Liberal Rhetoric 101: Overgeneralization

"Jihadists are right wing, as is the Tea Party!"

"The Ku Klux Klan is right wing, so is the Tea Party!"


 "Jesus taught to help the poor, ergo massive government welfare is Biblical!"

I'm guessing you've heard these claims, yes? It's all part of the liberal practice of taking a subject, looking at it from a great distance and boiling them down to a single common denominator while ignoring the dozens of other significant differences between the two. 

Lets consider the above three examples, shall we?

"Jihadists are right wing, as is the Tea Party!" and "The Ku Klux Klan is right wing, so is the Tea Party!" belong in the same explanation, so we'll treat them together.

The argument is based on the overgeneralized fact that "Radical Islam, the Ku Klux Klan and the Tea Party are on the political right.  While this is true, there is a matter of scale that is ignored by this comparison (please excuse the crudity of this model, it IS NOT to scale):

Note that while the Tea Party, the Ku Klux Klan and Radical Islam (as well as Monarchy, added in for comparison) are on the right wing of the spectrum. But no one who actually UNDERSTANDS the Tea Party (rather than the Drive-By Media's meme of the Tea Party) could consider it the same as the KKK or Radical Islam.

The Tea Party stands for equality and freedom FOR ALL, irregardless of race, in stark contrast to the KKK. It stands for a Constitutional Representative Republic, not a monarch, in stark contrast to monarchy. Finally, the Tea Party stands for the First Amendment's protection of Freedom of Religion, in stark contrast to Radical Islam.

The same would be true if a conservative were to attempt to claim that American Liberalism was the equivalent of Nazism (yes, the NAZI party was the NATIONAL SOCIALIST PARTY aka Left Wing, not right) or Communism. While these two factions do fall on the Left of the political spectrum, they are starkly farther to the Left than American Liberalism. (Comparing American Liberalism to European Socialism is a close comparison, however.)

Now for my third example:

"Jesus taught to help the poor, ergo massive government welfare is Biblical!"

While Christianity teaches us to help and provide for the poor, and liberals (at least claim) to try to help the poor using government welfare, there is a major difference in the way Jesus taught us to help the poor and how liberals try to help the poor. as I've pointed out over and over, there is no place in the Bible where Jesus said "Give your money to the government, and let the government help the poor." There's nowhere ANYWHERE in the Bible where God commands the government to care for the poor.

Even though liberals love to give the false impression that conservatives don't care about the poor, it's just not true. It's just that our plan to help the poor doesn't involve government. We believe in the Biblical model of individuals helping the poor either directly or through private charities.

All three of these examples show the liberal mentality of looking at things from only one angle, without looking at the nuances and specifics of the situations which make these supposed equivalencies not actual equivalencies.  To respond to these arguments is simple. Just take the time to break down the sheer ridiculousness of these comparisons by discussing the very nuances and specifics that make the equivalencies not equivalent.

*yes I AM quoting Back to the Future intentionally

Left Still Waiting for that Elusive "Tea Party" Attacker

The Left was quick to surmise that the Boston Marathon bombing came from some sort of "right wing activist."

According to PMS-NBC's Iraqi Defense Minister act-alike Chris Matthews, "Domestic terrorists...tend to be on the far right." CNN Analyst Peter Bergen asked "Right-Wing Extremists to blame for explosions?" Salon.com writer David Sirota said "Let's hope the Boston Marathon bomber is a White American."

Not surprisingly to anyone without a deep desire to blame political opponents, it turned out the bombers were Islamic Jihadists.

It's hardly the first time the Left has immediately blamed conservatives in general and the Tea Party in specific. When James Holmes was identified as the shooter, the Left immediately jumped to suggest that he was a Tea Party member.  When Jared Loughner went on a shooting spree, killing six people and severely injuring several people including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, the Left immediately suggested Loughner was a Tea Partier. He wasn't. Officially he was a registered Independent, but his writings suggested not a right wing extremist but a left wing extremist!

While some could argue that Islamic Jihadists are officially on the "right wing" they are not modern American conservatives in any way. They are more extremely right-wing than a monarchist. So while some liberals will claim Islamic Jihadists are "technically right-wing" it is yet another liberal false-equivalency. Same can be said of right-wing extremists like the Ku Klux Klan. It is a classic liberal false equivalency, just as it would be false to lump in most American liberals with Communism. (Comparing them to European style Socialism is fair based on a true equivalency of policies. Communism is inaccurate.)

The Tea Party stands for classic American ideals like keeping government as small as reasonably possible, keeping taxes as reasonably low as reasonably possible, and keeping people personally responsible for their own lives. The Tea Party is not extreme in the first place...it is classic American conservatism. The attempt to lump us in with Islamic Jihadists is an incredible lie.

Ultimately, every time there is an attack the Left will openly hope and suggest it is a Tea Partier, and so far it just keeps ending up being Jihadists. Maybe, and I know this is asking for a lot, maybe the Drive-By Media could knock off the politically based speculation and...oh I don't know...report the news?

I guess that'd be too much to hope for these days.

Best of Biblical Conservatism: Letter Bag: The Difference Between Classical Liberalism and Modern Liberalism

Today, on Best of Biblical Conservatism, we have one of our most popular posts of all time!

I received an annonymous comment recently (for the sake of this post, we'll call that person Anny) on an a post on a post from a few weeks ago that I wanted to address it here.  The post was Dissecting the Liberal Talking Points: The Tea Party isn't Going Anywhere.  Here was the comment:

Liberalism: political doctrine that takes protecting and enhancing the freedom of the individual to be the central problem of politics. Liberals typically believe that government is necessary to protect individuals from being harmed by others; but they also recognize that government itself can pose a threat to liberty. As the revolutionary American pamphleteer Thomas Paine expressed it in Common Sense (1776), government is at best “a necessary evil.” Laws, judges, and police are needed to secure the individual’s life and liberty, but their coercive power may also be turned against him." (and it continues...)

The Tea Party is therefore liberal.

It's an interesting point, Anny.  It's wrong, but it's an interesting point. What this individual doesn't recognize is the difference between Classical liberalism and Modern liberalism.  The definition given above is the definition of Classical liberalism.  For those of you who aren't familiar with the term, Classical liberalism is focused on liberty.  It supports small government, individual rights, and the Constitution.  When our nation was founded, it was a relatively liberal idea, which is to say it was to the left of the monarchy.  (Conservatism is to the left of monarch too, by the way.)

You see, in 1776 and 1787, Anny, the ideas that the Declaration of Independence and Constitution espoused were radical.  They aren't radical anymore.  Our founders created these values new, now we conservatives try to maintain them.

Modern liberalism is not about small government, it's about big government.  It's not about individual freedom, it's about group conformity and government telling you what's good for you. Modern liberalism does not recognize that government can pose a threat to liberty...it sees government as the solution to problems. 

Modern liberalism is the polar opposite as Classical liberalism.  Classical liberalism is now known as conservatism.

What Anny said is a perfect example of an etymological fallacy.  For those of you who don't have degrees in Communications, an etymological fallacy "is a genetic fallacy that holds, erroneously, that the historical meaning of a word or phrase is necessarily similar to its actual present-day meaning." (For those of you from Palm Beach County, FL, that means believing that what a word originally meant is what it means today.)

Liberal doesn't mean what it meant in our founders day.  The same is true of many other words.  In 1776 if a man had a "gay kid" that meant they had a "happy baby goat."  Does it mean that now, Anny?  Of course not.  Few people think of a kid as a baby goat anymore, even though that is the origin of the word, and few people still think gay means happy.

In short, the Tea Party is Classically liberal, which is synonymous with Modern conservatism.  Sorry, Anny, but in our modern context the Tea Party is conservative.

Comments are always welcomed on posts, provided they are in line with the Rules for Comments.  Please note any comment may become subject matter for a future post, as my personal interest and news cycles require. 

Obamacare Ruling Has Just Woken a Sleeping Giant

It's name is the Tea Party. Friends, do you know what caused the Tea Party? It was Obamacare. The Tea Party was kind of in a lull until yesterday's ruling by the Supreme Court. Now, friends, you've just made us angry. And we get organized when we're angry.

Mitt Romney's biggest problem...an excitement gap...just went bye bye. Because now conservatives are necessarily bent on getting rid of Obamacare at the ballot box. We always were, friends...it's just we were hoping the Supreme Court would stand up for liberty. They didn't. Well, Chief Justice Roberts didn't. (Still mad at you, buddy.) As conservatives, we believe in personal responsibility, and not the forced kind. If you want to purchase health insurance, fine. If you choose not to, that's fine too, but don't ask us to pay for it with our tax dollars. (We may be willing to pay for it in our churches and charities, just not through taxes.)

The Tea Party just woke up, friends. Mitt Romney just got huge boost. Because the Tea Party is once again awake and by the way, we're still mad as hell. We are not going to take this ruling lying down. If the Supreme Court is going to refuse to uphold the Constitution, then we're going to do it at the ballot box.

My fellow Tea Party patriots, get ready, because Election 2010: The Sequel is in post-production. Debuts on November 6, 2012. Game on.

Rumors of the Tea Party's Death Are Greatly Exaggerated

It's been claimed by the Drive-By Media and even some conservative media sources are saying the Tea Party is dead, citing the nomination of Mitt Romney by the Republican Party. But to paraphrase Mark Twain, the rumors of the Tea Party's demise have been greatly exaggerated.

First and foremost, and I have said this many times, the simple fact that Mitt Romney was the "establishment candidate" in this primary season shows the power of the Tea Party. In 2008, Romney was the "conservative alternative" to John McCain.  Now he's the establishment candidate.  Compared to the last few establishment candidates (John McCain, George W. Bush, Bob Dole, George H.W. Bush), Mitt is quite conservative. The Tea Party made that happen, my friends.

While we're at it, let's look at last week's Wisconsin Recall. Scott Walker, despite the massive onslaught from Big Unions, kept his job and in fact gained support over his 2010 election. Who do you think got Walker elected? The Tea Party, friends. And who do you think helped him keep his job? The Tea Party.

Or how about some of the Democrats nationally that are having to govern according to conservative principles. Take New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. While his social policies are as liberal as can be, his fiscal policies have been right out of the Tea Party. He has refused to raise taxes, recognizing FINALLY that businesses are leaving New York State in droves for a better business climate. And since it's a whole lot easier to leave a state and go to another state to do business then it is to move your business out of the nation, such moves happen a lot.

Yet another sign of the Tea Party's power showed up in my mailbox last week. The conservative Republican County Executive of my own county in New York, Maggie Brooks, is running to be my district's representative in the House of Representatives. Friends, I've gone to multiple candidate vettings at my 9/12 Project meetings (by the way, this is a branch of the Tea Party...oh and still going strong) and I've heard the the Republican Party representatives tell us "we've got a really deep bench in New York at the local level that can run for national office."  When I heard Maggie Brooks was running for Congress my thought was "it's about darn time your 'deep bench' yielded a solid conservative!"

Friends, the Tea Party is most definitely not dead. We have simply begun to take over the Republican Party. Which is precisely what we set out to do...turn the GOP back into the conservative party it claimed to be. At the end of the day, he who disregards the Tea Party does so at his peril.

Best of Biblical Conservatism: The Difference Between Classical Liberalism and Modern Liberalism

This week, since I'm on my annual Christmas vacation, I've been posting "The Best of Biblical Conservatism" with selections from 2011's ten most popular posts. Today's was originally posted on September 15, 2011.

I received an annonymous comment recently (for the sake of this post, we'll call that person Anny) on an a post on a post from a few weeks ago that I wanted to address it here.  The post was Dissecting the Liberal Talking Points: The Tea Party isn't Going Anywhere.  Here was the comment:

Liberalism: political doctrine that takes protecting and enhancing the freedom of the individual to be the central problem of politics. Liberals typically believe that government is necessary to protect individuals from being harmed by others; but they also recognize that government itself can pose a threat to liberty. As the revolutionary American pamphleteer Thomas Paine expressed it in Common Sense (1776), government is at best “a necessary evil.” Laws, judges, and police are needed to secure the individual’s life and liberty, but their coercive power may also be turned against him." (and it continues...)

The Tea Party is therefore liberal.

It's an interesting point, Anny.  It's wrong, but it's an interesting point. What this individual doesn't recognize is the difference between Classical liberalism and Modern liberalism.  The definition given above is the definition of Classical liberalism.  For those of you who aren't familiar with the term, Classical liberalism is focused on liberty.  It supports small government, individual rights, and the Constitution.  When our nation was founded, it was a relatively liberal idea, which is to say it was to the left of the monarchy.  (Conservatism is to the left of monarch too, by the way.)

You see, in 1776 and 1787, Anny, the ideas that the Declaration of Independence and Constitution espoused were radical.  They aren't radical anymore.  Our founders created these values new, now we conservatives try to maintain them.

Modern liberalism is not about small government, it's about big government.  It's not about individual freedom, it's about group conformity and government telling you what's good for you. Modern liberalism does not recognize that government can pose a threat to liberty...it sees government as the solution to problems. 

Modern liberalism is the polar opposite as Classical liberalism.  Classical liberalism is now known as conservatism.

What Anny said is a perfect example of an etymological fallacy.  For those of you who don't have degrees in Communications, an etymological fallacy "is a genetic fallacy that holds, erroneously, that the historical meaning of a word or phrase is necessarily similar to its actual present-day meaning." (For those of you from Palm Beach County, FL, that means believing that what a word originally meant is what it means today.)

Liberal doesn't mean what it meant in our founders day.  The same is true of many other words.  In 1776 if a man had a "gay kid" that meant they had a "happy baby goat."  Does it mean that now, Anny?  Of course not.  Few people think of a kid as a baby goat anymore, even though that is the origin of the word, and few people still think gay means happy.

In short, the Tea Party is Classically liberal, which is synonymous with Modern conservatism.  Sorry, Anny, but in our modern context the Tea Party is conservative.

Comments are always welcomed on posts, provided they are in line with the Rules for Comments.  Please note any comment may become subject matter for a future post, as my personal interest and news cycles require. 

Tea Party Meeting in Rochester, NY Results in ZERO Arrests

On Saturday, November 5th at 4:00 pm, We Surround Rochester, a local Tea Party group that is part of the 9-12 Project, met for their monthly meeting at Bathtub Billy's Restaurant, located at 630 Ridge Rd W Rochester, NY 14615 USA.  The topics discussed included the history of Veterans Day and also participation in Glenn Beck's Mercury One charitable organization. The group concluded their meeting, payed for their meals, left tips and cleaned up after themselves.

More importantly:  No one was arrested. A simple google search of news articles "Arrests at 912 Meeting in Rochester NY" returned zero stories. A second google search of news articles "Rape accusations at 912 Meeting in Rochester NY" also returned zero results.

As a part of my dilligence for this post, I made a phone call to Bathtub Billy's and spoke to an employee who was present on Saturday at the meeting. When I asked him if there had been any arrests at the meeting, he laughed at me and said "No, there has never been an arrest," and noted that the group "always peacably demonstrates."  In speaking with a fellow member of the group I was told that he "would willingly leave a $20 bill on the table at a We Surround Rochester meeting and trust that it would be there at the end of the night."

Why does this matter?  Well, the Drive-By Media is telling us how the Occupy Protests are the liberal Tea Party, aren't they?  So let's look at the same google search as it pertains to Occupy Rochester:  A google search of "Occupy Rochester Arrests" shows stories where 32 people and 16 people were arrested on different days at Occupy Rochester protests in the first three articles listed.

As far as rape accusations, there have been zero at Occupy Rochester, for the record, however, Occupy Wall Street has seen quite a few rape accusations surface.  And I'm pretty sure a wise individual wouldn't leave a $20 bill lying out at one of those protests.

Yet the Left wants you to believe that the Occupy Protests are the Liberal Tea Party.  Here's one example of how it isn't:  Zero arrests in over 100 meetings from We Surround Rochester.  Compare that to dozens over a few days at Occupy Rochester.

No, the Occupy Protests aren't the equivalent of the Tea Party...the Tea Party doesn't get arrested, protests peacefully, doesn't wreck the streets, and doesn't have rapes.  Can't say that for Occupy Protests, can you?

Occupy Wall Street IS NOT the Liberals’ Tea Party

For about a month now, the Occupy Wall Street protests have been going on, protesting things that, as I have said before, are none of their business like business profits and the size of corporate bonuses, not to mention the fact that businesses haven’t hired even though they have the money. (Which misses the entire point of why a business hires a new employee. I have the financial ability to hire a babysitter for Friday night. I don’t have a child, and thus I don’t NEED a babysitter. I’m not going to hire a babysitter so some teenager can have money.) Now the Left and the Drive-By Media want to compare this movement to the Tea Party.

Friends, Occupy Wall Street is not the liberal equivalent of the Tea Party for so very many reasons, some of which I will enumerate in a moment. Before I do, I’d like to explain why the left so desperately wants their own version of the Tea Party: They are jealous of the Tea Party. The Tea Party sprang up from the grassroots level without any prompting from the national party or massive donors. It came up because many Americans are frustrated with the way Obama in specific and government in general is going about their business. Out of that came a peaceful, respectful movement that has changed the political landscape. It is not unlike the way the Civil Rights movement sprung up…and once again, like the Civil Rights movement, it was a Republican movement. But I digress.

So know let’s talk about WHY Occupy Wall Street is not a Left wing equivalent of the Tea Party:

- The Tea Party happened on its own. Occupy Wall Street was created by Big Unions, liberal activist groups like MoveOn.org and other George Soros funded groups, and is being egged on by the mainstream Democrat Party. The Tea Party, in contrast, is often disliked by the mainstream Republican Party.

- There has still never been an arrest at a Tea Party rally. We in the Tea Party clean up after ourselves, we stick within the Time, Place and Manner restrictions placed on us by the protest permits we’re given, and do not cause problems for law enforcement or other people who are near our protest. Meanwhile, Occupy Wall Street has already seen dozens of arrests, have violated the Time, Place and Manner restrictions of their permits, have attempted to stop traffic by marching not on the sidewalks but in the streets, and have generally been menaces to those around them.

- The Tea Party knows what we stand for and what we are trying to achieve: Small, unobtrusive government and the maximum amount of freedom for all Americans that can be provided, a minimal tax burden, and equality of opportunity for all (not of result, but of opportunity). Interviews with Occupy Wall Street protesters show that they don’t have much of a platform, except for “life isn’t fair”, “someone else has what I want and I want it,” some sputtering about wealth inequality, and some bumper sticker slogans about the wealthy paying “their fair share” even though no one can define what that “fair share” is, except for it’s more than what’s being paid now.

- The Tea Party formed around its issues, Occupy Wall Street formed and NOW is trying to establish its issues. The Occupy Wall Street leadership has had to post a vote on its Facebook page to decide WHAT their demands are. They formed a protest, they’re in progress of protesting, and only now are they trying to figure out what they want. To use a term from the movie PCU, it’s a movement of Causeheads. There is a group of people who wants to protest SOMETHING, and now they are filling in their own private frustrations with an occasional semi-legitimate grievance. Meanwhile the Tea Party has always stood for specific Constitutional values.

No, my friends, Occupy Wall Street is not a leftwing equivalent of the Tea Party. It’s a cheap knockoff that rose up out of the liberal desire to protest anything that they don’t like, regardless of the legitimacy of those frustrations or their right to demand reparations for harms not perpetrated. The Democrat Party and the Left deeply desire their own version of the Tea Party. Unfortunately for liberals, Occupy Wall Street is not it.

Letter Bag: The Difference Between Classical Liberalism and Modern Liberalism

I received an annonymous comment recently (for the sake of this post, we'll call that person Anny) on an a post on a post from a few weeks ago that I wanted to address it here.  The post was Dissecting the Liberal Talking Points: The Tea Party isn't Going Anywhere.  Here was the comment:

Liberalism: political doctrine that takes protecting and enhancing the freedom of the individual to be the central problem of politics. Liberals typically believe that government is necessary to protect individuals from being harmed by others; but they also recognize that government itself can pose a threat to liberty. As the revolutionary American pamphleteer Thomas Paine expressed it in Common Sense (1776), government is at best “a necessary evil.” Laws, judges, and police are needed to secure the individual’s life and liberty, but their coercive power may also be turned against him." (and it continues...)

The Tea Party is therefore liberal.

It's an interesting point, Anny.  It's wrong, but it's an interesting point. What this individual doesn't recognize is the difference between Classical liberalism and Modern liberalism.  The definition given above is the definition of Classical liberalism.  For those of you who aren't familiar with the term, Classical liberalism is focused on liberty.  It supports small government, individual rights, and the Constitution.  When our nation was founded, it was a relatively liberal idea, which is to say it was to the left of the monarchy.  (Conservatism is to the left of monarch too, by the way.)

You see, in 1776 and 1787, Anny, the ideas that the Declaration of Independence and Constitution espoused were radical.  They aren't radical anymore.  Our founders created these values new, now we conservatives try to maintain them.

Modern liberalism is not about small government, it's about big government.  It's not about individual freedom, it's about group conformity and government telling you what's good for you. Modern liberalism does not recognize that government can pose a threat to liberty...it sees government as the solution to problems. 

Modern liberalism is the polar opposite as Classical liberalism.  Classical liberalism is now known as conservatism.

What Anny said is a perfect example of an etymological fallacy.  For those of you who don't have degrees in Communications, an etymological fallacy "is a genetic fallacy that holds, erroneously, that the historical meaning of a word or phrase is necessarily similar to its actual present-day meaning." (For those of you from Palm Beach County, FL, that means believing that what a word originally meant is what it means today.)

Liberal doesn't mean what it meant in our founders day.  The same is true of many other words.  In 1776 if a man had a "gay kid" that meant they had a "happy baby goat."  Does it mean that now, Anny?  Of course not.  Few people think of a kid as a baby goat anymore, even though that is the origin of the word, and few people still think gay means happy.

In short, the Tea Party is Classically liberal, which is synonymous with Modern conservatism.  Sorry, Anny, but in our modern context the Tea Party is conservative.

Comments are always welcomed on posts, provided they are in line with the Rules for Comments.  Please note any comment may become subject matter for a future post, as my personal interest and news cycles require.