Comments on: The difficulty of demonizing the Tea Partiers: less than six degrees of separation https://thenewneo.com/2010/04/03/the-difficulty-of-demonizing-the-tea-partiers-less-than-six-degrees-of-separation/ A blog about political change, among other things Fri, 14 May 2010 04:19:06 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0 By: The difficulty of demonizing the Tea Partiers: less than six degrees of separation | TeaPartyConnect.com https://thenewneo.com/2010/04/03/the-difficulty-of-demonizing-the-tea-partiers-less-than-six-degrees-of-separation/#comment-160207 Fri, 14 May 2010 04:19:06 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/2010/04/03/the-difficulty-of-demonizing-the-tea-partiers-less-than-six-degrees-of-separation/#comment-160207 […] of my favorite bloggers, NeoNeoCon recently published this bit of reality: The word has gone out that, now that HCR has been passed and President Obama is spending his […]

]]> By: CV https://thenewneo.com/2010/04/03/the-difficulty-of-demonizing-the-tea-partiers-less-than-six-degrees-of-separation/#comment-153838 Mon, 05 Apr 2010 16:07:07 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/2010/04/03/the-difficulty-of-demonizing-the-tea-partiers-less-than-six-degrees-of-separation/#comment-153838 Juan Williams agrees with you Neo. Here he is, in the WSJ, on “tea party movement reflects mainstream concerns:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304252704575155942054483252.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read

]]> By: CV https://thenewneo.com/2010/04/03/the-difficulty-of-demonizing-the-tea-partiers-less-than-six-degrees-of-separation/#comment-153834 Mon, 05 Apr 2010 15:19:49 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/2010/04/03/the-difficulty-of-demonizing-the-tea-partiers-less-than-six-degrees-of-separation/#comment-153834 In a customer service presentation I once attended, I recall hearing an axiom that always stuck with me.

The axiom is that for every individual who is motivated enough to take the time to complain about service, or write a letter of complaint, there are many others who likely concur but didn’t speak up.

It seems to me that the tea parties are reflective of this. I am sympathetic to their goals and generally admire these folks for taking a stand (wasn’t “dissent the highest form of patriotism” until Bush stepped down?)

But I’m not out there with them because I have a full time job, I have three young kids, etc. etc. I have many good reasons for not choosing to participate in the tea party rallies. But every time I hear someone in the MSM or administration diss the tea partiers, it irritates me because by extension they are dissing me and my views as well.

(I also happen to be an orthodox Catholic living in the Rust Belt in southwestern PA, so by extension I am a “bitter clinger” 🙂

Anyway, I think it would be interesting to be a fly on the wall at some of the local “town hall” type meetings that Congresspeople have when they return to their districts. They know they’re hearing from average constituents and many, MANY of those people are not happy. At all. The tea partiers are just the public face of that. I’ll bet most politicians know that’s what’s going on here, even if they would be loath to admit it.

]]> By: Richard Aubrey https://thenewneo.com/2010/04/03/the-difficulty-of-demonizing-the-tea-partiers-less-than-six-degrees-of-separation/#comment-153826 Mon, 05 Apr 2010 11:30:24 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/2010/04/03/the-difficulty-of-demonizing-the-tea-partiers-less-than-six-degrees-of-separation/#comment-153826 oblio.
I once worked with the Social Justice and Peacemaking Committee of a presbytery of the PC(USA).
Once in a while, I’d be forced–ha!–to say, “I look stupid, but it’s a disguise/accident.”
Or, “I graduated in the top half of my middle-class high school, got an extremely modest GPA at Enormous State University in a generic BA. Then I was a grunt and now I peddle insurance. If I know better, how about all the folks smarter than me, which is practically everybody?”
I had had the good fortune to be able to smack down a couple of projects by showing up with irrefutable evidence that the premise was completely false–never saw a bunch more convinced of the virtue of ignorance–and so they tended to be wary.
But it was the first time I had experienced from inside the deliberate avoidance of reality in pursuit of lefty goals.
Perhaps some of them didn’t know better. But it was by active avoidance.

]]> By: Oblio https://thenewneo.com/2010/04/03/the-difficulty-of-demonizing-the-tea-partiers-less-than-six-degrees-of-separation/#comment-153793 Mon, 05 Apr 2010 03:56:27 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/2010/04/03/the-difficulty-of-demonizing-the-tea-partiers-less-than-six-degrees-of-separation/#comment-153793 Victor Davis Hanson on when lies are not really lies…when you are a postmodernist. Beautifully written.

This is old stuff for us around here, but it goes to the question of tactics. How do you deal with people for whom words only mean what is convenient for them to mean (“Humpty-Dumptyism”), and every posture is built upon an accusation about history, and your own role as a member of the “oppressor” class (“tu quoque” and other genitive fallacies)? There have already been some great suggestions on this thread. My favorite so far is to remember not to validate the assumptions that lie at the heart of accusation. Don’t fall for the head fake.

]]> By: neo-neocon https://thenewneo.com/2010/04/03/the-difficulty-of-demonizing-the-tea-partiers-less-than-six-degrees-of-separation/#comment-153788 Mon, 05 Apr 2010 03:22:00 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/2010/04/03/the-difficulty-of-demonizing-the-tea-partiers-less-than-six-degrees-of-separation/#comment-153788 betsybounds: I wrote about exactly that phenomenon back in early 2005.

]]> By: betsybounds https://thenewneo.com/2010/04/03/the-difficulty-of-demonizing-the-tea-partiers-less-than-six-degrees-of-separation/#comment-153784 Mon, 05 Apr 2010 01:45:36 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/2010/04/03/the-difficulty-of-demonizing-the-tea-partiers-less-than-six-degrees-of-separation/#comment-153784 renminbi, you make an excellent point. People need to realize that it’s possible to be an intelligent, well-educated, well-informed person and still not be a Leftist, and you don’t want to offend potential customers.

Jay Nordlinger, music critic for National Review, National Review Online, and The New Criterion (among others) has noted a recent practice of orchestra conductors to address audiences, before beginning concerts, with Leftist statements, assuming (apparently) that the audience will share the expressed Leftist assumptions. He finds it inappropriate and insulting, as would I. These guys need to re-think their assumptions–about the correctness of their assumptions, for one thing, and about the politically homogeneous nature of their audiences, for another.

Conservatives are not remotely stupid, many of them are classical musical aficionados, and highly intelligent to boot.

]]> By: betsybounds https://thenewneo.com/2010/04/03/the-difficulty-of-demonizing-the-tea-partiers-less-than-six-degrees-of-separation/#comment-153780 Mon, 05 Apr 2010 00:50:35 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/2010/04/03/the-difficulty-of-demonizing-the-tea-partiers-less-than-six-degrees-of-separation/#comment-153780 Richard Aubrey,

”I’m not telling you this because I think you don’t know it; I’m telling you this stuff because you think I don’t know it” Fookin’ brilliant!

Maggie’s Farm, on Juan Williams: I think Juan parrots the party line pretty faithfully, but now and again chinks appear in the armor. I agree that he gets it, although he has a hard time admitting that he has come to that point. He frequently pisses me off, but still I like him, and have hope for him.

Incidentally, where I work we refer to ourselves sometimes as Farm Workers, as in Maggie’s, and declare that we don’t wanna work there no more. Fun!

]]> By: renminbi https://thenewneo.com/2010/04/03/the-difficulty-of-demonizing-the-tea-partiers-less-than-six-degrees-of-separation/#comment-153776 Mon, 05 Apr 2010 00:05:22 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/2010/04/03/the-difficulty-of-demonizing-the-tea-partiers-less-than-six-degrees-of-separation/#comment-153776 Why isn’t there pushback against the MSM for the slanders. I mean,ask advertisers why they should advertise with people who smear their customers. Put a hurt on those who enable this disgusting behavior.
In my NYC there was wine bar which had an Obamacare poster in the window. I politely asked the proprietor if she thought it a good idea to insult some of her potential customers. She took it down.

]]> By: Maggie's Farm https://thenewneo.com/2010/04/03/the-difficulty-of-demonizing-the-tea-partiers-less-than-six-degrees-of-separation/#comment-153771 Sun, 04 Apr 2010 22:59:54 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/2010/04/03/the-difficulty-of-demonizing-the-tea-partiers-less-than-six-degrees-of-separation/#comment-153771 Tea Partay…

Juan Williams gets quite a few facts wrong but he is beginning to get it.
Neoneo: It is difficult to demonize tea partiers….

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