Unbelievable
The hard left is going to try and silence the Tea Party movement by blaming us for this," Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips wrote. "The left is coming and will hit us hard on this. We need to push back harder with the simple truth. The shooter was a liberal lunatic. Emphasis on both words.
Yes, a man who lists Mein Kampf as his favorite book and rants about the Gold Standard on Youtube is obviously a "liberal". The willful denial of reality is not really shocking (in fact, it’s a hallmark of the Teabaggers generally), but there still is something extraordinarily dismaying to see a Teabag leader stand up and tell his followers to tell lies and call them truths.
For all those who say we should respond to this atrocity with civility, I once again ask: what is the virtue of civility?
What is the virtue of civility against an adversary who seeks nothing less than your total subjugation; who will incite violence and then deny any culpability; and who when confronted with the actions of one of their fellow travelers have the unmitigated gall to say he believes literally the opposite what he believes in.
It doesn’t matter if the Arizona Assassin is a bon fide Teabagger or simply a lone wolf: what little we know of him shows him to be an ideological ally of the more extreme elements of the Tea Party movement (flippantly, though not inaccurately reffed to as Teahadists), which not incidentally make up the core of the movement.
Some will say this incident shows us that "all sides" need to show a renewed commitment to civility, but I propose it is civility that has enabled the growth of political extremism. The rules of civility have discouraged the correct identification of the Tea Party as a fascist movement, and called upon others to denounce anyone who dares to point out this obvious fact; the rules of civility have been invoked by the allies of extremism any time a voice of reason has attempted to cross-examine the Teabaggers of their GOP allies on their increasingly disturbing rhetoric; and the rules of civility call for us to treat as civil those who seek, quite literally to bankrupt, investigate, imprison, enslave, and murder us.
The time has come to stop pretending we are dealing with a civil foe. There is no virtue in showing civility to an enemy who cares not of it. This does not mean that we adopt the tactics of the extremists, their Eliminationist rhetoric or their violence; it means that we simply drop the pretenses that we are dealing with a civilized foe, worthy of the respect that comes from a healthy difference of opinion.
If we do not do this, the fascist menace of the Tea Party will grow unchecked concealed by a cloak of false civility until it swallows our country whole.
Cross-posted from my personal blog "Let's Give It Back to the Squares". You can find some of my other posts on this subject that predated and to some extent predicted as inevitable yesterday's tragedy