"Shut up," they repeatedly explain.

Once upon a time over there on the left, dissent was considered the highest form of patriotism.  Leftist opposition to the War on Terror was cast as heroic resistance to a despotic tyrannical regime. 

TomPaine.com: Dissent these days seems to be a dirty word. The Bush administration has, at least since September 11th, usually termed any criticism of its policies "unpatriotic."

Howard Zinn: While some people think that dissent is unpatriotic, I would argue that dissent is the highest form of patriotism. In fact, if patriotism means being true to the principles for which your country is supposed to stand, then certainly the right to dissent is one of those principles. And if we're exercising that right to dissent, it's a patriotic act.

One of the great mistakes made in discussing patriotism -- a very common mistake -- is to think that patriotism means support for your government. And that view of patriotism ignores the founding principles of the country expressed in the Declaration of Independence. 

Imagine my surprise, to discover that dissent is no longer patriotic.  In fact it's more than unpatriotic.  It's downright dangerous.  It's one thing when your dissent puts you arguably on the side of terrorists.  But it's quite beyond the pale to oppose Obama's plans for higher taxes and spending.  The anti-tax tea parties that for so long have escaped the notice of the mainstream press, are now the subject of lefty hysteria.

The editors of the San Francisco Examiner (I thought it was out of business, no?) put this fearful title on an otherwise reasonable article explaining how the liberal bias of the mainstream media has blinded them to the tea party phenomenon: Tea parties are flash crowds Obama should fear. One commenter, who apparently read the headline but not the article, commented: "Many of those signing on to these tea parties are from the militia movement groups. They are scary and potentially violent."

Media Matters is on the case, to prevent the revolution led by FOX News: "Despite its repeated insistence that its coverage is "fair and balanced" and its invitation to viewers to "say 'no' to biased media," Fox News has frequently aired segments encouraging viewers to get involved with "tea party" protests across the country ...."

The Huffington Post is organizing "citizen journalists" to attend the protests, allegedly to "report." Which means that they will try to find someone in a crowd who says something stupid, will post it on the internet, and build an argument around it trying to demonizethe movement. And left-wing bloggers will react in unison like dogs responding to a whistle, about the "dangerous" and "violent" and "racist" tea parties. This tacticis as old as time; or at least as old as the internet.

Those people from "militia movement groups" are pretty scary.  Have you noticed that lefty political argument is almost invariably personal? 

When George Bush cut taxes to spur the economy, he was vilified.  The left attacked his motives claiming that he was really after tax giveaways for his rich friends.  Tax cuts wouldn't help the economy, they said, but they never said why not.  But even though tax cuts did help the economy, for lefties it was an issue of fairness, fairness being whatever they said it was.  Making the lefty case on its merits is almost always impossible, and especially so if the discussion is allowed to focus on what actually happens as a result of a particular policy. 

Here is Andrew Klavan explaining what the lefty argument ultimately boils down to:

Hat tip to Hot Air

Comments

[CaptDMO]

Apparently, like banks that were required to take cash from the gum'mint so the absolute WORST preformers wouldn't look as bad, TIME magazine has decided to let NEWSWEEK not look so bad(WHY?), and let one of its own run rampant with a perfect example of ad hominum response to the Glen Beck phenomenon, without a HINT of addressing, nay, even suggesting,why what the Poz was snarking over, was incorrect.

Apparently, the Air America style book has become the new required "red book", distributed amongst those struggling
double-secret-let's-get-todays-talking-points-in-lock-step daily morning con-fab "media" folk. (CONscious FABrication?)

Well see, but perhaps MY TIME Magazine subscription is going to um...lapse.. the same way as "NEWS"WEEK, and The New Yorker, and a shocking number of OTHER dead-tree "news" sources that catered to yellow (red?)journalism in a Hail Mary response to faltering subscription/advertising dollars.

Things didn't turn out so good for The Boy Who Cried Wolf, just to see the "regular" folks respond.
The Emporor's New Clothes are beginning to show their transparency as well.

[Karl Kraut]

"Tax cuts wouldn't help the economy, they said, but they never said why not."

No, they don't say why when taxes are cut, but they do say why when they're being increased. They call it the "multiplier effect". That's one of those Keynesian fallacies: government spending your money stimulates the economy, but you yourself spending the same amount, supposedly, doesn't. Yes, lunacy, for sure. Then again, they stimulate by stealth—inflating the money supply, the stealth tax.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_economics#.22Multiplier_effect.22_and_interest_rates

The trouble with the Bush tax cuts was, obviously, that he didn't cut spending.

"Have you noticed that lefty political argument is almost invariably personal?"

Yes. But let me get personal as well. Because to limit yourself to have only libertarian leanings, which must be pretty selfdefeating, as your readers continuously have to try to figure out how far you may be leaning in other directions as well. I really think you should really give up on those neocon hoaxes War on Terror, War on Drugs, War on Intelligence.

Because all that stuff is very, very local stuff. And it's completely self-defeating to waste troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, if at the same time you let the Saudis to finance mosques in Europe, to subject muslims to their wahhabi, salafist doctrine—real time colonisation.
I don't see much change between Bush and Obama—both being buddies with the Saudis, even more deficit spending, continuing useless wars, which in the end will destroy the dollar.