Some of them who are complaining sound like conservatives, it’s sort of surprising. They’re complaining about some of the things conservatives, tea-party people, are complaining about.
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.) , referring to the Occupy Wall Street protesters.
It is not surprising. Or, it should not be.
It is the sound of people trying to break through the accumulated crud of a lifetime of ideological programming.
Hope and change.
It’s people who want you and me to pay their bills, and they want a massively larger and more intrusive federal government to do it for them.
That’s not all of it — I’m sure by now you’ve seen all the videos of the hard-left elements demanding violence — but that’s most of it, for now.
For the future, well, they’re angry, desperate, and entitled, and they’re in the hands of professional hard lefties pushing them to get violent. Maybe that’s not out in the open with the group you met in Chicago, but it is in a lot of other cities.
It’s the left. They will turn violent. I LOVE it. God, I love it. Let ’em run amok. We’ll see how that plays in Peoria, come the election. We’ll see how much the independents keep trusting a media that refuses to call the president out on supporting it.
Yeah, I’m enjoying the hell out of this. But don’t tell me they’re just misguided libertarians. They’re bums.
“They’re bums.”
No. Mixed bags, lots of different people and motives. Not that simple.
Don’t over-simplify. Don’t allow yourself to be polarized.
I don’t “love” the prospect of violence ever, for any reason, especially involving my fellow citizens, which is what they are, whatever they may think or understand.
You shouldn’t either.
The Tea Party (or the two branches of it that I know) have young TP’ers, most of whom work and none of who would be caught dead at one of these rallies, except to suborn the less moronic attendees.
Lexington is right. “Mixed bags, lots of different people and motives. Not that simple.
Don’t over-simplify. Don’t allow yourself to be polarized.”
“Mixed bags” they may be, but what about their organizers and supporters–especially those underwriting their efforts with money? I’m not sure they are a “mixed bag” but are hard leftists who will stoop to whatever is necessary–violence anyone?–to gain their goals. Trust, but verify, and it might be a good idea to keep your powder dry.
I don’t know who is providing financial support. I can say that the public events in Chicago appear to be poorly organized and genuinely bottom-up. As to violence, the kids seem very committed to non-violence. Trying to move the group toward violence will rapidly lose many of the people involved. Let’s not inflate probably imaginary dangers.
“Let’s not inflate probably imaginary dangers” but let’s also not get caught with our pants down either.
I was in DC and saw it close up. I repeat – Lexington is right – it is a very mixed bag. Lots of left wing lunatics of all atripes to be sure, but lots of other people too. If it is a well financed radical left event they did a lousy job of organizing it because there are a very wide range of people with a wide range of complaints, and many of them sounding very much like Tea Partiers.
Bill, sounds identical. There is simply no substitute for going to these events, walking right up to people and talking to them.
Good for you, Lex. If just a few people on the left took that attitude about the Tea Party, we’d be a very long way towards removing some of the worst excesses of the Government-Financial Complex.