This week, we were treated to the revelation that the NAACP thinks the Tea Party is racist.
I’m not a member of the Tea Party. As a libertarian, I’m a big fan of the smaller government, less taxes, more freedom parts of the movement, but not so much interested in the anti immigration, pro drug war, elect Sarah Palin (seriously guys?) parts of the movement. I’m also not associated with the NAACP, which has moved to the edge of relevancy by finding institutional racism where there is none in order to rally a base and maintain some sort of collective voice.
In this little battle, the Tea Party clearly had the upper hand. All they had to do was react to the NAACP proclamation for what it was, which is a small marginally relevant group of people making noise trying to get someone to pay attention to them; a group incapable of debating issues and instead interested in namecalling. Which is to say they should have simply ignored it. Take the high road, don’t give the stupid idea that the Tea Party is fundamentally racist (and that is a stupid idea) any credibility.
Instead, the head of the Tea Party not only responds, but makes himself look like a bumbling racist while he’s doing it.
Now, it’s clear to me what message he’s trying to convey, but he conveys it in such a way to make him sound like an idiot at best. This is not what the Tea Party movement needed, and regardless of his intent, he’s now made the Tea Party look like the group that isn’t relevant, the group on the margin, lead by an idealogue of questionable intelligence.
The problem for those of us who love Liberty is that it sets us back, too. Because regardless of what we say, we’re all lumped in that mean old racist corporate shill tea party group. It gets tiring and old listening to people too stupid to even have an opinion argue about who’s a racist, or who’s mean, or what economic policy is right (when they don’t understand basic price theory). It’s worse when no one will listen to you because you are associated with a simpleton.
Link via The Agitator
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