Responding to Attacks

This address was delivered to the meeting of Tea Party Patriots of Midcoast Maine last winter; now that the Tea Party has been called terrorists by the current Vice President of the US (Sarah Palin has tagged him as "quite vile" in response), it seems appropriate to put it here in writing.

Responding to Verbal Attacks on the Tea Party
I’ve been thinking a lot about the attempts by the Left to portray the Tea Party as uneducated, low class, ignorant, bigoted, racist, and homophobic, and about how we should respond to such verbal attacks. If someone shouts at me “you tea-baggers are a bunch of racist homophobic bigots!” “get out – we are not” isn’t going to cut it as a reply.

In the first place, “tea-bagger” is a snide, homosexual slur that the left puts in because they think you won’t notice. Don’t let it go uncorrected. My response would be something like “tea-bagger is a nasty, homosexual slur, right up there with “fudge-packer” in offensiveness. I prefer the term ‘Patriot’ if you want to call me names.”

I really liked President Reagan’s response to lies – instead of saying “you’re lying” he humorously said “now there you go again...” and would refute each lie. As to racism, there isn’t any in the tea party. One of the angriest callers on a recent talk show was a black member of the tea party, running for Congress, who has been all over his district in west Tennessee since the beginning of the movement, and has never encountered any ugliness of any sort. As to homophobia in the tea party, no one cares about sexual orientation as far as I can tell. A vote for American values is what counts. As to bigotry, tea party members are passionately for Constitutional Government, limited spending, and the principles of the founders. They are passionately against government interference in daily lives, contravention of our Bill of Rights, and the current rape of the public purse to enrich the cronies and build the schemes of the leftists now in power. If that constitutes bigotry, so be it.

If you are confronted with a lie, as you will be constantly, ask what the source is. 99% of the time it will be a politician or journalist – a Democrat. A suitable reply would be “that comes from a Democrat? Democrats take the bad things they are doing and project them onto others. If a Democrat says ‘you’re trying to steal votes’ that means they are trying to steal votes. No one can believe that statement, it is false on the face of it.” If the source is “I heard it on NPR” A good response is “NPR! They deal only in quirky little news bits remanufactured as entertainment for liberals. The truth is not in them.”

In dealing with profanity I reach back to my experience teaching high-schoolers, which I started doing at age 60. I heard a lot of bad language, most surprisingly tenth grade girls being the worst, but I didn’t want to be one of those teachers who wrote up endless incidents for disciplinary action, so I tried to find ways to incorporate dry humor in correcting them, or stay a step ahead. I used to say to them “profanity should only be used if absolutely necessary.” If they were G-d damning this & that, I would say “You should be very careful about taking the Lord’s name in vain. If there is a God up there, She might strike you dead.” Of course, they soon figure you out. There was Sandra, tenth grade, who unleashed a truly astonishing blast of invective at another girl, and then turned to me with a sweet smile, and said “That was absolutely necessary, Mr. Horsey.” There were Sam and Chris, ninth grade, who sat in the front row. Chris said “Did you hear that Mr. Horsey? He called me a son of a bitch.” “ Well he called me a fat little turd, Mr. Horsey” Sam replied. They sat there with little half-grins, waiting to see what I would do. I waited a beat, then responded “Whoa – you boys are almost as hard-mouthed as tenth grade girls.” I’ll offer this to you as a response to profanity “ Whoa, you are almost as hard-mouthed as tenth-grade girls.” Use it when you need it.

Most attacks come from people who are angry inside, because they picked the wrong side and know it, but are trying to justify themselves by tearing us down. Usually there is no sense to their rant; lots of non sequiturs and so on. Simply smile and say “You sound like you need a hug. Would you accept a hug from a tea partier?” I couldn’t do this with the kids. Male teachers are not supposed to be hugging young girls, or young boys for that matter.

Remember, Conservatives argue from facts. One can’t twist the facts so easily. Liberals argue from feelings, and will ignore facts and make up lies in order to influence feelings – that is, engender hatred - about their opponents. So, almost any Liberal lie will fall flat to the response “There is no evidence of that.” “Point to the evidence.” “That’s not evidence, that’s hearsay.” Or simply, “Baloney”.

Thank you for your attention.



Adding to this theme today, there are a lot of synonyms for lies that may be of use to you:
Deliberate Mischaracterisation, Falsehood, Foolishness, Nonsense, Absurdity, Malarkey, Mendacity, Horse Puckey, BS.