Thursday, April 22, 2010

Anti-Government Extremists Guilty of Sedition?

By Douglas V. Gibbs

I don't get the opportunity to watch television often, but a couple days ago I was able to sit down with a meal and watch a portion of the Sean Hannity show on Fox News. One of Hannity's segments on his show is called "The Great American Panel." Bob Beckel, a truly loony liberal, and the guy who was the campaign manager for Walter Mondale's 1984 presidential campaign, is usually one of the three panel members, and sometimes Bob is joined by another Democrat Party sympathizer.

On the particular episode I was watching, a woman sat on the panel closest to Sean. I don't even remember her name, but her sense of style was a combination of 60s existentialism, and today's attempt to be a modern hippie. Anyway, she was especially bananas when it came to liberal thinking, and when the topic of the Tea Party activists came up, an obvious look of contempt toward the Tea Party Movement appeared on her face through her use of facial expressions.

In reference to the Tea Party folks, the woman on the panel said, "...and these people have no problem using police and fire services."

I was surprised that Hannity, nor his lone ally on the panel, made a comment about the liberal woman's statement. I realize that Sean is not tuned in very well to some of the more intricate matters of politics, but his failure to respond caught me by surprise because this was an obvious reference to the idiotic thought by the Left that the Tea Party rallies are acts of anti-government sedition, or that the right wing promotes anarchy.

In reality, the woman's statement revealed how ignorant she is. I am assuming she has fallen into the false belief that the Tea Party Movement is a violent bunch of radicals, ready to storm the Capitol with guns in hand as part of some racist takeover of the American government.

If she believes something along those lines, it would be truly hilarious.

By making the quip that the Tea Party folks use police and fire services is a round-about way of saying that the people that attend these rallies are anarchists, and may even possibly be an attempt to connect Conservatives to mobs similar to the secular lunatics that brought about the French Revolution. If the woman had half a brain, however, she would understand that folks on the Right argue that government is necessary, but that government should be limited to the role the people allows it to have. The federal government is there to serve the states, not the other way around. The states gave the federal government the allowance to exist, and the federal government exists only for the purpose of protecting, and promoting, the union of states. Police and fire services are local functions, anyway, and should be free of any federal funding or controls.

The problem is that liberalism celebrates the power of government. This is called Nationalism, which is the same fervor that has enabled authoritarian systems of the past to rise to power. Such power in the hands of the government enables the government to stop fearing the people, and the whole thing turns around so that the people fear the government. When the people fear the government, you cease to live in a free society, and the growing monstrosity becomes a tyranny.

I do not believe this is a tyranny yet, but Obama and the Congressional Democrats are on the road to making it so if left alone to completely do their bidding. One of the clues is the fact that the use of the word "sedition" is being used by the Left against anyone that opposes the liberal ideology. This is how authoritarianism works. They don't win on policy, they win on putting down the opposition.

A few liberal critics of this site use the same tactic.

The next question should be, if the argument by the Right is sedition, what is the next step of the government? What have governments of the past, with authoritarian leanings, done to quell sedition?

And they call us the violent ones.

To use words like sedition to describe dissent, over questioning the government's policies and preparing to use the electoral process to oust the regime in place, is a set-up. It gives the Left the opportunity to take action of violence and censorship against the Right with an excuse that "We were just trying to control those violent radicals who wish to bring down the government."

If you wish to read about past examples of similar tactics used against folks voicing their dissent against authoritarianism, look up Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot, Hitler. . .

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

No comments: