Tea Bagging

Never in my life have I attended a protest or rally. The closest I came was this past December when it appeared inevitable that the Liberal Party of Canada was going to form a coalition with Marxists and separatists to topple the Conservatives in order to form government. I was livid about a potential legislative coup D’état just weeks after the Canadian people voted. As passionate as I was about the issue, I decided to spend my lazy Sunday on the couch watching football. I am no fan of public protests, but I do support the right of people gather in a public setting and peacefully express their approval or opposition to an issue.

When I first caught wind of the Tea Party protests, I didn’t think much of it other than being a clever idea. Citizens parading their opposition to taxation in the spirit of a protest that helped spawn the American Revolution. I watched Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert joke about “tea bagging”, a pejorative that I was not familiar with until I saw Will Ferrell tea bag a drum set in Step Brothers. I found the humour amusing, despite it being a jab at my Conservative/Libertarian brethren.

My mood quickly shifted from cheerful to angry when I saw how the non-Fox media decided to cover the protests. It was framed as a malicious right wing conspiracy attended by ignorant disciples of the Pied Pipers at Fox News. This mainstream reporting climaxed with Janine Garafoolo talking to Keith Olberman; where she hypothesized that none of the protesters had the slightest clue what the original Boston Tea Party was. Then she proceeded to decree that all the Tea Baggers were disingenuous racists who were there only to protest a black man being President under the guise of taxation. If that was not enough, next came the theory that the “hatred center” of right wing brains are enlarged, placing extreme pressure on the frontal lobe. Unlike Colbert joking about the funny taste in his mouth after a long night of tea bagging, Garafoolo was being serious!

To see how the left is pilling on right wing protesters, it bothers me because those protests were peaceful. Nobody was being arrested, there was no need for riot police, it was a protest carried out in the manner that protests should be. Conversely, often when the left gathers for a protest, people wear masks, throw trash cans through shop windows, they clash with police, basically behaving in a destructive manner that causes property damage in the area where the protests are held. Look no further than the G8/G20 protestors, who act as though smashing things accomplishes their goal. It is a case study in irony that the left would chastise peaceful protests while ignoring those which are violent. I am troubled to learn that the only reason that I am a Conservative is because an evil part of my brain is engorged, while leftists engage in righteous violent protests because they are justified in doing so. To Janine Garafoolo, I say fuck you, but I suppose that I only feel that way because as a right winger I am bred to hate.

“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.“

-Andre Gide