Terrorism. Tea Party. Hobbits. Sorted Out by Sgt. Mom.

Sgt. Mom has a good post clarifying some of the key differences between terrorism, the Tea Parties, and hobbits.

Some of her commenters object, claiming the Tea Partiers are economic terrorists. My reply is still that, if any political group in America can be defined as economic terrorists, all those who put us in this economic situation, from 1937 to today, most qualify.

One bizarre commenter even called the Tea Partiers "definitely the nearest thing this country has yet produced to true fascism." Weird kind of fascists that call for a weaker, more decentralized government; less government control over the economy; and less government-corporate cronyism.

Hypocrisy from 'Restoring Civility'

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air points out the hypocrisy of Froma Harrop on civility. She's all for it, except when she isn't.

Civility in Politics

James Taranto's column, "Civility: The Denouement":

Hey, what ever happened to civility?

That's not a rhetorical question. Back in January, after a madman shot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and a crowd of her constituents, gravely wounding her and killing six, the liberal elite briefly developed an obsession with the supposed dangers of uncivil political rhetoric.

Before a suspect had even been identified, as we noted Jan. 10, Fitzsimmons, the Tucson cartoonist, was on CNN blaming "the right in Arizona" for "stoking the fire of heated anger and rage" and making the attack "inevitable." Fitzsimmons later apologized, but former Enron adviser Paul Krugman did not. Sources inside Krugman's head told him that the Tea Party dunnit ...

There were many other examples, including Hendrik Hertzberg of The New Yorker, who complained of "shocking vituperation and hatred, virtually all of it coming from people who call themselves conservatives." When his fellow liberals falsely accused conservatives of mass murder, Hertzberg was unshocked. ...


Then it was February, and the liberal elite lost all interest in policing "the boundaries of public discourse." The faux goo-goo group Common Cause held a rally where participants urged the lynching of Supreme Court justices. Liberals--including at least one Democratic congressman--employed actual violent rhetoric against Wisconsin's Gov. Scott Walker, whose state budget reforms stripped government employee unions of many of their expensive privileges.

And now, of course, all of liberaldom is likening the Tea Party to terrorists. But really, that message is entirely consistent with the one in January, and indeed with the message the liberal elite has been propagating since the early days of the Obama administration: that the Tea Party is illegitimate.

I would add that the actual reasons given are irrelevant; they will say anything at all to delegitimize the Tea Party regardless of any truth, surely, but also regardless of whether they contradict themselves.

Taranto's whole piece is well worth reading, as usual.

Finally, a good word for the LA Times, whose Andrew Malcolm condemns the vice-presidents eliminationist rhetoric.

Related:Anti-Tea Party Vitriol

Anti-Tea Party Vitriol

Annhilating Democracy with the Tea Party

Tyranny of 87 Must Stop

The Tea Party is a real threat to America

Kerry: Tea Party a group of 'Absolutists' who don't understand what they're doing

The Tea Party Taliban

So, the Tea Party are crazy extremists, but the Glorious Compromisers of both parties who, over the last 80 years, have in unmitigated greed, pornographic power lust, and undiluted narcissism sunk us into this position are the sane ones who we should all hail as our saviors.

Annihilating Democracy? That's Crony Capitalism (see Fannie and Freddy, corporate welfare, etc.). Tyranny? Every usurpation of state and individual rights by the ever-ravenous federal government is tyranny. The Tea Party a real threat? You mean, citizens learning about and getting involved with their own government threatens your ideological goals. Kerry is such a joke ... but, YOU, Senator Kerry, have helped put us here, so if you have known what you were doing then you have intended to bring America to the brink of destruction, and if you haven't, then you're a tool, an absolute tool. And Taliban? Taliban? Please. Again: The rest of the political establishment has brought us to the brink of destruction, not of two ancient statues, but of the economic lives of 300,000,000 people and all their descendants, and all because of your ideological inflexibility and greed.

Do we need more revenue? Sure, but the last century tells us that if the government raises taxes, they will just spend it; they won't pay down the debt. So no more taxes until we make structural changes that will eliminate the debt. We don't trust you.

And yes, if what the leftist media reports is true about how much the various plans would cut were true, one of them might be acceptable. But time after time politicians and their brown-nosing media enablers have heralded on front pages that huge sums have been saved or cut only to admit, on page 27, three weeks later, that those cuts / savings were really just accounting gimmicks and the deal really raised spending by billions. We don't trust you.

We don't trust you at all, and you have given us every reason not to do so.

And all those sycophants of the Grand Compromisers who are building up hatred for the Tea Party are idiots, or they expect us to be idiots. Why would we EVER again trust the political wheelers and dealers who put us in this position? To do so would be madness, idiocy, extremism of the worst kind. Doing so would destroy us, destroy democracy, destroy our world.