purple crayon :: white wall :: go!
“The only way to beat a bully is to fight back.”
Rly? Ya mean not run crying to your teacher ‘or other authority figure’? Not hold an ‘awareness raising and seeeensitivity group’? Ya mean just look him dead in the eye and call him on his crap?
Well, that’s what Mitch McConnell [I know; but hear this out said to the American Enterprise Institute. Call that bully out, name right out loud for all to hear his actions, his tactics, his motivations and his goals.
[In] An internal Media Matters memo* from January 2010 … we learned of the group’s plan to conduct opposition research into the lives of on-air news personalities and other key decision makers at Fox News, and to coordinate with 100 or so partner groups to pressure the network’s advertisers and shareholders, get this, “by the threat of actual boycotts, rallies, demonstrations, shame, embarrassment and other tactics on a variety of issues important to the progressive agenda.” Its multiple databases could also be used, the memo said, to remove what it describes as “chronically problematic media figures,” or “to preempt programming” … altogether.
*looks over* FOX? still standing. Shemp? still there. Any others missing? O’Reilly? Cavuto? Beck? makin’ kajillions with his own media empire.
hm… not very effective there….
Now we know that the IRS was actually engaged in the targeted slow-walking of applications by conservatives, and others who were, get this, criticizing “how the country [was] being run.”
…Catherine Engelbrecht …says that after applying for tax-exempt status for a voter-integrity group called True the Vote, she and her husband were visited by the FBI, the ATF, OSHA, and an affiliate of the EPA. When all was said and done, OSHA told the Engelbrecht’s they had to cough up $25,000 in fines. The EPA affiliate demanded they spend $42,000 on new sheds. And three years after applying for tax-exempt status, True the Vote is still awaiting approval.
The list of stories like these goes on and on.
…The IRS scandal has reminded people of the temptations to abuse that big government, and its political patrons, are prone to. People are waking up to a pattern.
…What happened before this targeting began is just as important as what happened after.
…The so-called “special interests,” [Teh iWon] said, would “flood” the political process, with money that might be coming from “foreign entities.” “The problem”, he said, “is nobody knows” who’s behind these groups. They were “shadowy.” They might even be “foreign controlled”. These were the kinds of unsubstantiated claims the President and his allies trafficked in from early 2010 right up through the election…
This from the fella who turned off the credit card verification mechanism on his campaign website and accepted kajillions of donations from a fone bank in Gaza…
…The federal bureaucracy, and in particular the growth of public sector unions, has created an inherent and undeniable tension between those who believe in limited self-government and those who stand to benefit from its growth. Let’s face it, when elected leaders and union bosses tell the folks who work at these agencies that they should view half the people they’re supposed to be serving as a threat to democracy, it shouldn’t surprise any of us that they would. Why would we even expect a public employee — whose union more or less exists to grow the government — to treat someone who opposes that goal to a fair hearing? When the head of the union that represents unionized IRS workers publicly vilifies the Tea Party, is it any wonder that members of her union would get caught targeting them?
That’s when he called for the end of “the automatic transfer of union dues from employee salaries at the taxpayer’s expense.”
And that’s why we need to be vigilant about every one of these assaults. They may seem small and isolated in the particular, but together they reflect a culture of intimidation that extends throughout the government — a culture abetted by a bureaucracy that stands to benefit from it.
The moment a gang of U.S. Senators started writing letters last year demanding the IRS step in and force more disclosure upon conservative groups, we all should have cried foul.
The moment the White House proposed a draft order requiring applicants for government contracts to disclose their political affiliations, we all should have called them out.
When the HHS Secretary told insurance companies they couldn’t tell their customers how Obamacare would impact them, we all should have pulled the alarm.
So my plea to you today is that you call out these attacks on the First Amendment whenever you see them, regardless of the target. Because the right to free speech doesn’t exist to protect what’s popular. It exists to protect what’s unpopular.
Particularly what is “unpopular” [aka: destabilizing] to the current administration in power. That was the point of the Founding Fathers’ inclusion of the right to Free Speech. They witnessed the History of those with power suppressing and isolating any opponents to keep the people in line. That’s why thwy wrote WE THE PEOPLE in such large letters: that’s what this country is all about. WE THE PEOPLE: not the kings, not the princes and princelings, not the “nobility,” and certainly NOT bureaucrats and tax collectors.
The only way to beat a bully is to fight back. So be wise to the ways of the Left, and never give an inch when it comes to free speech.
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For more on that Media Matters internal memo:
Politico [conference calls]
The Foxhole [for more links]
