellowstone.

I cannot afford private tutors for my children, but by paying my taxes, I can share in the cost of a public-education system that makes a promise to all, not just a few.

Perhaps these elite tea-bag protesters can afford all these things out of their dividend earnings and their offshore bank accounts. But for us ordinary working Americans, we'll do things the old-fashioned way - through hard work and shared sacrifice.

-- Andrew Hummel-Schluger, Briar

This comment leads the "Letters to the Editor." It's pretty revealing of how this "shared responsibility" mentality gets full play in our collectivist media, to say nothing of the dumb mindset among folks on the left, who call patriots "irresponsible" and who refuse to "sacrifice." Dave Endler, a Vietnam veteran who participated at a Yorba Linda rally, might take issue with that. I'd say Andrew Hummel-Schluger needs to get out more often.

See also, Pamela Gellar, "Corrupt Media 'Teabags' the Tea Parties," and Glenn Reynolds' roundup of yesterday's events at Instapundit, via Memeorandum.

Photo: That's me at the Orange County Tax Day Tea Party. It was just after 11:00am. Folks were just getting organized, and participants were beginning to arrive. By about noon you could barely walk around the plaza, it was so packed with demonstrators. The Bay City Rollers performed the Beatles' Revolution and other songs between speakers.

In case you missed it, be sure to read my essay at Pajamas Media, "Suburban Warriors Rally at Orange County Tea Party."

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UPDATE: Moe Lane e-mails with the link to Welcome to FundRace 2008, with a search for "Andrew Hummel-Schluger."

Adds Moe, "Not to go all class-conscious, here - but since when has being the Associate Director for Academic Data Management for the University of Washington been a job associated with 'ordinary working Americans?'"

Here's Hummel-Schluger's page at the Registrar's Office, and he's on Facebook.

Southern Tea Parties

This is Robert Stacy McCain speaking to the crowd of demonstrators at Wednesday's Tuscaloosa Tax Day Tea Party on the quad of the University of Alabama campus (video here).

Also, here's Jeff Emanuel's esssay at Pajamas Media, "What the Tea Parties Represent" (Emanuel spoke to a crowd of 400 in Macon, Georgia) :

On Wednesday, over 200,000 ordinary Americans gathered at nearly 1,000 locations around the country. Fed up with high taxes, increasing debt, and expanding government encroachment into their private lives, they gathered to express their displeasure with the Obama administration’s policies and to rally around conservative ideas to push for a new way forward for America ....

The reaction from liberal media and pundits to this widespread demonstration of and for traditional American values was predictable, to say the least. With that most ingrained and dependable of leftist traits — projection — on full display, liberals from California to Capitol Hill, including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D), declared these hundreds of grassroots gatherings to be “astroturfed” – events funded by “corporate front groups” – and (according to one senior Democratic aide) attended by “neo-Nazis,” “secessionists,” and “racists.”

How far we’ve come from 2008, when “community organizers” were being compared to Jesus (and government executives to Pontius Pilate) and dissent and protest were being hailed as the highest possible forms of patriotism!

Read the whole thing at the link.

See also, Gateway Pundit, "Gutter Journalism: Angry Mainstream Media Reporters Use Nasty Sexual Slang to Describe Tea Party Protesters (Video)," via Memeorandum.

Caterpiller Torture! The Horrors!

The secular progressives are screeching in deranged disappointment tonight over the release of new Bush "torture memos" released by the Justice Department.

Yes, it turns out that in all of their angst, the leftists are crestfallen now that Candido Conde-Pumpido, Spain's top prosecutor, "has rejected opening an investigation into whether six Bush administration officials sanctioned torture against terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, saying Thursday a U.S. courtroom would be the proper forum."

Spain's attorney general obviously knows more about international politics than the idiots of the radical left.

I must admit, though, having "insects placed in a confinement box" with a remorseless terrorist jihadi killer is absolutely inhumane. God, that's worse the waterboarding - the horrors!

Republicans and the Tea Parties

This gentleman was hanging out early at the Orange County Tea Party, just kicking it along the back wall of the plaza. When I asked if I could take his picture he snapped to attention with the respect of general inductee:

Can the GOP reach out to a guy like this? That's a limited government manifesto he's sporting there!

Karl Rove offers his take, "Republicans and the Tea Parties":

Yesterday was Tax Day, and it was marked by large numbers of Americans turning out for an estimated 2,000 tea parties across the country. This movement is significant ....

The open question is whether Republicans will be boosted by the nascent tea-party movement. House Republicans smartly offered a proposed spending plan this year that would freeze nondefense discretionary spending, suspend earmarks for five years, and reform entitlements. But cutting spending won't be enough. Taxes matter -- and will matter more in the coming years.

The 2009 Tax Foundation survey found that Americans believe that taxes should, on average, take just 15.6% of a person's wages. And 88% of Americans in the same poll believe that there should be a cap on all federal, state, and local taxes of 29% or less -- there is still a constituency out there that will favor tax cutting politicians.

But to tap into that constituency Republicans will have to link lower taxes to money in voters' pockets, and economic growth and jobs. They must explain why the GOP approach will lead to greater prosperity. Such arguments are not self-executing. They require leaders to make them, time and again, as Reagan once did.

Some liberals believe that the recession has made tax-and-spend issues passé. But political movements are often a reaction against aggressive overreach by those in power. Mr. Obama's response to the financial crisis -- a government power grab and budget explosion -- has put spending and taxes back on the front burner. The tea parties are an early manifestation of that. More is sure to follow.

Sounds good.

See also, The Sundries Shack, "The Picture Every American Should See."

Tea Parties: Among Most Extraordinary Grass-Roots Uprisings in History

Investor's Business Daily argues that Wednesday's Tea Parties "were part of one of the most extraordinary grass-roots uprisings in our history":

Less than three months after a landmark election, throngs of demonstrators everywhere gathered to object to the revolution that our new president is steamrolling into law. It was a landmark protest in the history of the republic.

But how can the voices of tens if not hundreds of thousands of angry taxpayers be turned into concrete political action?

Investor's Business Daily attended one of these historic events, the Fishkill Tea Party in upstate New York, just east of the Hudson River. The original Fishkill Tea Party took place Aug. 26, 1776, when 100 women forced a storekeeper named Abram Brinckerhoff to sell them tea at the lawful price of 6 shillings per pound. This year's Fishkill Tea Party nearly filled Dutchess Stadium, the county's minor-league ballpark.

In a region of liberal New York state where Democrats have been consolidating their power during the last two elections, thousands traveled long distances to support pretty much the classic Reagan political agenda — and not just on taxes and spending.

Banners and placards sported slogans that included "Don't Spread My Wealth. Spread My Work Ethic," "Who'll Bail Me Out?" "Atlas Will Shrug," "Tea Today. No Kool-Aid," and "Acorn Didn't Have To Bus Us Here," referring to the left-wing activist group that specializes in voter registration drives benefiting liberal Democrats.

The crowds responded with thunderous applause to the various local activists' rallying cries, ranging from "How about those Navy Seals!" referring to the recent rescue of Americans from Somali pirates, to attacks on Hollywood for its role in moving America away from traditional Judeo-Christian values.

The audience roared when resentment was expressed toward illegal aliens who eat away the social welfare resources funded by taxpayers. When unemployed information technology manager Troy Johnson took the podium, he elicited an ovation with the quip:

"Just to prove how radical I am, I believe we should all be speaking English!"

The throng cheered calls for term limits to curb the power of elitist career politicians; applauded taunts that the establishment media would proceed to underestimate and misreport the size of the turnout; shouted in approval for blocking the president's planned federal intrusion into health care; and rose from its seats for a speaker who called Washington's march toward socialism "a slap in the face to those who have served in the military."

It was quite clear, however, that the tea partiers feel betrayed by Republicans, not just the Democrats now in power in both the executive and legislative branches in Washington.

There's more at the link.

I noted this morning that the GOP has just as much to fear from the Tea Parties as do the Democrats. See my my essay at Pajamas Media, "Suburban Warriors Rally at Orange County Tea Party."

See also, "Cable Anchors, Guests Use Tea Parties as Platform for Frat House Humor," via Memeorandum.

Rightwing Extremists!

Here's a couple of "right-wing extremists" for you, Melissa Clouthier and Kathleen McKinley at Houston's Tea Party yesterday:

See their posts, "Tea Bag Envy and the Left’s Lack of Imagination" (Mellissa), and Dear Rightwing Extremists (Kathleen).

See also, Instapundit for lots of Tea Party information, and Michelle Malkin!

Atlas is Shrugging: A Tea Party Roundup

Well, I'm travelling today to Fresno to spend the weekend with family, so here's more Tea Party blogging to tide things over until this evening.

This is one of my favorite signs from the "Orange County Tax Day Tea Party":

The Los Angeles Times finally did a big story on the protests. But notice how the paper continues the media's leftist framing of the events by spinning the rallies as a right-wing fringe movement, starting with the title of the report: "Republicans Stage Tea Party' Protests Against Obama."

So, let's check out some of the bloggers covering the story. Doug Ross covers the CNN/Susan Roesgen controversy, in "Tea Parties, Code Pink and the sickness of the MSM":

Nearly 200,000 Americans showed up to protest high taxes in hundreds of cities around the country today.The New York Times and The Boston Globe ignored "Tea Parties" altogether. ABC and CBS reporters were nowhere to be found. NBC, on the other hand, simply made obscene references - using a tea-related colloquialism - to express its corporate disgust with America's founding principles.

Doug has the transcribed Susan Roesgen's totally unprofessional "interview" with a Tea Party dad at the Chicago rally (see also, "CNN Correspondent Claims Tea Parties 'Anti-Government,' 'Anti-CNN'").

Truly unreal...

More from around the nation:

* Infidels Are Cool, "Pics from the Santa Ana Tea Party."

* Michelle Malkin, "Massive: Tax Day Tea Party USA; Updated."

* Midnight Blue Says, "April 15th - Tea Party Day."

* Moe Lane, "Back from the DC Tax Day Tea Party."

* Nice Deb, "Kansas City Tax Day Tea Party."

* Paco Enterprises, "Tea Party, Lafayette Park, Washington, D.C."

* Pat's Daily Rants, "Anti Tax Tea Day Wrap Up/I'm a Right Wing Terrorist?"

* Point of a Gun, "From The Party."

* Pundit & Pundette, "DC Tea Party pic's *updated and expanded*."

* Robert Stacy McCain, "'Bama Tea: How Big Is Huge?"

* Samantha Speaks, "The Tea Party."

* SWAC Girl, "Silent Majority No More! Staunton's tea party in Gypsy Hill Park."

I wish I could post more!

But I'll be back online later tonight.

Orange County Tax Day Tea Party

Well, I'm back from the Orange County Tax Day Tea Party, held at Plaza of the Flags, at the Santa Ana Civic Center.

The Orange County Register has a report, "Activists Blast Government at Anti-Tax Protests."

Here's a few photos:

This is the best crowd shot I could get. The Register piece says "hundreds" of protester attended the event, but I'm betting the number was closer to a couple of thousand:

This is Andrew Breitbart and his father-in-law, Hollywood actor Orson Bean. Breitbart headlined the list of speakers. He railed against the liberal press (the "Democratic Media Industrial Complex"), and suggested that most of tonight's network news coverage would focus on Janet Napolitano's DHS report that puts nearly half of the American electorate on "a waiting list for far right-wing domestic terrorism":

Jim Gilchrist, the Minuteman founder, was cruising around the rally:

And here's yours truly, Americaneocon. My youngest son colored the sign last night, and my oldest son took the picture:

I'll post more photos later, as well as more details on the event.

April 15th: Time for Some Tax Day Tea Partying!

Not suprisingly, USC's Marc Cooper, at the Los Angeles Times, says of today's Nationwide Tax Day Tea Party rallies: "I can recall only a few outbreaks of such collective insanity as these tea parties in recent years." The article is here (plus the links at Memeorandum). Cooper wraps up thing with this: "The Tea Party movement, more than anything else, is a rather garish display of a Republican right that seems to have lost not only the national elections but also any semblance of political bearings."

The leftist smears are getting old, and they've become more strident as today's big rallies approached.

In any case, Patrick Ruffini has published a great (non-crazy) analysis of the movement, "Tea Party '09: The Rise of the Right's New Distributed Online Activism":

By the standards of the Obama campaign and MoveOn.org, the Tea Parties happening all across the country are not very organized. Contra Talking Points Memo, no single group "owns" or is instigating tomorrow's events. The closest thing one could call to a centralized Tea Party homepage is Eric Odom's TaxDayTeaParty.com. Freedom Works has popularized a Google Map which has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times that's become the unofficial directory of the event. Newt Gingrich is driving attendance through his American Solutions (a/k/a Drill Now) list, as are a myriad of other groups.

Contrast this to a MoveOn or MyBO (now OFA) mobilization during the election. A single group would send out a call for a single day of action to its massive e-mail list (in MoveOn's case, this would go to 5 million people; in Obama's, to 13 million people). They would direct people to an online event planning tool, which would either have the hallmarks of MoveOn's internal toolset or the Blue State Digital "PartyBuilder" toolset. Host and attendee information would be hosted on a centralized database. Reminder e-mails would be sent at timed intervals through the same technology. It would be a relatively clean, seamless, and centralized process.

Nothing of the sort has happened with the tea parties, at least from a technology and logistics perspective. Organizers have had to self-report their events to various national groups. One group claims credit for putting one set of events; another group for a different set. It's a much messier process that belies the stereotype of the right as a group of mindless automatons.

This is why it's amusing to watch the left try to debate Jon on the charge of "astroturf." MoveOn virtually invented massively replicable online grassroots organizing -- which many would equate with astroturf, in that activity is actually being directed by a few people at the top, and thousands of people on the ground are (willingly) following orders.

If there are talking points, sample agendas, syncronized start and end times, or standard branding and collateral for the tea parties, I haven't seen them. When Tom Matzzie and Eli Pariser did it old school and decided to send an e-mail to drive people to, say, an Iraq War vigil, they instantly created a level of organization we haven't yet seen in the tea party movement.

And that's okay.

The lack of coordination is a sign of a still-young movement that's just learning to organize online in earnest. And arguably, the advantage brought by a massive e-mail list is much impressive now than when MoveOn pioneered the practice in 2002 and 2003, its heyday.

Read the whole thing, at the link.

The Washington Post also has a take on this, "Tea Parties a Test of Conservative Online Organizing."

But for the best evidence of the collective clarity of what's happening, stayed tuned with Michelle Malkin and Glenn Reynolds.

I'll have more this afternoon!