Addressing Liberal Ignorance

By Douglas V. Gibbs

This morning a commenter named Montana left a comment that was not vile enough to delete, but not sensible enough to approve. In fact, it was downright typical liberal ignorance. So, for the fun of it, I have decided to dissect it and maybe educate this small mind, and perhaps a few other leftist knuckleheads while we are at it.

So that the individual cannot say I took him out of context, here is the comment in its entirety.

Montana; Tuesday, March 30, 2010,9:12:52 AM

This is what happens when you have too many whitecastle munchies? Since their inception the Teaparty crowd (not a movement since they do have the numbers or clout) have been “haters not debaters”. In my opinion this is what the small portions of the republican party of “birthers, baggers and blowhards” have brought you. They are good at “Follow the Leader” of their dullard leaders, they listen to Beck, Hedgecock, Hannity, O’Reilly, Rush and Savage and the rest of the Blowhards. Are you surprise at what they do when you know what they think? The world is complicated and most republicans (Hamiliton, Lincoln, Roosevelt) believe that we should use government a little to increase social mobility, now its about dancing around the claim of government is the problem. The sainted Reagan passed the biggest tax increase in American history and as a result federal employment increased, but facts are lost when mired in mysticism and superstition. Although some republicans are trying to distant themselves from this fringe most of them are just going along and fanning the flames. Lets face it the Republicans had 8 years to deal with health care, immigration and financial oversight and governance and they failed. They could not even win one of the two wars they started, the body bags are still coming in. The Republicans wanted to give Obama his Waterloo defeat over healthcare but instead they gave themselves their own Waterloo defeat by not participating in the debate of ideas and by becoming the party of obstructionist. But they now claim they have changed, come on, what sucker is going to believe that?

Okay, now let's pick this thing apart line by line and expose how much of an unimformed boob this commenter really is:

---This is what happens when you have too many whitecastle munchies?

The very first sentence tells us a lot about the commenter. First of all, the commenter is an assumer. He (or she) assumes I have the foggiest idea what a White Castle even is. I've heard of them from a couple people before, but have never eaten their food, walked into their restaurant, or seen one of their locations from the distance. If the commenter had taken a look at my bio he would have noticed that I live in the greater Los Angeles area. The closest White Castle restaurant is in Missouri. If the commenter is not willing to do a little research in that regards, what is there to make me think that he has done any research regarding the remainder of his comment? Immediately, I recognized that this person's entire post is probably based on nothing but assumptions based on his own biased opinions that were forged by his unstable political ideology, and the rhetoric he more than likely listens to on liberal radio and/or television. What this means is any "fact" this person proclaims cannot be trusted.

---Since their inception the Teaparty crowd (not a movement since they do have the numbers or clout) have been “haters not debaters”.

The first thing I noticed was, as with "White Castle," when the commenter wrote "Tea Party" he merged the two words together into one word. I dismissed the instance in the first sentence because everyone is entitled to the occasional typo. But this commenter has now done this twice in two sentences. I believe this reveals many possibilities. One possibility is that the commenter is uneducated. Considering the "substance" (or lack thereof) of his comment in totality, a lack of any decent education beyond the third grade crossed my mind. Another possibility is that the commenter is stupid. I decided that stupidity was not the case because he at least has enough brains to read Political Pistachio, which means the individual can be taught. The third possibility is the one I am clinging to the most. It seems to me, based on the fact that he "assumes," and failed to research where I am before making his White Castle remark, he failed to split "White Castle" and "Tea Party" into two words because he doesn't care enough to pay attention to detail. If he is not willing to pay attention to detail in the simple matter of the written language, what makes me think he was willing to pay attention to the facts before making his long-winded, fantasy induced comment?

In parentheses in the second sentence the commenter indicates that the Tea Party Movement is not a movement because they have numbers and clout. Is this an admission that the Tea Party Movement isn't just some small, minority fringe group as most liberals claim?

Finally, in the second sentence Montana calls the Tea Party people "haters, not debaters." This is interesting, because it is an age old tactic used by the left. Anytime liberals face opposition, they always call those that oppose them haters or racist, and accuse them of not debating. MSNBC is famous for the "debating" fallacy, having conservatives on their programs, asking questions that require more than a yes or no answer, and then throwing their hands up because the guest did not answer yes or no.







And MSNBC freaks out anytime they can't do their job right (which is just about all the time). . .




Wow, almost sounded like Biden and Rahm Emanuel with all of those F-Bombs, didn't it?



---In my opinion this is what the small portions of the republican party of “birthers, baggers and blowhards” have brought you.

In this sentence not only does the commenter resort to ridiculous name calling that means nothing (baggers?), but contradicts himself. Remember, the commenter had just said the Tea Party is not a movement because it is too big to be one, but now in the very next sentence says the Tea Partiers are "the small portions of the republican party." Interestingly enough, it also reveals the commenter's ignorance, since the Tea Party has been explicitly clear that it is not a Republican Movement. In fact, most Tea Party activists are dang near as angry at the Republicans as they are the Democrats. The movement is about principles, not people - ideas, not political parties. And if any of you have attended a Tea Party, you know that the events attract all kinds, not just "Republicans."

---They are good at “Follow the Leader” of their dullard leaders, they listen to Beck, Hedgecock, Hannity, O’Reilly, Rush and Savage and the rest of the Blowhards.

Once again the commenter shows his ability to assume without doing any research. Most folks who like Beck are not necessarily fans of Savage, for example. Hannity earns a split opinion among Tea Party folks and Conservatives because (as I have been told by many of my fellow Constitutional Conservatives) Hannity has this tendency to start hammering away if the guest doesn't answer his questions directly. Hedgecock has a very limited audience, and so few are regular listeners. In fact, I was surprised when I saw he was invited to ride with the Tea Party Express III. I only know of him because I listened to him occasionally when I lived in San Diego during my Navy days, and to be honest, I don't consider him a full fledged Conservative. Hedgecock, to my knowledge, does not enjoy play in the Los Angeles area. O'Reilly is another one that gets mixed reviews, and is not a Republican or a Conservative. He is a self-proclaimed independent, is at odds with Conservatives on some issues (like the death penalty), and his temper has a tendency to turn off a lot of people. Rush Limbaugh, however, is a favorite, but once again, not among "all" conservatives. Interestingly enough, the commenter assumes that if you agree with those people on an issue, that means you are following the leader, and not thinking for yourself. Does that mean since the commenter agrees with Olbermann, Matthews and Maher that he is unable to think for himself too? Funny thing is, often I say things on my own radio show before the guys listed above do, and then I joke that they must use my show for show prep. If I am following them, how is it that I often beat them to the punch?

---Are you surprise at what they do when you know what they think?

Montana left the "d" off at the end of surprised, but I will give him the benefit of the doubt that it was a typo. But the statement is very general. What they do? Tell me, Montana, what do Tea Party people do?

---The world is complicated and most republicans (Hamiliton, Lincoln, Roosevelt) believe that we should use government a little to increase social mobility, now its about dancing around the claim of government is the problem.

This sentence is absolutely hilarious. I love it when the liberals say things are complicated (so complicated he can't even spell Hamilton). That is their way of trying to say they get it, but the little minds of the Right just can't understand all of the complicated facts. In reality, it is all very simple, and the liberal mind is too flooded with bad ideology to recognize the simplicity. Also, I must remind the commenter that the Tea Party is not about the Republican Party, it is about the limiting principles of the U.S. Constitution. As for the historical names he threw up, it shows how ignorant this boob really is. Hamilton was not a Republican, he was a Federalist. Federalists believed in bigger, more centralized government, and due to their radical ideas, the party faded away by the 1820s. Lincoln's complete disregard for the Constitution makes him very unpopular among Conservatives that have studied Lincoln's presidency. His willingness to try to use the federal government to force the Southern States into abolishing slavery resulted in not only a number of unconstitutional decisions, but also resulted in the unnecessary death of 700,000 men in the War Between the States. Abolitionist movements were already under way in the Southern States, and those movements, coupled with the invention of the Cotton Gin, would have resulted in the elimination of slavery in the United States within the next ten to fifteen years after the beginning of Lincoln's presidency without all of the bloodshed, and without the federal government stomping all over state's rights. As for Roosevelt (I assume he means Teddy), Teddy Roosevelt was a big time progressive, and is a hated historical figure among conservatives.

Montana is also ignorant of the history of the parties. When the Federalist Party died the Whigs took their place as the big government party, and the Republican Party was also a big government party until about the time Taft took office. During the 1800s the Democrats were Jeffersonians, believing in the principles of a limited federal government. Woodrow Wilson, a far left radical, changed the Democrat Party forever, steering it forever away from the limiting principles it had championed for over a hundred years. The only president since Wilson in the Democrat Party that even came close to not being a far left liberal was Kennedy. As for the GOP, despite its move towards limiting principles, in reality only three Republicans have been truly conservative, Harding, Coolidge, and Reagan. The rest, as much as I hate to say it, were students of big government (though some of them showed a little bit of conservatism here and there).

---The sainted Reagan passed the biggest tax increase in American history and as a result federal employment increased, but facts are lost when mired in mysticism and superstition.

If Montana was a regular reader of this site he would know that I have addressed that a number of times. First of all, the facts Montana is presenting are wrong. Reagan, you must remember, did not increase taxes, the tax increase Montana is referring to, I believe, is from Daddy Bush's presidency - which contradicted his "no new taxes" pledge. There was, however, an increase of spending that occurred during Reagan's presidency (in fact, spending tripled during the Reagan Years), but it was the Democrats in Congress that proposed all of that spending. Reagan's problem is he did not veto any of it, as he should have. Reagan, however, cut taxes drastically, and as a result we experienced one of the greatest periods of prosperity in American History. Those facts that Montana says are lost and mired are facts he apparently doesn't understand. Maybe it is all too "complicated" for him.

---Although some republicans are trying to distant themselves from this fringe most of them are just going along and fanning the flames.

The Republicans that are distancing themselves from the Tea Party movement are the liberal ones, and they don't belong in the party anyway, and will be gone soon enough. As for being "fringe," polls indicate that most of America agrees with the Tea Partiers on the issues. So, unless you consider most of the United States "fringe," I would hardly call the Tea Party movement such. You want fringe? Hard left radicals that somehow deceived the people enough to put them into office qualifies as big time fringe.

---Lets face it the Republicans had 8 years to deal with health care, immigration and financial oversight and governance and they failed.

Health Care is not a federal issue. Read your Constitution. If anything, the federal government needs to reduce restrictions on the industry, and allow Free Market solutions to improve the difficult Health Care situation. I wrote about Health Care and the Constitution HERE. Read and learn. As for immigration, the GOP that was in power had the same ideas for amnesty the Democrats had, and the fact is, amnesty is a bad idea. Instead, how about we just enforce the laws on the books? Read about Immigration and the Constitution HERE. Read it, you might learn something. As for the financial oversight, actually the Republicans were proclaiming that Fanny and Freddie were in trouble in late 2004, and that the GSEs needed oversight, but the Democrats shot it down. Interesting. It was the Republicans that warned about the problem, yet now the leftists blame the GOP for the meltdown.




---They could not even win one of the two wars they started, the body bags are still coming in.

Iraq was won, and now Biden is trying to give Obama credit for it. And we did not start the war against the Islamic Jihad, they did by their continuous attacks against the United States, of which culminated on September 11, 2001. Remember, also, that the Democrats originally overwhelmingly approved going to war, and also proclaimed the existence of WMDs.




---The Republicans wanted to give Obama his Waterloo defeat over healthcare but instead they gave themselves their own Waterloo defeat by not participating in the debate of ideas and by becoming the party of obstructionist.

Notice, once again Montana has trouble dividing his words (healthcare - health care). The American People are overwhelmingly against the Health Care legislation, and it is illegal (unconstitutional) - yet the Democrats rammed it through regardless. As a result, the Democrats have nearly destroyed their party, and is looking at devastating defeats in the next few elections. If that isn't a Waterloo, I don't know what it. But I do agree that the Republicans shouldn't be the "Party of No." Instead, they should be the "Party of HELL NO!"

---But they now claim they have changed, come on, what sucker is going to believe that?

Politicians are corrupt by nature and the disease of corruption, though worse in the Democrat Party, rages in both parties. That is why the people must remain engaged. The Republicans are only behaving right now because we are demanding it, and because there are a handful of good ones. My message to the American People is that once the Republicans return to their conservative roots, and regain control of the federal government, do not trust them. People will always disappoint. The Tea Party movement is about principles, and it is up to us to demand that the Public Servants abide by those Constitutional Principles. We must never stop. And as we work to regain control of an out of control big government, we must work at the local level. Local politics are where the national leaders of tomorrow come from. Let's put the right people in at the local level now so that later the national level does not get so out of whack.

So, Montana, did you learn anything?

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary