April 14, 2010
Of Tea and Tyranny
Last week, current RI Future proprietor Brian Hull linked to a Boston Phoenix article authored by David S. Bernstein titled "Tea is for Terrorism"; Brian Hull chose a similar headline for his post, "Tea is for Terror". Early on, the article warns of a potential terrorist strike in the U.S....
[I]t would almost be surprising if there are not any “lone wolves” or “small terrorist cells” preparing to strike.Given that early graf and the title, you might expect the bulk of the article to be about connections to actual or threatened violence, but it isn’t. Instead, the subject is protests, how the tone of political rhetoric might lead to violence, and how, in the author’s opinion, fringe group, tea party and mainstream GOP rhetoric have all crossed the same line together...
The distinction between legitimate and fringe speakers…has disappeared. Also wiped away is the line of demarcation between disagreements over policy and claims of illegitimacy.And what kinds of examples does Bernstein use to support his that is a claim that the fringes are now part and parcel of the mainstream GOP? Well, one is the fact that past and possible future Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney and a significant number of Republican Attorney Generals have expressed dissent concerning the recently passed Federal healthcare law…
Mitt Romney, for example, released a statement calling passage of the health-care legislation “an unconscionable abuse of power,” and “an historic usurpation of the legislative process.”According to Bernstein, this is crazy stuff that reinforces the birthers or those who believe that the Obama administration represents the dominion of the antichrist. Ultimately, this argument boils down to that since there are crazies in the world, the loyal opposition should be as quiet as it can in opposing the actions of the governing majority -- keep that particular phrase in mind, because I've borrowed it from someone else, whom we’ll get to in a moment -- because dissent can lead to dangerous outcomes, so we are better off with less of it.And, after its passage, more than a dozen Republican state attorneys general immediately filed suit, claiming the bill is unconstitutional.
Quoting Jeff Montgomery of the People for the American Way, the article says...
“There is apparently nothing they can say or do that is so extreme that the party leaders will disavow them,” says Montgomery. As a result, “we have millions of Americans being told daily, by the people they trust, that the US government is on the verge of tyranny".But if Bernstein paid closer attention to his own newspaper, he would know that its editorial board in 2007 was also concerned with the U.S. being on the verge of tyranny...
If the lies that produced the Iraq War can be considered a soft form of presidential authoritarianism abroad, then should we consider Bush’s perversion of the government’s prosecutorial power at home an equally dangerous form of tyranny? Following Karl Rove’s footsteps will help the nation understand the answer. Expect the worst....raising an obvious question of why it is within the bounds of professional journalism for alternative newspaper editors to say the U.S. is on the verge of tyranny, but out-of-bounds extremism when tea-partiers reach the same conclusion.
Brian Hull might be similarly interested to know that the prior proprietor of Rhode Island's Future has also told us that both Federal and state governments are on the verge of tyranny...
The march towards an American Police state continues. First, Don Carcieri rips up the Rhode Island constitution, now the US Attorney General unilaterally repeals the 4th AmendmentAt this point, I could continue tossing out examples of the continuing invocation of tyranny by the left, e.g. New York Times columnist Bob Herbert saying “the rule of law is succumbing to the tyranny of fear”, or Village Voice columnist Nat Hentoff in 2002 approvingly quoting another paper's editorial that stated that "actions taken over the past year are eerily reminiscent of tyranny portrayed in the most nightmarish works of fiction", and most of us could probably settle around a nice common-ground milquetoast position of sometimes people on both sides employ some hyperbole when using politically-charged terms.
But if your interest goes beyond dismissing the use of the term "tyranny" as something that everyone does, and you want to capture the spirit of the Tea Party rally to be held tomorrow at the Rhode Island statehouse, I would like to suggest a section of a 1927 Supreme Court Opinion written by Justice Louis Brandeis as a good starting point, Justice Brandeis not being, as far as I know, someone who is generally regarded as a right-wing kook...
Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the State was to make men free to develop their faculties, and that, in its government, the deliberative forces should prevail over the arbitrary...that the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; that public discussion is a political duty, and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government....Recognizing the occasional tyrannies of governing majorities, they amended the Constitution so that free speech and assembly should be guaranteed.Writing with the precision of a Supreme Court Justice, Justice Brandeis saw at least the occasional tyranny of a governing majority as a legitimate concern. Is this thought now too fringe for what purports to be a mainstream left? And are David Bernstein and Brian Hull ready to tell Rhode Island's Tea Partiers that Justice Brandeis' opinion is now outdated, and that civic disengagement and inert behavior are now the new patriotism?
OK, fine. Tyranny is a concern of the left, especially given the Bush administration's view on executive authority and the Obama administration's continuation of those same policies. What you don't address is the bat-guano crazy opinions that now pass as legitimate questions in conservative talk and in today's GOP.
No surprise that Harris poll finds Republicans believe GOP smears of Obama
Posted by: Russ at April 14, 2010 3:38 PMWhat the tea party is fighting is not tyranny - in fact, in their quest to bring back the "conservatives", what they are fighting for is MORE tyranny. That differs every so slightly from Bush/Cheney and the Patriot Act, warrantless wiretapping, checking your library card, torture, suspension of habeus corpus, rendition, murder and all the other abhorrent acts which were cheered by many on the right.
And now you are going to expend words trying to convince us that those masses of sheeple have seen the light? That is completely impossible!
Stand on the soapbox - I have no problem with that. But all your friends who have been calling for more ammunition and rebellion are dangerous to themselves and others! Furthermore, it was purely the election of a Black President of the other party which set them off. I saw all the emails telling folks to quickly "arm up".
In the scope of recent history, you (the right) have absolutely no credibility as regards quests for a more free country. First we had 8 years of fearmongering concerning terrorists under our beds (so, folks, lose your freedoms and daddy Bush will protect you) and now we have KKK-type fearmongering.
Sorry. You may personally mean well - I always leave room for that, but the movement by and large does not.
Posted by: Stuart at April 14, 2010 3:57 PMAmazing-russ and Stuart would do well to listen to Nat Hentoff-he is kind of a leftist-BUT he's actually pro-life and he often makes a lot of sense.
These two boys are blinded by fear of a bogeyman.
If I hear KKK one more time from the comfortable fellow in Portsmouth I think I'll just throw up(hopefully in a leftist's face.)
"that Justice Brandeis' opinion is now outdated, and that civic disengagement and inert behavior are now the new patriotism?"
... well, yes. President Obama is in office.
Bernstein's article is all headline and no story. Also, hasn't he heard that the word "terrorism" is now frowned upon?
Posted by: Monique at April 15, 2010 7:08 AMRuss,
The poll you cite wasn't conducted according to the best-practices of random sampling (it's an "interactive online poll", where people have to take a step to initiate joining the sample). And though I don't doubt that there is some portion of people who identify with the GOP or the Tea Party who believe in crazy things, as is the case with any large group, I don't see how it follows that when Mitt Romney is discussing health-care policy, it should been seen as part of a larger movement calling for the violent overthrow of the government. According to DS Bernstein's (have to throw in the DS, to separate him from J Bernstein!) reasoning, you're not allowed to disagree with the expansion of any domestic social program, until there are no more crazy people left in the country.
Joe,
I read Hentoff on a fairly regular basis, when I first got into reading my news on the Internet at the beginning of the decade. I think I remember agreeing with more than half of what he wrote. Putting him and Bob Herbert together in my list of examples can be taken as an illustration of how a range of people who identify with the left have expressed concerns about tyranny.
Alas, I'm not sure how many Nat Hentoffs are left on the left. David S. Bernstein certainly won't be taking his place.
Stuart,
In the list of war-or-terror policies you listed, issues surrounding the conduct of war regarding rendition and torture involve some serious moral issues (I personally find Reuel Marc Gerecht to be convincing on the subject of rendition). On the other hand, the main issues around warrantless wiretapping and suspension of habeas corpus have mostly been about what actions the government can take against non-citizens or outside of the borders of the U.S, issues I would place on a decidedly lesser moral plane. And the issue about library cards is straight up fear-mongering of the type you purportedly decry.
Now I've staked out a number of positions that are different from yours. Together they are a set of examples of a range of policy choices that are possible. How does a society pick amongst the choices and determine what the best policies should be? The answer is that the citizenry has to deliberate and reach some agreement (at least that's my answer, you might prefer that a vanguard of the proletariat make the decision for us, or something like that). In a democracy, there is no basis for excluding any individual from those deliberations from participating, until that individual shows him or herself to be a consistently unreliable source of information. And when citizens in a Democracy get together to focus on issues that interest them, that should be encouraged (just ask Louis Brandeis).
Your cheap charges of racism are nothing but an attempt to exclude people you don't want to listen to from the great deliberative process that is American democracy, motivated by your unwillingness to defend your positions on the issues, but it is not inherently racist to disagree with Stuart's view of the world. And while you are willing to say that it's great that you think everybody should have a soapbox, it is not clear that David S. Bernstein agrees. He seems to think that some ideas about American government -- like that government may have implemented a domestic social program badly -- are too dangerous to be discussed in polite company.
Andrew, thank you for addressing the article. As I said before, the article so casually dismisses fear of goverment expansion as a valid perspective while comparing the Tea Party movement to domestic terrorists (in the printed version the terrorist Michigan militia mugshots are opposite a pic of a tea party) that there is really no reason to debate or care what detractors say anymore.
>The answer is that the citizenry has to deliberate and reach some agreement
I think that is where you are wrong! Our system of government is not the tyranny of the majority, which is why the protections such as habeus are written into law.
I'm not going to play tit for tat, but the pizza guy was an American citizen:
"President George W. Bush designated him an illegal enemy combatant and transferred him to a military prison, arguing that he was thereby not entitled to trial in civilian courts. Padilla was held for three-and-a-half years as an "enemy combatant".
You can duck and bluff all you want, but that is suspension of our rights!
If you actually read my posts, you will see that I have no problem with people gathering nor petitioning the government. What I do have a problem with are the seemingly hypocritical stands of many of the recent "converts" as well as their instant conversion to activism once Fox news said so and once a black guy who they didn't vote for got elected. That makes it either the biggest coincidence in history or a sham - you pick one!
As far as library records, that is 100% true!
"The National Security Letter provision of the Patriot Act radically expanded the FBI's authority to demand personal customer records without prior court approval"
It's the last 4 words which should worry you - that is, if you subscribe to the US Constitution.
"In August 2005, the ACLU disclosed that the FBI used an NSL to demand patron records from the Library Connection, a consortium of 26 Connecticut libraries"
I think you have now clearly established yourself as one who supported the Bush/Cheney regime - which, IMHO, puts you on the wrong side of history AND the constitution. You are, of course, fully entitled to those views, but don't think I am ever going to sell MY liberty for PERCEIVED security. As Ben Franklin said "those who would trade liberty for security deserve neither".
Posted by: Stuart at April 15, 2010 10:37 AMStuart,
You've heard the echoes of the words, but you don't understand their meaning.
Our system of government is not the tyranny of the majority,...which is why many people don't want to be drawn into the new Federalized healthcare system, especially when there is no expressed Constitutional basis allowing the Federal government to implement its current plans. But in that case, your concern over tyranny of the majority disappears, and you label anybody who brings it up as a closet racist.
Also, your support of the Federal healthcare law shows that you are willing to trade your liberty for security, though you are likely to end up with neither.
None of the laws worked out by Congress and signed by the President subsequent to Jose Padilla case allow for a similar thing to happen. What happened to Padilla was most likely illegal, but the fact that it happened doesn't mean there can never again be opposition to domestic expansion of government.
The rapid rise in public opposition to President Obama is the result of President Obama governing from much further from the left than what he presented during his campaign. Opposition wouldn't be any less if Hillary Clinton or John Edwards had been governing for the past year and a half in the same way.
Finally, regarding your comment about deliberative democracy, what would you like to replace it with instead?
Let's see,Stu-I don't like the Black guy that got elected.I don't like his advisors,appointees,or really anything about him and his whole entourage.guess I'm just a racist in your book-good thing being your book wouldn't sell to anyone with half a brain.
I'm not saying you're stupid-you just subscribe to base,stupid ideas.You smear people for having an opinion.And then you hide.
Andrew-I never liked the Bernstein side of my family very much anyway,although I'm quite certain I'm not related to this sh*tbird.