When one considers the casualness with which left-wing
politicians and media figures use words like “terrorist,”
“jihad”
and “Wahhabis”
to describe the Tea Party, one cannot help but wonder what shapes
such attitudes in the first place.
In order to satisfy such curiosity, it is necessary to
spend time among liberals, socialists, communists and
self-described progressives. I realize this is not the way a lot of
conservatives would want to spend their morning — much less their
afternoon or evening. Yet when in a political conflict, especially
one that is likely to shape the very future of this country, it is
most helpful for conservatives to know our adversaries as well as
we know ourselves.
This is what motivated me to wake far earlier than usual
last Sunday morning and travel across the Charles River to the
People’s Republic of Cambridge to attend a discussion about the Tea
Party sponsored by the Ethical Society of Boston. The organization
describes
itself as “a non-theistic humanistic religious and educational
fellowship inspired by the ideal that the supreme aim of human life
is working to create a more humane society.” So of course when a
woman named Mary said she was curious about the Tea Party, another
woman replied to her, “I hope you’re not coming for a positive
view.” Ah, so it was going to be that sort of
discussion.
The discussion was facilitated by a bearded gentleman
named Gaston. By his own admission he did not consider himself “a
very good facilitator” and made it very clear he held the Tea Party
in little esteem. But he promised to “stand back.” His earlier
modesty notwithstanding, Gaston ensured all views were heard and
even tried to find areas of common ground between “progressives”
and Tea Partiers, albeit unsuccessfully.
Of course, a vast majority of the participants held the
Tea Party in very little regard. A gentleman named Marvin described
Tea Party activists as “irrational” and said their political
positions “aren’t ideas but a string of words.” For good measure,
he threw the Koch Brothers into the mix. A woman named Sheila
chimed in and said that Tea Party activists weren’t so much
irrational as they were “simplistic” because they didn’t take
technological advancements such as the Internet into account
(despite all evidence to
the contrary). A man named Bill characterized the Tea Party as
“white, right religious types.” Another man named John said the Tea
Party members who had been elected to Congress were “dangerous
persons” because their opposition to the debt ceiling bill “put us
on the brink of disaster.” To which I queried, “Are the Democrats
who voted against the bill also dangerous persons?”
Yet a recurring question came up during the course of the
discussion: “What motivates the Tea Party?” During the break, I was
approached by Sheila and we had a pleasant conversation. I made a
point of asking her if she either personally knew or had met any
Tea Party activists. She replied in the negative. I suggested that
it if she and others wanted to know what motivates Tea Partiers
that it would do them no harm in talking to them. “Oh, I don’t need
to talk to them to know what they’re about,” she replied. “There’s
plenty of information around that I can read.”
“So what do you read?” I asked. Sheila retorted, “I read
the New York Times, the Boston
Globe and the New Yorker.”
Well, I had to ask. After all, this would be the same
New York Times in which Thomas Friedman
described the Tea Party as a “Hezbollah faction” bent on taking
Republicans “on a suicide mission.” Alas, The Gray Lady can always
be relied upon to assess the Tea Party with language both rich in
restraint and in sobriety. But to give Sheila her due
she did make a point of saying that she not only liked Jeff
Jacoby, the lone conservative columnist at the Boston
Globe, but that she also liked his column last week in which
he chastised Friedman and others for their incendiary language
against the Tea Party.
Yet for every left-winger who acknowledges that their
leading lights are capable of directing them towards darkness there
are a thousand liberals, socialists, communists and self-described
progressives who are perfectly content to equate Tea Partiers with
terrorists. When Marvin took me to task for defending the Tea Party
members who voted against raising the debt ceiling, I asked him if
he honestly considered them to be terrorists. “Yes, because they
instilled fear into people,” said Marvin. “But surely there is a
difference between someone who casts a no vote in Congress and
someone who navigates an airplane into a building,” I said. Marvin
nonchalantly quipped, “It depends on how you use the word
terrorist.” So in Marvin’s world (and that of many leftists in this
country), there is no difference between those who want limited
government and those responsible for the attacks of September 11,
2001. If this isn’t a sad state of affairs nearly a decade removed
from that act of evil, then I don’t know what is.
I made a point of reiterating publicly what I said
privately to Sheila. If progressives really want to know what the
Tea Party is about, then they should go talk to them. You don’t
have to agree with them, but just hear them out. Gaston seemed
quite amenable to this idea and suggested that the Ethical Society
reach out to the Tea Party. However, other members threw cold water
on it, suggesting that they had more pressing matters to attend to
(like combating racism and promoting humanism). Of course, how is
it that you can promote humanism if you don’t view people who
embrace the Tea Party as human beings?
