Densely Woven Lies

by Walter Scott Hudson
http://fightinwordsusa.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/densely-woven-lies/

Much hey has been made of the recent string of comments portraying conservative activism as support for domestic terrorism. Former President Bill Clinton insinuated, in an interview with Wolf Blitzer, that the Tea Party movement is breeding the next Timothy McVeigh. Representative Betty McCollum, from Minnesota’s fifth district, placed House Republicans and conservative commentators on notice to “temper” their rhetoric lest anyone within earshot take up arms. Joe Kline, a political columinist for TIME magazine, accused Glenn Beck of sedition for “langauge inciting rebellion against the state.” Chris Matthews prefaced Kline’s accusation by declaring terms such as “un-American” to be “license words” or “permission words,” as if assassins lay in wait for talk show hosts to give a green light.

These moments are indicative of a progressive strategy to undermine the Tea Party movement. The misrepresentations, distortions, and outright falsehoods are numerous and tightly woven, intent to defy concise response. In the space of three minutes, McCollum managed to misrepresent Tea Partiers as anarchists – in spite of their obvious support of the Constitution, accuse them of racism – without any evidence whatsoever, and shamelessly distort a transcript of Sean Hannity – to pass off a plainly satirical comment as sincere. These were less than half the factually challenged statements in her brief remarks.

I believe this tactic, densely weaving lies, is intended to distract as much as discredit. Like obsessive compulsives counting grains of rice, bloggers feel compelled to unwind the deceitful knot and expose every thread. I do not begrudge them the task. However, at the root of the Democratic strategy are a couple unspoken assertions which are plainly wrong. Yanking at these makes light work of the knot.

First, there is nothing wrong with anger. Anger can be righteous. Anger can preserve life. Anger is an emotion, unto itself value neutral. What makes it appropriate or inappropriate is its catalyst and outlet. Anger can be constrained or wild, directed toward a productive purpose or destructively unleashed. How an individual channels their anger is the relevant matter, not whether they feel it. Concurrent with this truth is another which is less politically correct. We have the right to hate. Whether hatred is desirable or beneficial or attractive is another debate altogether. Despite the efforts of the burgeoning thought police, nothing obligates anyone toward a particular feeling.

The second and more important assertion underlying Democratic attacks is that one man’s words can make him responsible for another man’s deeds. Under very specific circumstances, this is true. When the purpose of speech is to incite imminent violence (i.e., “help me flip this car”), it takes on the quality of action. However, it is ludicrous to assert that any statement loosely argued to have affected a criminal’s thought process makes the speaker responsible for crime. Were this the case, anyone within proximity of a criminal, at any point in the criminal’s life, could be indicted as a co-conspirator.

Individuals are responsible for their own actions. This is an essential aspect of a free society. What we see in the progressive effort to contrive hate crime and hate speech is an application of their collectivist mentality. Only by demeaning the individual can society hold one man responsible for the actions of another. It requires a paradigm in which the criminal is not capable of acting upon their own judgment, and therefore must have acted upon the judgment of another. It is an insult to the human condition which serves only to enslave.