Copyright © 2010 Ed Bagley
Political writer, blogger and new media producer Bob Cesca has some strong feelings about people who participate in the current "tea party" protests against encouraging a bigger, more controlling government for the United States of America. Hopefully, you have read Bob Cesca's article that appeared recently in The Huffington Post. Now read my reaction--I too have some strong feelings.
Bob Cesca is not exactly fond of the "tea party movement" in America. He has a long list of complaints about its existence and purpose, with most of the complaints apparently clothed as excited protestors with white hoods over their head.
Here is Bob Cesca's bottom line: "The tea party is almost entirely about race, and there's no comparative group on the left that's similarly motivated by bigotry, ignorance and racial hatred."
So, by Cesca's calculated analysis, apparently if I attend a tea party with Sarah Palin, he thinks I either am or will become an ignorant, bigoted, racist? And I say, "Now, wait just a minute . . . "
Whether Cesca chooses to recognize it or not, I think if I attend a tea party movement event and listen carefully to what the protestors have to say, I am fully capable of walking away without becoming an ignorant, bigoted, racist.
I think Cesca does see ghosts with white hoods on their head; he has as much as said so. Cesca clearly thinks he is as smart as he thinks the tea party crowd is ignorant, bigoted and racist. I see it differently.
I see a bunch of hard-working, tax-paying citizens who are fed up with their government's inaction and incompetence in running the affairs of the nation. A government that has thus far failed more than it has succeeded.
Failed to put people back to work by addressing the real underlying need of the economy—giving private enterprise incentives to create jobs by reducing taxes and regulations that prohibit expansion of our economy when we need it most.
Failed to listen to the will of the people, including tea party protestors, by stubbornly moving ahead to push through national "health care reform" by urging passage of a bill without exact details about the purpose, intent and scope being revealed. Legislators are being asked to essentially give the President and the majority Democratic party the right to write in whatever law they wish after its passage. This is a blatant move for more government control driven by a social change agenda, without the majority support of the people, or even proper financing, driving the nation further into debt.
Failed to reveal the inevitable new taxes it will take to properly implement the new social change programs the President and the Democrats are advocating.
Failed to teach certain big business executives anything about their appalling behavior that resulted in the nation's economic meltdown, and instead rewarded them with bailouts that the incompetent, greedy, arrogant executives used to make profits for their companies rather than help the economy recover.
Not to mention the fact that the government already had plenty of laws, regulations and regulatory agencies in place to prevent the economic meltdown, but they all failed to do so because their leadership was just as incompetent and/or corrupt as the businesses they were supposed to be regulating.
I could continue, but hopefully you, if not Bob Cesca, get the point. Tea party protestors have something to complain about. To see one sign among thousands of protestors that has a racial message on it does not make everyone else an ignorant, bigoted, racist.
It is easy to label everyone an ignorant, bigoted, racist because of the actions of one. This conveniently ignores the message of the protestors who identify real problems with the current administration coming to grips with more important problems than trusting legislators to pass a national health care reform bill with a blank check, and then write in the laws and regulations after the fact.
This is the prescription for a government and its legislators that is out of control and clearly dangerous to the republic. While the government and legislators may act like a democracy, the United States of America is not a strict democracy—it is a republic ruled by law.
The job of the Supreme Court and its justices is to enforce the U. S. Constitution, not re-write it to suit their personal social agenda. If our founding fathers thought the collective Supreme Court justices were smart enough to do that, they would have given them the authority to do so—and they did not.
If the government and its legislators can pass bills without essentially writing the law that would follow, they can also go after our right to bear arms—leaving only the military, law enforcement and criminals with guns, and the citizens they can prey on with nothing to defend themselves against power-hungry, out-of-control maniacs.
The collective tea party protestors are not a laughing matter to be characterized as an ignorant, bigoted, racist lot. They are not so much interested in racism as Bob Cesca would suggest, but rather freedom—preserving freedom for themselves and other American citizens, including Bob Cesca, even if Cesca does not know better.
And, the odds of being killed in an airborne terrorist attack are literally 1 in 10 million, according to Bob Cesca. Cesca is wrong, the mathematical odds are 1 in 100,000, not 1 in 10 million. If our population is 300 million and 3,000 people were killed in the 9-11 attack, that is 1 in 100,000. Do the math. I do not think much of Bob Cesca's thinking, and I think his math is suspect too.
Political writer, blogger and new media producer Bob Cesca has some strong feelings about people who participate in the current "tea party" protests against encouraging a bigger, more controlling government for the United States of America. Hopefully, you have read Bob Cesca's article that appeared recently in The Huffington Post. Now read my reaction--I too have some strong feelings.
Bob Cesca is not exactly fond of the "tea party movement" in America. He has a long list of complaints about its existence and purpose, with most of the complaints apparently clothed as excited protestors with white hoods over their head.
Here is Bob Cesca's bottom line: "The tea party is almost entirely about race, and there's no comparative group on the left that's similarly motivated by bigotry, ignorance and racial hatred."
So, by Cesca's calculated analysis, apparently if I attend a tea party with Sarah Palin, he thinks I either am or will become an ignorant, bigoted, racist? And I say, "Now, wait just a minute . . . "
Whether Cesca chooses to recognize it or not, I think if I attend a tea party movement event and listen carefully to what the protestors have to say, I am fully capable of walking away without becoming an ignorant, bigoted, racist.
I think Cesca does see ghosts with white hoods on their head; he has as much as said so. Cesca clearly thinks he is as smart as he thinks the tea party crowd is ignorant, bigoted and racist. I see it differently.
I see a bunch of hard-working, tax-paying citizens who are fed up with their government's inaction and incompetence in running the affairs of the nation. A government that has thus far failed more than it has succeeded.
Failed to put people back to work by addressing the real underlying need of the economy—giving private enterprise incentives to create jobs by reducing taxes and regulations that prohibit expansion of our economy when we need it most.
Failed to listen to the will of the people, including tea party protestors, by stubbornly moving ahead to push through national "health care reform" by urging passage of a bill without exact details about the purpose, intent and scope being revealed. Legislators are being asked to essentially give the President and the majority Democratic party the right to write in whatever law they wish after its passage. This is a blatant move for more government control driven by a social change agenda, without the majority support of the people, or even proper financing, driving the nation further into debt.
Failed to reveal the inevitable new taxes it will take to properly implement the new social change programs the President and the Democrats are advocating.
Failed to teach certain big business executives anything about their appalling behavior that resulted in the nation's economic meltdown, and instead rewarded them with bailouts that the incompetent, greedy, arrogant executives used to make profits for their companies rather than help the economy recover.
Not to mention the fact that the government already had plenty of laws, regulations and regulatory agencies in place to prevent the economic meltdown, but they all failed to do so because their leadership was just as incompetent and/or corrupt as the businesses they were supposed to be regulating.
I could continue, but hopefully you, if not Bob Cesca, get the point. Tea party protestors have something to complain about. To see one sign among thousands of protestors that has a racial message on it does not make everyone else an ignorant, bigoted, racist.
It is easy to label everyone an ignorant, bigoted, racist because of the actions of one. This conveniently ignores the message of the protestors who identify real problems with the current administration coming to grips with more important problems than trusting legislators to pass a national health care reform bill with a blank check, and then write in the laws and regulations after the fact.
This is the prescription for a government and its legislators that is out of control and clearly dangerous to the republic. While the government and legislators may act like a democracy, the United States of America is not a strict democracy—it is a republic ruled by law.
The job of the Supreme Court and its justices is to enforce the U. S. Constitution, not re-write it to suit their personal social agenda. If our founding fathers thought the collective Supreme Court justices were smart enough to do that, they would have given them the authority to do so—and they did not.
If the government and its legislators can pass bills without essentially writing the law that would follow, they can also go after our right to bear arms—leaving only the military, law enforcement and criminals with guns, and the citizens they can prey on with nothing to defend themselves against power-hungry, out-of-control maniacs.
The collective tea party protestors are not a laughing matter to be characterized as an ignorant, bigoted, racist lot. They are not so much interested in racism as Bob Cesca would suggest, but rather freedom—preserving freedom for themselves and other American citizens, including Bob Cesca, even if Cesca does not know better.
And, the odds of being killed in an airborne terrorist attack are literally 1 in 10 million, according to Bob Cesca. Cesca is wrong, the mathematical odds are 1 in 100,000, not 1 in 10 million. If our population is 300 million and 3,000 people were killed in the 9-11 attack, that is 1 in 100,000. Do the math. I do not think much of Bob Cesca's thinking, and I think his math is suspect too.
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