You should do the petition in 2 parts. Have them sign the sheet that says NO TO SOCIALISM! After the do that, hand them the list of things they can’t do, like drive home on the social roads. Etc.

@harry ashburn I understand that. It didn't seem any more than usual. And a lot of what I heard was the news. Maybe I wasn't paying attention. =)

@Wendy, no we're listening to the same broadcast. how long did it seem to you?

@harry ashburn I'm not hearing 9 minutes of commercials - but I'm listening online not on sat radio. Maybe it's your carrier.

9 minuteS OF COMMERICALLS!!!

HO

Hey, Thom - Let's not forget that Tea Partyers must also boycott that monument to socialism - Mt. Rushmore!

BTW - how does the Texas Board of Ed plan to deal with that? Will future Texas textbooks contain photos of Rushmore with Jefferson replaced by Calvin?

Harper's Ferry Rebellion is often called John Brown War and was an abolitionist capture of an armory in 1850. The rebellion was ironically put down by Virginia troops under command of Robert E. Lee.
Of course the Tea Partiers shouldn't be required to sign an anti-socialst pledge but maybe they should be given a chance. Really the thing to draw the TPers out on is protectionism. Their corporate 'leaders' (who jumped in front of the actual movement behind the hype) will not emphasize the fact the bulk of the Tea Party wants protective tariffs (keep jobs here) and job programs (stimulus) and stability for Medicare and Social Security (end rich ppl tax exemption). They are angry because they have lost jobs and their kids are under/unemployed and they know it is because of free trade policies of the last 30 years. They are like the Coffee Party in that they want government to work. The Tea Party should be encouraged in every way to bolt the Republican party :-)

Sarah Palin says in her tea party rally speech:

"The government that governs the least governs the best."

At least NOW I can understand why she quit her job as governor of Alaska. She was trying to make the government better. In her case, I'm sure it is true. Alaska is better off without her around.

In respect to some things said last week, I think Thom prefers to regard race prejudice as fitting under the umbrella of one group having power over another because it allows him to make alignments along a hierarchal order. In the past he has stated that he didn’t think racism had much play “now,” and he tended to confirm this by placing greater emphasis on gay rights and women’s issues (much like how a discrimination and sexual harassment policy statement we had to sign-off on at work recently had two pages of definitions in the minutest of detail what constituted sexual harassment, but the only part that referred to discrimination was in the original heading). However, the responses to Obama’s presidency from some quarters has served as a wake-up call for anyone who thinks racism is a “thing of the past,” and recent roll-backs on affirmative action and school desegregation both from popular (i.e. white majority) vote and by the current Supreme Court also appear to suggest that many there is an element amongst the majority who wish to “reclaim” their past position of unfettered privilege. It does the country no good to have a large segment of the population relatively unproductive because they are denied opportunities for educational advancement, but this view seldom penetrates constricted minds.

Although I do give Thom considerable credit for now giving these matters the airtime they deserve, I also think that he is wrong about the power of stereotyping, because stereotyping supplies the rationales people use to justify their prejudices. Right-wing ideologue Dinesh D’Souza called this “rational discrimination” based on preconceived notions—that is, stereotyping—which he seemed to argue justified the active participation in discriminatory and b bigoted behavior. Although individual actions by those so inclined tend to be knee-jerk reactions or on the sly (like nighttime brick-throwing), what we saw the previous weekend was that bigots are emboldened to act more publicly when surrounded by like-minded people, and extolled by Republicans.

I also wish that instead of congratulating that Republican caller on Friday who said he wasn’t a racist, Thom should have allowed him to continue his statement, which almost surely would included a “but.” The Republican Party in its current form dates at least from Reagan, but it had its roots in the Nixon and Ford administrations, that included unapologetic bigots like Pat Buchanan and jingoists like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. Nixon’s “Southern strategy” was aimed at becoming the party of choice for Southern racists and cultural paranoids “disenchanted” with Democratic social policies. I’m fairly certain that this was the only Republican Party this person is familiar with, and his point would have been (if Thom had let him talk) a “but” he was not for all this “social engineering” stuff (code for equal opportunity) like health care reform.

What to do? Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center was asked last week on another radio program what could be done to stem hate-inspired activity. As I have talked about many times on this blog, he also blamed the media for actively encouraging and contributing to an atmosphere conducive to hate. As an example, he noted that a fringe hate group in Arizona had concocted a conspiracy theory called the “Plan de Aztlan,” a bastardization of a 1960’s Chicano movement manifesto meant to combat racial discrimination, but now regarded as a “counterculture” relic of its times. The “revised” version of the “plan” allegedly calls on Mexican-Americans to act as subversive agents of the Mexican government to help “reconquer” the Southwest. This conspiracy theory found ready adherents in the Minuteman movement, and from there it landed on Lou Dobbs’ eager lap, and he ran with it with a straight face in front of millions of CNN viewers. We may conjecture that a small minority of people lend this theory any credence, but then again this kind of paranoia underlines the anti-Latino rhetoric of Pat Buchanan, who has been allowed a certain “mainstream” credibility.

The SPLCenter has also kept tabs on the numerous myths passed on as “facts” by the mainstream media in regard to illegal immigration. It notes that the infamous claim by Dobbs concerning the “deadly import” of 7,000 cases of leprosy first originated with a nativist named Madeleine Cosman, who also claimed that “most” Latino men molest white girls under 12 years of age (that must be why every time I walk past a white parent with a 4-year-old daughter, they wake-up as if out of trance and speedily insure that the kid is safely out of “harm’s way”). The Center also presented studies that disputed various commonly held theories such as undocumented workers “steal” jobs that would otherwise have gone to natives, depress wages, and cost a “fortune” in social programs without contributing a dime. In something that would be particularly surprising to Michelle Malkin, the Center also notes that

“Robert J. Sampson, chairman of Harvard's sociology department, reported in a 2005 article in The American Journal of Health that the rate of violence among Mexican Americans was significantly lower than among non-Latino white and black Americans.” Lorena Bobbitt—who immigrated from Ecuador dreaming of marrying a white American man—should have been so wise.

The Center also noted studies that show that “second- and third-generation immigrants are significantly more criminal than their parents, suggesting that U.S. culture somehow eventually produces more, not less, criminality among its citizens.” Given the fact that 50 percent of all illegal immigrants who are incarcerated are imprisoned strictly on immigration charges, this suggests that criminality and violence among first-generation Latino immigrants (legal or not) is far lower than is commonly held, yet is an image perpetuated by the media—blatantly and without any hint of context.

Potok didn’t ignore the dramatic rise in anti-government “patriot” and militia movements since Barack Obama’s election, or the fact that the Tea Party movement is “shot-through” with the influence of extremists. But the group he found particularly troubling was the so-called “Oath Keepers”—comprised mainly of military and police officers. These people believe that they are tasked to protect the country from “foreign” enemies and occupation, and stop the “plot” to herd (white) Americans en mass in concentration camps. Bizarre as these ideas might be, it is a disturbing fact that law enforcement officers in this group who are “licensed to kill” have the power of making decisions on their own who the “enemy” is that needs to be “taken out.” Given the fact that police officers are virtually immune from accountability even in cases where their victim is unarmed should give one pause.

It didn’t take long for the health insurance industry to find “ambiguous” wording in the bill that it chooses to interpret on whim. It now claims that it is not “required” to cover children with pre-existing conditions until 2014, instead of immediately. According to the insurance companies, language that states that insurers “may not impose any pre-existing condition exclusion with respect to such plan or coverage" for children younger than 19 in plan years that begin on or after Sept. 23, 2010 does not say specifically that they are “required” to cover these children until 2014. I wonder how many other leaks in the hull they will find.