Back when Andrew Sullivan was a conservative, he sent lots of traffic this way with a number of links. So, I feel a certain sadness with his change of perspective over the last few years.
Andrew wrote a piece titled The Tea Tantrum Movement for The Atlantic. It is his take on the Tea Party protest movement based on an admitted hour or so of on-line research.
He professes to have emerged from his rigorous course of research perplexed, bothered and bewildered.
He describes the movement as “some kind of amorphous, generalized rage on the part of those who were used to running the country and now don’t feel part of the culture at all”. He calls it “adolescent, unserious hysteria”.
Andrew makes the error that most liberals insist upon, that this is a movement of the Republican Party. Had he looked at the existing documentation of the hundreds of Tea Parties already held, he would have clearly seen that the movement is made up of some very average people, people who have never “run” the country. Perhaps he did look, but chose not to engage his intellect.
He even manages to make a serious historical error. The men who conducted the original Tea Party were NOT illegal immigrants, but Englishmen fed up with having their rights trampled by a distant government.
That is the bone of contention for Americans today. Our government has grown distant and is failing to respect our rights, the rights we have enjoyed from the founding of this nation.
Andrew needed to come up with a few hundred words for his paying gig, so he slapped something on the wall with the hope it would stick. It’s brown, and sticky, and smells. I would have hope for a little more reflection and honesty from a man who I once admired.
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Andrew Sullivan and the The Tea Tantrum Movement
April 14th, 2009 | Comments Off
Back when Andrew Sullivan was a conservative, he sent lots of traffic this way with a number of links. So, I feel a certain sadness with his change of perspective over the last few years.
Andrew wrote a piece titled The Tea Tantrum Movement for The Atlantic. It is his take on the Tea Party protest movement based on an admitted hour or so of on-line research.
He professes to have emerged from his rigorous course of research perplexed, bothered and bewildered.
He describes the movement as “some kind of amorphous, generalized rage on the part of those who were used to running the country and now don’t feel part of the culture at all”. He calls it “adolescent, unserious hysteria”.
Andrew makes the error that most liberals insist upon, that this is a movement of the Republican Party. Had he looked at the existing documentation of the hundreds of Tea Parties already held, he would have clearly seen that the movement is made up of some very average people, people who have never “run” the country. Perhaps he did look, but chose not to engage his intellect.
He even manages to make a serious historical error. The men who conducted the original Tea Party were NOT illegal immigrants, but Englishmen fed up with having their rights trampled by a distant government.
That is the bone of contention for Americans today. Our government has grown distant and is failing to respect our rights, the rights we have enjoyed from the founding of this nation.
Andrew needed to come up with a few hundred words for his paying gig, so he slapped something on the wall with the hope it would stick. It’s brown, and sticky, and smells. I would have hope for a little more reflection and honesty from a man who I once admired.
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Filed under: American Politics, Commentary, Fiskings, Original writing, Politics, Pork Busters · Tags: April 15 Tea Parties, event permits, freedom of speech, pork protest, stimulus plan protest, tasx protest, Tea Party protest