Insulting the Memory of Our Founding Fathers

I have had some writer’s block lately as I have pondered the recent Tea Party activities in my own back yard, specifically, last week’s protest outside Congressman Tom Perriello’s office over Cap and Trade.

I‘m not so much troubled by the event as unable to place these events in any context that is consistent with concepts of logic, common sense and just plain decency.

I understand disagreeing with Rep. Perriello on the Cap and Trade Bill. While I believe that the fact of global warming and the fact that human activities contribute to it is beyond any kind of reasonable scientific and political dispute at this point – there will always be flat-Earthers making noise at the extremes -- there is plenty of room among reasonable people of a wide degree of political worldviews to disagree with respect to how we ought to deal with it.

Cap and Trade is but one way, and whether one happens to agree it is the best way, or even if it will be effective at all, it is simply not so far out on the fringe of science or acceptable political and social belief to engender the hatred it did at Congressman Perriello for voting for it.

Or so I thought.

But there, outside Tom’s office, were my neighbors calling their Congressman “traitor” and “coward,” and as far as I could tell, not a word of condemnation from any local leaders of the Republican party. Not a word from declared congressional candidate Bradley Rees. Not a word from rumored candidate Cordell Faulk. Not a word from local Glenn Beck wannabe Rob Schilling. Not a word from Delegate Rob Bell.

Ladies and gentlemen, I have no problem with a person passionately expressing their political beliefs, but these are the supposed mainstream GOP leaders in this district. If they do not find this sort of rhetoric objectionable, then I submit we have nothing to debate with the Republican Party. Let them pitch their fits, but don’t give them the attention they so desperately seem to require.

While I don’t think this sort of behavior is consistent with healthy or productive political debate, engagement is pointless. Whether this movement ascends to power or simply becomes a marginalized small group remains to be seen, but I suspect the latter because the political circumstances are not even close to supporting the level of anger these people seem to have, notwithstanding the fact that in their fevered imaginations these people seem to imagine themselves as some kind of modern-day iteration of the Patriots of the American Revolution.

They are nothing of the kind. In fact, in their protests, in their use of the symbols of Revolution and defiance against the very leaders elected under the system that Jefferson, Madison, Adams and Washington risked their lives for, these Tea Partiers do not, despite their loudly professed intentions, honor the memory of our Founding Fathers. They besmirch it.

The Suspension of Disbelief

According to the web site Bearing Drift, one of the Conservative sites I have been reading and commenting on lately, Tom Perriello cast the deciding vote in the House of Representatives for bringing terrorists from Guantanamo Bay to Virginia.

I can’t really tell if this is true or not. The vote seemed to concern whether to allow President Obama to use funds to close the prison, not actually to bring terrorists to Virginia. What’s more, while the vote did sport a margin of one, I can’t tell if Perriello’s was the deciding vote; after all, when the vote is decided by a margin of one, every vote is, in theory, the deciding vote.

But, whatever, I digress into logic.

No sooner did Bearing Drift publish this little news blurb than Bradley Rees, erstwhile Republican candidate for Congress from the 5th District, was all over it on Twitter. “My 2010 opponent just did THIS,” he effused, linking to Bearing Drift. A little later, he tweeted, “What’s Tom thinking? What am I missing?”

Bradley, don’t hang a fastball over the plate like that, man.

It really is Bearing Drift, a Republican website that seems smart and serious, that mystifies me. I rarely agree with anything I read there, but have enjoyed the debates I’ve had in comments sections over the past week.

But I simply do not understand why intelligent people traffic in such patent nonsense as Bearing Drift did in this news blurb.. I understand the short-term tactical benefit that Republicans hope to achieve with advancing such tripe – it is a convenient way to scare people that terrorists will be sharing their community and, presumably, turn them against Democrats and drive them back to the GOP.

To be frightened by such a patently absurd argument, however, requires what is known is the entertainment business as the suspension of disbelief. That is, you have to buy into the clearly absurd proposition that after closing Guantanamo, the terrorists will end up living in our communities.

And if you think that is too ridiculous of a thought for most people with some measure of common sense to believe, here is what one commenter at Bearing Drift had to say:

Several of the commenters here are missing the point about Gitmo. It is not just that they will be brought here, it is that when they are brought here they will be granted the rights of American citizens (which they are not) and then let go by some judge to roam around our streets and start new terrorist cells, because you know dang well that the fed will not be making sure they get sent back to wherever they came from. Which btw none of them want, because those people actually DO torture them.

Comments like this leave me not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

I have no idea whether this kind of false alarmist rhetoric will work against Perriello in the short term, although I tend to think that most people from any position along the political spectrum would, for the most part, tend to dismiss allegations like this after only a few moments of actual thought, as the arguments proffered to establish them are completely untethered from reality.

Regardless, Democrats and Progressives have nothing to fear from such propaganda.

Republicans, on the other hand, ought to be afraid. Very afraid.

These arguments may appeal to the “Black Helicopter” portion of the GOP base, and, of course, some voters will just not have any independent basis to know whether or not terrorists will be moving into their neighborhoods, so they may be easily swayed by an argument like this.

This dynamic can win the GOP a local House of Delegates, or even congressional, election in Virginia, but the GOP's days of dreaming about sustainable political leadership or change are in the past.

Over the long run I am confident that Republican reliance on arguments like this have been and will continue to erode the credibility of the GOP because they are insulting to voters. In this case, for example, 99% of Virginia citizens will not notice a difference in their day-to-day lives whether these detainees are in Guantanamo or Alexandria, and they will soon enough realize they have been fooled, once again, by GOP rhetoric.

And if you are curious why our friends from the other side the aisle never seem to learn from mistakes like this, it is because they do not seem, at least as far as I can tell, to perceive the disclosure of the fact that they are full of it to have anything to do with people perceiving them negatively.

Ask them, and they will tell you it is the fault of the liberal media.

To my new friends at Bearing Drift, keep it up, guys. Remember, the election of Progressives benefits you, too.

Meet Bradley Rees

Today, I learned about a gentleman down in Lynchburg named Bradley Rees, who aims to replace Tom Perriello as the Congressman from the Fifth District. Indeed, the other day, Mr. Rees called my friend, Drew Lumpkin, who runs one of the most civil, intelligent and interesting blogs around, Dem Bones, well, he called him a "rabble rouser."

Drew may be a “thoughtful theologian,” but he’s no “rabble rouser.”

Fighting words.

What’s more, Rees has been writing critical stuff about Congressman Perriello. Now, I happen to think Tom Perriello is one of the truly decent, ethical people in public life.

I was mad.

So, I sat down this evening with the intention of doing some research to utterly trash this clown.

Unfortunately, I came away unable to do it. In fact, I came away from it all kinda liking the guy, even wanting to meet him.

Don't get me wrong - he's flaky, but in this he seems more eccentric and interesting than anything else. And I’ve no doubt that in his misguided, if sincere way, he means well. What’s more, at least based on what I could learn from him in the Internets, he seems like a decent guy, a good family man, and a loving dad who posted a poem he wrote to his daughter on the web and captioned the accompanying photo of her, "My Princess." Indeed, the poem is an acrostic, something they make kids do in the fifth grade (where the first letters of each line spell your name) …. I’m sorry… I’m getting a little misty writing this…

So, please, meet Bradley Rees.

Anyway, politically, Rees describes himself as an “Ayn Rand Objectivist Libertarian/Conservative,” which is … well, I spent an hour researching this, and I couldn’t completely figure it out what it was, except that is somewhat contradictory, like being a Jewish Muslim.

But what’s more, Rees plans on challenging Virgil Goode for the Republican Party nod to run against Rep. Perriello in the Fighting Fifth, and if he doesn’t win, he plans on launching a third party candidacy, perhaps under the American Constitution Party ticket, to challenge both.

Here’s Rees, by the way (photo by Mrs. Bradley Rees):



His web site, the awesomely named SonofLiberty2K10, is one of the few web sites I have bothered to read that can fairly be called a ”Manifesto.” Mr. Rees sets out his political philosophy in detail, and explains the observations, events, and thought-processes that brought him to where he is.

For example, in a post entitled, “Why Am I A Libertarian? Read On,” he details the top 10 travesties of both Republicans and Democrats (20 travesties in all) to explain why he is not a member of either party.

In some places, he shines with unassailable logic. For example, #10 on the Democratic list is that Democrats “stood in staunch opposition to Abraham Lincoln,” while #10 on the Republican side is that it was “the party of Lincoln.”

The GOP’s # 10 reason also faults it for committing “egregious violations of the 1st Amendment (the Alien and Sedition Acts).” Of course, the Republican Party was founded in 1854, and the Alien & Sedition Acts were passed in 1798, so the GOP ought to get some points for time traveling ability.

Similarly, the #6 reason why he’s not a Democrat is because Democrats “grossly mishandled the Cold War with tragic incidents like the Bay of Pigs, which may have directly led to the Cuban missile crisis and Kruschev’s notorious shoe-banging diatribe.” Thus, Russians, too, have time traveling abilities, since Kruschey was alleged to have banged his show at the U.N. on October 13, 1960, while the Bay of Pigs occurred in April, 1961. Rees may have proved that Russians and Republicans are closer than we think. Hmmmm.

And like many people who profess a special kinship to the Constitution, Mr. Rees isn’t really sure what’s in there. In one post, he states:

Last time I checked, the Constitution didn’t say “life, liberty, and the pursuit of having lawyers making laws to benefit lawyers.” But that’s what we have (although the “liberty” part has been trampled on a bit).

Of course, last time I checked my Constitution it didn’t contain the phrase “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” which is the phrase to which Mr. Rees is alluding, either. That phrase appears in the Declaration of Independence.

But, as Mr. Rees says, “he is “not a lawyer,” which he touts as a rationale to vote for him.

And, anyway, these kinds of errors are nitpicking. Forget it. He’s rolling:




Mr. Rees, I wish you’d stop criticizing Congressman Perriello so much. He is a good and honest congressman trying to do the right thing, and he is good for our District, even if I don’t agree with him on everything. Some of your criticisms seem strained, like you're trying just a little too hard to find fault.

The Virginia Democrat is dedicated to electing Progressives, not Ayn Rand Objectivist Libertarian/Conservatives, so we can't endorse you. But in the spirit of pluralism, and with an abiding belief in American Constitutionalism, even if we interpret that differently than do you, we nonetheless salute you for putting yourself out there, caring and participating constructively in the political process. We hope you give Virgil a run for his money.