What's behind the anti-Tea Party hate narrative?

(AP File)

There's a new narrative taking hold in the wake of the recent Tea Party protests and the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing: The Tea Partiers' intense opposition to the Obama administration has led to overheated political rhetoric, which could in turn lead to violence, perhaps as devastating as Oklahoma City.

Former President Clinton is the leading voice of this new narrative. In newspaper interviews, television appearances and a widely discussed speech Friday, Clinton said it's "legitimate" to draw "parallels to the time running up to Oklahoma City and a lot of the political discord that exists in our country today."

"Watch your words," warned ABC News, reporting that Clinton "weighed in on the angry anti-government rhetoric, ringing out from talk radio to Tea Party rallies."

The reports dovetailed with earlier media stories depicting Tea Party gatherings as angry mobs, accusing protesters of throwing racial epithets at black lawmakers and of making threats of violence. The implication was that all this could be part of a nationwide trend. "Just this month, the Southern Poverty Law Center reported that it had tracked an explosion in extremist anti-government patriot groups fueled, in large part, by anger over the economy and Barack Obama's presidency," NBC's David Gregory said on "Meet the Press" in early April. "In this highly charged political atmosphere, where you've got so much passion, so much disagreement, this takes it, of course, to a different level."

How did this story line grow? Many of the claims that extremism is on the rise in America originate in research done by the Southern Poverty Law Center, an Alabama-based group that for nearly 40 years has tracked what it says is the growing threat of intolerance in the United States. These days the SPLC is issuing new warnings of new threats. But today's warnings sound an awful lot like those of the past.

In 1989, the SPLC warned of the growing threat of skinheads, saying, "Not since the height of Klan activity during the civil rights era has there been a white supremacist group so obsessed with violence. ..."

In 1992, the SPLC warned of the growing threat of other white supremacist groups, which it claimed had grown by 27 percent from the year before.

In 1995, the SPLC warned of the growing threat of right-wing militias.

In 1998, the SPLC warned of the growing threat of Internet-based hate groups, which according to one press account had "created the biggest surge in hate in America in years."

In 1999, the SPLC warned that the growing threat of Web-based hate groups was growing even more, with a 60 percent increase from the year before.

In 2002, the SPLC warned of the growing threat of post-Sept. 11 hate groups, which it said had grown 12 percent between 2000 and 2001.

In 2004, the SPLC warned (again) of the growing threat of skinhead groups, whose numbers it said had doubled in the previous year.

In 2008, the SPLC warned of the growing threat of hate groups overall, whose number it said increased 48 percent since 2000.

And in 2010, just a few weeks ago, the SPLC warned of the growing threat of "patriot" groups, which it said increased by 244 percent in 2009.

In the world of the Southern Poverty Law Center, the threat is always growing. Ronald Reagan's policies led to a growing threat. The first Gulf War led to a growing threat. The election of Bill Clinton led to a growing threat. The Internet led to a growing threat. Sept. 11 led to a growing threat. The war in Iraq led to a growing threat. Is it any wonder that Obama's presidency has, in the SPLC's estimation, led to a growing threat?

Hate groups do exist across the political spectrum, and have for a long time. But they have nothing to do with the expressions of frustration over deficits, taxes and Obamacare that we have heard at so many Tea Party gatherings. That frustration, felt by Republicans, independents and even some Democrats, is an entirely mainstream reaction to the sharply activist course the president and congressional leadership have taken. While the level of frustration is indeed a threat, it is a political threat. Ask Democrats running in this November's elections.

It's important to distinguish between a political threat and a physical one. As Clinton might say, the hate accusers should watch their words.

Byron York, the Examiner's chief political correspondent, can be contacted at byork@washingtonexaminer.com.

“Reichstag Fire?”

Maybe something like this, around October.

(Found this fiction on the internet.)

INTERIOR UNDERGROUND DC PARKING GARAGE. BOTTOM LEVEL. NIGHT.

Libra’s footsteps echo off the walls. The buzz of a flickering neon light is heard. In the corner of the garage a whole sector of lights has gone dark. Shadows thicken. A lighter flickers in the darkness as a cigar is lit.

LIBRA: Carthago. Countersign?

CENTURION: Delenda est. Sort of overly dramatic don’t you think?

LIBRA: Not paid to think. What is the assignment?

CENTURION: The Wing thinks it’s time to lay a little blue smoke between the mirrors. Take the heat off our team and torch the other side. That’s your job.

LIBRA: Fine. How wet does the Wing want it to get?

CENTURION: We project that if three team members are sent down it should put a stop to any attrition in November.

LIBRA: Wouldn’t taking out just one serve the same purpose?

CENTURION: No. It has to look like a pattern.

LIBRA: Fine. Any particular team members you need erased?

CENTURION: Nobody from Chicago or San Francisco. And from safe seats only. We need to preserve the count. Renegade’s very keen on that.

LIBRA: Level of obfuscation?

CENTURION: None. Public and messy. “Accidents” would be counter productive. But no families. Renaissance would be upset.

LIBRA: Timing?

CENTURION: Within the next 10 days. It would be best if all three were within the same day.

LIBRA: You want target clearance and notification?

CENTURION: No. This will be the last contact for this contract.

LIBRA: Half to the Bahamas account by noon tomorrow and the half on completion to our friend in Costa Rica.

CENTURION: Done.

LIBRA: Anything else?

CENTURION: No. If we need you again we can always find you.

LIBRA: That’s what you people always think. Oh, by the way, was that stuff about you being naked in the showers the real deal?

CENTURION: Just get it done.

FADE TO BLACK

The irony is that those who are establishing collectivism in America are accusing the individualists of racism, whereas, as this article shows, racism in a society increases in direct proportion to the amount of the collectivism imposed upon it and inversely with the amount of individualism protected. After all, if groupism is the main criteria for identifying people, skin color is the easiest one for people with discrimination limitations or handicaps can cope with.

Historically, racism has always risen or fallen with the rise or fall of collectivism. Collectivism holds that the individual has no rights, that his life and work belong to the group (to "society," to the tribe, the state, the nation) and that the group may sacrifice him at its own whim to its own interests. The only way to implement a doctrine of that kind is by means of brute force -- and statism has always been the poltical corollary of collectivism.

The absolute state is merely an institutionalized form of gang rule, regardless of which particular gang seizes power. And -- since there is no rational justification for such rule, since none has ever been or can ever be offered -- the mystique of racism is a crucial element in every variant of the absolute state. The relationship is reciprocal: statism rises out of prehistorical tribal warfare, out of the notion that the men of one tribe are the natural prey for the men of another -- and establishes its own internal sub-categories of racism, a system of castes determined by a man's birth, such as inherited titles of nobility or inherited serfdom.

The racism of Nazi Germany -- where men had to fill questionnaires about their ancestry for generations back, in order to prove their "Aryan" descent -- has its counterpart in Soviet Russia, where men had to fill similar questionnaires to show that their ancestors had owned no property and thus to prove their "proletarian" descent. The Soviet ideology rest on the notion that men can be conditioned to communism genetically -- that is, that a few generations conditioned by dictatorship will transmit communist ideology to their descendants, who will be communists at birth. The persecution of racial minorities in Soviet Russia, according to the racial descent and whim of any given commissar, is a matter of record; anti-semitism is particularly prevalent -- only the official pogroms are now called "political purges."

There is only one antidote to racism: the philosophy of individualism and its politico-economic corollary, laissez-faire capitalism.

Individualism regards man -- every man -- as an independent, sovereign entity who possesses an inalienable right to his own life, a right derived from his nature as a rational being. Individualism holds that a civilized society, or any form of association, cooperation or peaceful co-existence among men, can be achieved only on the basis of the recognition of individual rights -- and that a group, as such, has no rights other than the individual rights of its members.

It is not a man's ancestors or relatives or genes or body chemistry that count in a free market, but only one human attribute: productive ability. It is by his own individual ability and ambition that capitalism judges a man and rewards him accordingly.

No political system can establish universal rationality by law (or by force). But capitalism is the only system that functions in a way which rewards rationality and penalizes all forms of irrationality, including racism.

A fully free, capitalist system has not yet existed anywhere. But what is enormously significant is the correlation of racism and political controls in the semi-free economies of the 19th century. Racial and/or religious persecutions of minorities stood in inverse ratio to the degree of a country's freedom. Racism was strongest in the more controlled economies, such as Russia and Germany -- and weakest in England, the then freest country of Europe.

-- excerpted from the article "Racism" by Ayn Rand, published in the September, 1963 issue of The Objectivist Newsletter, excerpts of which can be found HERE.

"The left attempts to brand us tea party patriots as haters, while in reality they are the ones spewing hate from deep within their souls." -- Lloyd Marcus, April 2nd, 2010 here: http://www.lloydmarcus.com/

The reality is that hating whitey is OK, and the honkies are supposed to shut up and take it.

The reverse racism against the majority whites is the simplest explanation for why the Tea Party is mostly white and so many white males vote for the GOP, but the lamestream media can’t acknowledge that.

The single white females who vote for the rats because of various entitlements or the right to abortion are going to rue the day whites become a minority in this country due to lax immigration, and reverse discrimination laws are still in place.

These latest leftest schemes to expand the government are going to fall most heavily on the middle class which is mostly white.

Sorry for the rant, but I wish I could distill it more concisely for usable talking points that would be distributed to the Tea Parties and the GOP. It’s late. Thanks for the quotes & link.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.