So I clicked on this
from BlogNetNews and noticed the hullabaloo over CNN yanking their copyrighted content from YouTube. It appears as if some folks are taking this as a bit of cover for the reporter’s clear bias against the “Tea Party” protests last week.
Fair enough. Given some of the vitriol and invective that many bloggers with original content would spew (and rightly) at MSM reporters who steal their breaking stories or content, I can’t blame CNN for wanting to protect their intellectual property one bit.
What kills me is this — a blogger on site was able to get some of the aftermath of CNN’s reporting and some of the questions hurled… this is worth four minutes of your life to watch:
Now you tell me whether this reporter was harassed or not? You tell me whether this is precisely the sort of vitriol we rejected in 2003 during the liberation of Iraq?
I’m not entirely opposed to the idea of “tea parties” to protest what most would accurately view as the mortgaging of our future. $50 billion dollars in stimulus for Illinois is little more than the federal government whipping out the credit card and cranking up the printers at the Federal Reserve.
It’s money from thin air, collateral against our children’s future. OK — be angry about that.
But the way it is taken out on this reporter… this doesn’t help the cause of limited government, does it?
If this represents the mood, approach, and tenor of the liberty movement, count me out. Doug Mataconis over at Below the Beltway has splendidly criticized the movement to describe not only what precisely they are for, but the outright hypocrisy of not opposing the massive expansion of government under President George W. Bush over the last eight years.
Where were the tea parties for Medicare expansion? The Ag Bill? When federal spending on education increased by over 50%? When property taxes in localities in Virginia skyrocketed year after year?
Not only is the false vigilance disturbing, but the approach and tenor kills me. For instance, get to about 2:00:
Woman: [Shouts] “Burn the books!” [applause]
Man: “I don’t think you were serious about that, were you?”
Woman: “I am too.”
Man: “Burn all the books?!”
Woman: “The ones in college, those, those brainwashing books.”Man: “[laughs] Brainwashing books?”
Woman: “Yes.”Man: “Which ones are those?”
Woman: “Like, the evolution crap, and, yeah…”
Burn the books? C’mon… what kind of false intellectualism is that? Not to mention this whole “this is a non-partisan movement” meme that has now infiltrated the movement. Really? All this energy, and you want to change NOTHING?!?
Gimme a break.
Today’s Free Lance-Star published a letter to the editor that, while from the opposing side of the political spectrum, fairly encapsulates the open criticism one should hear about a tea party high on saccharine but low on content:
Let’s remember, it was Bush who created a huge deficit with the war in Iraq and money policies designed to aid those who have ruined the economy, like the subsidies for companies that sent jobs overseas.
Why would working people complain about a tax cut they are receiving? Or about rebuilding American infrastructure and schools?
The tea party is fomented by whom? By those who cannot read history and learn the truth but are blinded by an ideology never followed?
Blinded by an ideology never followed. Couldn’t have said it better myself.
In the meantime, until activists get serious not just about reducing and limiting the power and size of their government, but find a manner in which to share their ideals and principles without swearing at reporters (no matter what their bias), the wilderness is precisely what they deserve. I’m quite certain we’ll see some oscillation — a brief victory here and there from time to time — but the steady march of socialism will remain quite unimpeded until they discover the backbone to do more than protest.