First off, no matter what your politics are, the events which recently occurred in Charlottesville are beyond tragic. They strike at the heart of our Republic and our democracy. Namely the right of every individual to gather to protest peacefully. Ever since the enactment of the Stamp Act in the 1760’s, Americans have been demonstrating freely. Sometimes respectfully, sometimes not so much. However our American experiment is teetering on the edge, and that is because people have forgotten how to disagree, or more aptly, able to agree to disagree. And because people at times do not understand who their enemy really is.
Being a Tea Party supporter, and a known Republican, I always hear about how racist my party is. Something I’ve been listening to since the early 1980’s and I was a foot soldier doing get out the vote calls (GOTV) for Ronald Reagan. This is a charge which has been leveled at us ever since the 1960’s. We are partly to blame – as we have never done a good job of minority outreach. But what is most concerning is the comparison to the “alt right” of Richard Spencer and Tea Party conservatives. So let me put that ridiculous idea to rest:
Richard Spencer, the head of what he calls the “alt right” is at heart a Progressive socialist and not a conservative or anyone who would be welcome in the Tea Party. Why do I say this? Simple. If you go to Richard Spencer’s Twitter feed, Mr. Spencer, the supposed “conservative” calls for “single payer socialism for basic stuff. On top of that could be a free market for more advanced elective, boutique stuff”. (January 8 2017 12:43 am) No Republican, no conservative, and no Tea Party supporter would ever sanction such a ridiculous anti free market idea. Contrary to some propaganda, the Tea Party was not born in April 2009 to give us “free stuff”, the term TEA stood for Taxed Enough Already” and was used by a CNBC broadcaster to get people to go out on April 15 2009 to protest higher taxes and too much government spending. Mr. Spencer’s words “single payer socialism for basic stuff” violates the heart of what the Tea Party was born of. The Tea Party wasn’t born to give everyone “free stuff”. The Tea Party was born to get us back to our roots of limited government, and economic opportunity for all. We don’t have a right to be happy. We have a right to the pursuit of happiness.
Republicans since Ronald Reagan have been preaching free market economics and free market principles. We have not been preaching “free stuff”. The concept of “free stuff” comes from the Occupy Wall Street crowd of 2012, who expected the government to give them I Phones or other technology for free, and who despise all the great joys that economic freedom has given to us. And we get this economic opportunity from free markets, not from having the government provide to us “single payer socialism for basic stuff”. According to Mr. Spencer, basic stuff is different things to different people. For a person questioning their own gender, “basic stuff” could be the full sex change operation. For a self professed gun nut like me, “basic stuff” would be a .44 magnum. For others, “basic stuff” could be clothes and food. See where this is going? You now have the head of the “alt right” calling for people to have whatever they want be given to them by the government. This is not a conservative. This is a radical liberal – more radical than most modern Democrats. This man and his followers are not Republicans. To the contrary, they are left wing radicals.
For all the talk about Charlottesville being about Nazi supremacy and the remnants of the KKK, the fact is there were many rioters that day were black nationalists who espouse racism against whites and all non African Americans. This weekend’s events occurred because of the stupidity of the civil authorities to not be able to see that allowing white nationalist terrorists and a group of people who honestly have been convinced of their own moral superiority that they honestly think that anyone who disagrees with them must be a racist, and that only whites can be racist. Forgetting conveniently that not only whites can be racists, but black Americans can be racist as well.
Whether the radical left likes it or not, they must accept the fact that the Black Lives Matter crowd and the Alt right under Mr. Spencer are opposite sides of the coin. Neo Nazi’s and the BLM share a similar economic message (free basic stuff) and likely agree on many other things, the main disagreement among them being which race is superior. Aka they both likely believe in some form of eugenics. That’s the antithesis of Republicanism which teaches that all life is sacred and that all lives matter.
Our country was founded on the idea that ALL are created equal. We didn’t practice it well at first, and we still don’t get it 100% correct to this day. But we try. People can agree to disagree on pretty much every topic and we must remember that fundamental in this country is a right to disagree. But it is high time that the public accepts the fact that the alt right Neo Nazi movement is really an offshoot of the modern Progressive movement.
