I can hear (some?) Tea Partiers and family values activists screaming bloody murder already. "Quislings! Sellouts! Cowards! You've betrayed us! You've defected to the pole-smoking/carpet munching enemy by subsidizing them! This means WAR!" To which my reply is, "Ideologically and philosophically, I agree with you - and you know what? So do the Kleins. But until you've lived the nightmare that they have for the past two years, you can just keep your callous condemnations to yourselves and try a little compassion instead. And they did hold off the State of Oregon for six months on principle, since the crowdfunding raised the cash they needed to cover the unjust, repressive, punitive, First Amendment-eviscerating fine. And kudos to the rightwing brethren who chose to do something helpful, constructive, and supportive. As for the rest of you, feel free to "pay any price, bear any burden, and always FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! with your own blood and treasure.
There is another contrast I want you all to take away from this story, though:
Oregon bakery owners who denied service to a [homosexual] "couple" have paid $135,000 in State-ordered damages — after refusing to do so for nearly six months.
The Bureau of Labor & Industries says Aaron Klein, co-owner of the Portland-area bakery, dropped off a check Monday for $136,927.07. That includes accrued interest. Klein also paid $7,000 earlier this month.
Damages were awarded in July for emotional suffering caused by Sweet Cakes by Melissa, which two years ago refused to make a wedding cake for Laurel and Rachel Bowman-Cryer. The bakers said their refusal was prompted by religious beliefs. [emphases added]
A single, deliberately targeted bakery denied them service in a major metropolitan area that has dozens of bakeries that would have been happy to serve up the cake they wanted. At most, "Laurel and Rachel" "suffered" mild inconvenience and passing irritation. Whereas Aaron and Melissa Klein have had their lives turned upside down, been viciously persecuted, and if not for the crowdfunding the publicity of their case attracted, would have been bankrupted, ruined, and financially and economically destroyed and left destitute. All because they refused to renounce Jesus Christ and bow to Sodom as Lord, which is now evidently the twenty-first century "mark of the Beast".
But it was the Kleins who "victimized" "Laurel and Rachel".
Riiiiiiiight.
3 comments:
Not all Tea Partiers drool and scream bloody murder when someone disagrees with us. Believe it or not, the vast majority of us love this country and our Constitution and are interested in seeing it restored to its former glory before Democrats became the cancer that they are. I am not mad at the Kleins, I'm mad at our government for allowing this to happen, mad at the cows who claimed to be oh, so victimized, the poor dears, and mad at the hypocrites who call themselves loving and inclusive, but are the most vicious, hate-filled people in the world. There is nothing more intolerant than a liberal, and anyone who can't see that is not paying attention.
JASmius, I love you, man, but you often begin your articles with ad-hominem attacks against the Tea Party. I, as a constitutionalist, have very close ties with Tea Party groups, and to be honest, the majority of the time, your opinion of who the Tea Party is, or how they think, is way off. I think your opinion of who the Tea Party is is based on the MSM's depiction of who they are, and how politicians who falsely claim to be Tea Party act. Your accusations and allegations against the Tea Party, sir, are often wrong, and present a foul misrepresentation of who the Tea Party is. Also, remember who the primary audience of this website is, before you go an bite the fingers.
It's not ad hominem at all, Doug. Nor is it about ideology, which is what "based on the media's depiction of what the Tea Party is" means (and besides, what makes you think I get anything from the Obamedia except a headache?). I'm talking about temperment, political knowledge (or lack of it), and maturity level. To the contrary, all I saw coming from conservative talk radio hosts, a lot of Tea Partiers, and, frankly, you over the latest omnibus was ad hominem attacks, particularly against Paul Ryan, who had little if any control over how this latest budget cycle turned out. That's why I cited House Freedom Caucus members giving him the benefit of the doubt and, effectively, telling grassroots TPers to step off and give him a year to see if he can get Congress back to regular order budgeting. When I made that argument to you on the air on KMET last Saturday, you ducked it by saying, "I don't care what they have to say, this is MY opinion." Which I interpret as emotion overwhelming reason and evidence, because the logic of that reply requires you to dismiss the HFC as a bunch of RINOs as well. And all too often, that is what I see coming from Tea Partiers at times like that. You're all free as the wind to stop going off uncocked to disabuse me of what my eyes and ears and brain are telling me any time you want. Indeed, I'd welcome it, because it's precisely that behavior that is "biting fingers". Or, as Spock put it to McCoy in Star Trek II, "You must learn to govern your passions; they will be your undoing."
The scenario I described in my lede to this post was simply the same dynamic applied to a different issue, and something I am being given less and less reason not to expect as Tea Party purity fetishism rages more and more out of control. In short, it wouldn't surprise me. And the reaction it generated here tells me both you and Jen recognize the lesson, whether or not either of you are willing to admit it.
To summarize, I'm not, nor have I ever been, angry at Tea Partiers, nor am I a "leftwing RINO establishmentarian," as I recall you (tongue-in-cheek?) said on ADR last week; I am a charter-member Reagan conservative who's been following politics for thirty-five years and knows how politics works (hint: it's about a helluva lot more than ideology) way better than a lot of Tea Partiers seem to, and their collective self-defeating outbursts like the most recent one frustrate me to no end because I KNOW they're hurting OUR cause in the process. Something that I absolutely will not refrain from expressing here or on the air when it's called for, unlike Limbaugh, Levin, Ingraham, Hannity, et al for fear of losing audience share.
When I once aped Spock and said, two years ago after the ObamaCare Defundageddon/government shutdown fiasco, that "nowhere I am more desperately needed than aboard a ship full of illogical Tea Partiers," I wasn't just being pithy.
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