The Triangle

Issue date: 5/8/09 Section: Ed-Op

Media Credit: Ed Hille MCT

In my letter to the editor of The Triangle in the May 1 issue, I noted the objectively verifiable hypocrisy of many conservatives who partook in the Tax Day tea parties (these being the same people that remained silent during the Reagan and Bush administrations). In that same issue of The Triangle, Stacy Litz contended that the accusation of hypocrisy is not valid because, from her experience, "not one individual" supported taxation by any means, nor did they support George Bush. This argument was part of a larger op-ed piece lamenting bias in the media, and noting that Fox News' online program "Freedom Watch" is the "best unbiased presentation of news."

These arguments, along with those presented by Deanna Quinones two weeks ago, reveal a serious issue not just with hypocrisy within the Republican Party and the conservative movement in general, but a blatant disregard for facts - reality itself.

Let's begin by examining the counter-argument that those participating in the Tea Parties are not hypocrites because they (apparently) were opposed to the government-expanding policies of Bush and national debt expansion of Reagan. This can be dismissed simply by asking the following question; if it's true that no participants of the Tea Parties supported those policies, then why were there no Tea Parties under Bush, or any other Republican president with similar policies? There is literally no explanation for why these protests would not have occurred previously assuming the stated premises are true, thus making the argument logically invalid.

Not having heard of "Freedom Watch" before, I decided to do a bit of research online. I looked at the guest list for the last several episodes. First, I noticed that the host of the show is a Andrew Napolitano, a staunch Libertarian having penned such (clearly unbiased) works as "The Constitution in Exile: How the Federal Government Has Seized Power by Rewriting the Supreme Law of the Land." Surely his guests would counterbalance his own views.

His recent guests have included Ron Paul (Republican party member, 2008 Republican presidential candidate, and extreme Libertarian in favor of abolishing the Departments of Health and Education, among others), Daniel Hannen (representative of the U.K. Conservative Party), Lew Rockwell (outspoken Libertarian political commentator and former contributing editor to Conservative Digest), Cody Willard (Fox Business Network anchor), Peter Schiff (major supporter of the Ron Paul campaign), Jason Sorens (contributor to publication The Libertarian Enterprise) and Shelly Roche (member of the Eastern Shore Ron Paul 2008 Meetup Group.) I should mention that all of these guests were featured on a single episode of "Freedom Watch."

Continued...

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