Although the Tea Party has always been singled out as a particular threat to big government ideology, the vitriol has reached a fever pitch in recent days. Elected representatives and others have been taking it upon themselves to repeatedly bash the conservatives in the Republican party who have been working tirelessly to defund Obamacare.
The idea is to convince Americans that these Constitutional conservatives want to shut down the government altogether because they are “anarchists.” Some of the highest officials in government have been using violent imagery to describe these members, which include Sen. Ted Cruz, Sen. Rand Paul and Sen. Mike Lee.
It is bizarre, and easy to disprove.
The fear-mongering has been two-fold.
- First, the big government ideologues in the Senate and the executive branch must convince the American people that these conservatives want to “shut down the government” (and convince people of how horrible that would be by fear-mongering about how children with cancer will be turned away from treatment, etc.)
As Senator Ted Cruz said during his 21 hour speech warning of Obamacare,
“You don’t see Democratic Senators talking about all the people who are losing their jobs, you don’t see Democratic Senators talking about all those people having their hours reduced or all the people seeing skyrocketing health insurance premiums, or who are losing their health insurance. Instead, we see Democratic Senators going on television and saying: Well, if they stick to their guns on this, it is going to shut down the government.”
Sen. Cruz also was able to foresee the second tactic:
- The second tactic has been to convince people that the conservative Senators are somehow “extremists” and “anarchists” who not only want to shut the government down, but want to do away with the government entirely. The tactic is to resort to personal attacks.
As Cruz said during his filibuster,
“It is all about distraction. Make it about the personalities, make it about the people, make it about anything, anything, anything other than ObamaCare.”
And indeed, Cruz is correct.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said of these conservatives,
“…a bad day for government is a good day for the anarchists among us.” Reid (falsely) lamented, “Those who believe in no – I repeat – no government – that’s their belief – the modern day anarchists, known as the tea party, they believe in no government.” [added emphasis]
Likewise, Jim Wallis, recipient of [atheist] George Soros’ money and President Obama’s “spiritual advisor” said Tuesday,
“…those political extremists and I’ll call them that, who want to shut down the government are unbiblical in two ways. One, they’re against government per se. I know lots of Republicans and Democrats who believe in government. However big or small or limited, it doesn’t matter. They believe in government and they believe in governing. The role is to govern. These people don’t. They don’t believe in government per se. They want to destroy the House and shut it down. That’s not biblical.” [added emphasis]
Isn’t it wild that a man who proclaims to be a Christian could so easily judge others, and bear false witness against his neighbors?
Nancy Pelosi said that these conservatives are “anti-government ideologues.” She said they want to “Shut down government.” She said that defunding Obamacare was just an “excuse” to get to the real goal of shutting down the government. She also said it was a “wolf in wolves clothing.” She got the saying wrong, (duh) but her point was that for the Constitutional conservatives known as the Tea Party, defunding Obamacare is not the real goal. The real goal is to do away with government altogether. She then called the “legislative arsonists,” because they don’t want to make more “investments” in “education and scientific research and all that it is that makes our country great.”
Creepy White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer compared Republicans to terrorists, kidnappers, and arsonists. He said Obama won’t negotiate with “with people with a bomb strapped to their chest,” he said. He continued to say, “It is not a negotiation if I show up at your house and say, ‘Give me everything inside or I’m going to burn it down.’ The Republicans have provided a laundry list of essentially ransom demands,” he noted.
This week, many of the nation’s elected representatives spoke about the shutdown, as documented by C-SPAN. Many Democrats continued to use violent rhetoric to describe Tea Party Republicans.
- Representative Peter DeFazio said that the GOP has been made “hostage by extremist elements in their party” and used the terms “radical” and “anarchists” to describe these members, and continued to say that they are “funded by special interests.”
- Representative Jim McDermott quoted the Bible and said that the GOP “doesn’t care about poor people.”
- Representative Steve Cohen said that Obamacare is the “law of the land,” failing to mention that the law passed without one Republican vote, or that it is unpopular with Americans.
- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid repeated his common meme that the Tea Party representatives are “radicals,” and “anarchists.” Further, he declared that the GOP is “committing extortion,” and “holding a gun to the head of Americans.” He said, “It’s time for Republicans to stop obsessing over old battles”
- Rep. George Miller said today that Republicans were committing “Jihad against American citizens.”
During these debates,
Representative Mark Meadows rightly stated that
“American citizens do not deserve to be compared to the Taliban.”
The bottom line is this: When progressives cannot debate on the issues, they resort to name-calling.
Follow Renee Nal on Twitter @ReneeNal and Facebook
Check out her news and political commentary on Tavern Keepers, Gather and the Examiner for news you won’t find in the mainstream media. Renee is also a guest blogger for the Shire Blog.
