Moderation and Civility

Our lords and masters, our political/financial elite, had a serious dilemma last year. They had successfully manipulated markets and blown bubbles, raking in billions. Consequently the middle class lost a big chunk of their investments, land wealth and pensions and the lower class lost jobs. When that money was gone the elite had the Fed to print up more money to be paid back by future generations, like a bad boyfriend who steals your wallet and runs up your credit cards before he leaves you. But all good things come to an end, and the elite knew that even American rubes can get suspicious, angry and dangerous. So they began to plan. Peter Suderman, in Reason in 2008:

[I]t’s crucial for the right to defend itself against accusations of wholesale capture by the corporate-lobbying complex (and release itself if and where that capture exists). Part of that might mean, as [David] Frum seems to imply, severing some existing corporate ties. Part of that might mean tactical redirection of the anti-corporate sentiment that has come as a natural result of the recent string of bailouts. It will definitely mean highlighting stories like this one, which showcase the ways that, far from reducing corporate influence on government, a Democratic Washington has in many ways been a boon to the lobbying world. My good friend Tim Carney, newly of the DC Examiner, does this more consistently than just about anyone. I continue to foresee (and hope!) that his ideas, and hopefully his work, become a major strain of thinking on the right.

The tea-bagging protests, funded by Suderman's former organization FreedomWorks (which is funded by corporations), whipped up fury over government actions. Others are doing the same against ACORN, the census, whatever will strike a cord in the stupid and paranoid Republican base. The monsters who incite violence ignore possible repercussions because they can; Democrats are afraid to even touch stories like the lynching of a census worker, hanged with the word "fed" scrawled across his chest. They don't want to be premature, they're terrified to be wrong, they don't want to make a fuss and look silly. Republicans would be calling for martial law if it happened to them, but they only care about winning, while Democrats want to be fair and measured and balanced and thoughtful and wise. Republicans have declared open season on liberals, carrying guns at town hall meetings, hanging politicians in effigy, and railroading them into jail. The liberals let them. After all, they don't want to be premature.

At the conservative paranoia site Infowars.com, someone posts a You Tube video titled "Census taker caught with a GPS device." From the comments:

anthony Reply:
i had that guy at my door, he asked a few questions if it was a single residence, but yes he did have a friggen gps, i saw it, it was not a ups notebook, it was a scrolling map, so much for the old paper trail with just names and numbers, i dont care anymore, they can have this body, do wutever you want you nwo scumbags, either way i win u lose and Jesus rocks

Dante Reply:
next time dont be pussies standing in the doorway …get in this fuckers face with that camera get the real footage its …first amendment freedom of the press…this guys pressing on your door with a GPS tracker…so if there gonna get you there gonna get you …STAND UP!!!

Points out dumb asses Reply:
Hell yea!!!! Get in this dudes face! He’s on your property! Until these pathetic bastards take it from us, it is STILL OURS!!!!!! USA!!!

mattconner Reply:
exactly what i was going to say, fuck him and every one else when you are in your house it dosent matter if the queen of the netherlands is at your door you can film her or who ever the hell else is with her, and what does this census worm think he is doing? the entire planet is already gps mapped! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK GOOGLE MAPS IS? THIS PUKE IS LITERALY PAINTING THE TARGET FOR THE ANTI PATRIOT AIRSTRIKES AGAINST THE AMERIKAN PEOPLE! i wish one of these earth worshiping corbonophobics would come to my door when im home and ask me if i dare question his lordships” polasaays”

Ill see you son of a bitches in the trenches

Nick Reply:
Don’t you dare LET THEM HAVE your body! In a country with habeas corpus, “you may keep the body!!!!”

One who knows Reply:
I had the same GPS toting fool show up at my driveway and I requested to see his identification. It was elementary to say the least a silly white badge with his signature on the back. Nothing official whatsoever. I asked him to leave my property. He replied I have permission to enter your property and take GPS readings. I got right in his face and told him I request respectively one more time to leave my property immediately. He jumped back in his truck and left.

Only a fool would allow the New World Order to come up and take GPS readings at your front door. There is nothing good to come from big Brothers constant meddling into our lives!

Beware, and carry a big stick… preferably .308 Winchester full metal jacket

Spook45 Reply:
HERE HERE!! I have to resinate that point as well. I dont think anyone would have had anything to say if OBAHHHHMA hadnt taken the Census away from the people who have always done it and given to his private little Gestapo(Acorn) the problem here is that it falls right in line with all of his other dirty little power grab antics and it quite frankly scares the crap out of people who have any sense at all. IF IT AINT BROKE DONT FIX IT. The census was fine where it was and with whom it was and it didnt need to be tampered with unless there was some alternative agenda

endTHEwar Reply:
it’s not the worker that you are standing up to, it’s what they represent and the threat they pose to our liberty.

did the british tax collector deserve to be tarred and feathered in Boston, 1774? probably not, but it sure sent a signal to other tax collectors and to the royal crown.

JJ Alaska Reply:
First off NO the census is NOT done the same as 1790, you have been lied too, only a head count was taken and only a head count is allowed to be taken.

Secondly, the questionaire, that is not the job of the census, it is not legal unless it has ONE AND ONLY ONE question , how many ADULTS occupy this residence, PERIOD THAT IS IT.

You census workers may be just collecting a pay check, but that does not justify or forgive anyone working for them , that knowingly and willing aids the enemy at the cost of the safety and security of fellow americans.

Just doing my job , it no different an excuse then just following orders, and that NEVER justifies a wrong. As some of the Nazi’s attempted that arguement and still thankfully hanged high for there crimes.

oldnamvet Reply:
I am a old man but I pretty much know that if your home is in a GPS system,they could target you from the air very easy,with a missle or whatever.By the way that retard working for the govt did sound and talk like a dipshit retard.I think I would invite him in and ask to see his drivers liscense,so I could look him up at a later time for treason or hangen.

Why would these morons think that ACORN is taking down names to bomb Americans?

[Michelle]Bachmann [(R-MN) ]explained that her fears over the Census were in large part due to the fact that her Number-One Enemy, ACORN, could possibly be involved. (The group might help recruit some of the 1.4 million people needed to go door-to-door to count every American.) She insinuated that former senator Norm Coleman (R-MN) had lost his reelection bid because of “fraudulent votes” perpetrated by ACORN:

BACHMANN: This is what ACORN will do. They will get multiple fraudulent voter registration forms, stuff the registrar’s office with them, in hopes that maybe not all fraudulent registrations will find people at the polls voting. But there may be some people who get through. And sometimes you don’t often need many in order to sway an election one way or another. I come from Minnesota. We’re still in a recount with our U.S. Senate race between Sen. Norm Coleman and the challenger Al Franken. Sen. Coleman won the race on election day, but that was challenged repeatedly, over and over, with what we feel may be fraudulent vote [sic], and we’re very concerned about what comes forward.

Hardly anybody is condemning this murder. He was found hanging from a tree--lynched--with the word "FED" written on his chest, yet everyone is stroking their chin and saying that we don't know if it was murder, we don't know if it was because he was a census taker, we need to wait and see. (And are we really sure he's dead? Yes, the man is no longer actually moving and the body has decomposed, but let's wait to be sure!) What are people waiting for? Are the afraid that the dead man was killed by someone who hated the feds generally, and not specifically? These people see people employed by the government every day--teachers, mail carriers, cops, and many, many more. They weren't killed, a census taker was. He wasn't shot or stabbed, he was lynched. He wasn't hidden in the hills, he was left hanging. What facts are people waiting for?

No worries, it'll soon be forgotten. No doubt someone will write a stiff letter to the editor criticizing the alleged death, and David Broder will list all the times Democrats were incivil to Republicans to show balance. And more people will die, because the left is afraid to fight back. The left is dealing with cowards and fools who could be easily intimidated (they are authoritarians) yet they are too afraid to type out words on a computer. They might be wrong, and that would be embarrassing. And what is murder, compared to embarrassment?

UPDATE: Kevin Drum calls for civility.

ACORN has filed a lawsuit against James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, the two undercover filmmakers who taped ACORN workers providing advice about how to smuggle underage sex workers into the country from El Salvador...

Points for chutzpah, I guess, but this is a bad idea on so many levels it hurts just to think about it. All they're doing is extending the news cycle on this whole debacle, making fools of themselves with transparently petty arguments, and just generally showing less common sense than your average mafia don caught on a 60 Minutes sting. At this point, ACORN needs to take their lumps, finish their internal investigation, and clean up their act. In the meantime, the least they can do is avoid handing the Glenn Beck crowd free additional ammunition. Fair or not, shooting the messenger isn't helping their cause.

That's quite right. You wouldn't want anyone on the right to be discourage from such actions, to have to hire lawyers and spend money to defend themselves or suffer any consequences at all from their trumped-up hysteria. The left will just make fools of themselves and wind up Glenn Beck. We should be afraid to take on Glenn Beck and just ignore him, like we did during two or three decades of Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh is fading away at last and we don't want to do anything to discourage Beck from taking his place. Best to just admit whatever we are accused of and slink away, to make more room for the right's next targets.

That's splendid advice, Drum.