SHOCKER! A Conservative Speaks the Truth!

GOP Rep. Bob Inglis had a little sit down with David Corn from Mother Jones to discuss his recent defeat. In a meeting with donors who thought he wasn't conservative enough. After about an hour and a half, Inglis recalls,""They are all Glenn Beck watchers." They said to him,"Bob, what don't you get? Barack Obama is a socialist, communist Marxist who wants to destroy the American economy so he can take over as dictator. Health care is part of that. And he wants to open up the Mexican border and turn [the US] into a Muslim nation.'"

Inglis has criticized Republican House leaders for acquiescing to a poisonous, tea party-driven "demagoguery" that he believes will undermine the GOP's long-term credibility. And he's freely recounting his frustrating interactions with tea party types, while noting that Republican leaders are pushing rhetoric tainted with racism, that conservative activists are dabbling in anti-Semitic conspiracy theory nonsense, and that Sarah Palin celebrates ignorance.

The week after that meeting with his past funders—whom he failed to bring back into the fold—Inglis asked House Republican leader John Boehner what he would have told this group of Obama-bashers. Inglis recalls what happened:

[Boehner] said, "I would have told them that it's not quite that bad. We disagree with him on the issues." I said, "Hold on Boehner, that doesn't work. Let me tell you, I tried that and it did not work." I said [to Boehner], "If you're going to lead these people and the fearful stampede to the cliff that they're heading to, you have to turn around and say over your shoulder, 'Hey, you don't know the half of it.'"

Inglis met with about a dozen tea party activists at the modest ranch-style home of one of them. Here's what took place:

I sat down, and they said on the back of your Social Security card, there's a number. That number indicates the bank that bought you when you were born based on a projection of your life's earnings, and you are collateral. We are all collateral for the banks. I have this look like, "What the heck are you talking about?" I'm trying to hide that look and look clueless. I figured clueless was better than argumentative. So they said, "You don't know this?! You are a member of Congress, and you don't know this?!" And I said, "Please forgive me. I'm just ignorant of these things." And then of course, it turned into something about the Federal Reserve and the Bilderbergers and all that stuff. And now you have the feeling of anti-Semitism here coming in, mixing in. Wow.

While he was campaigning, Inglis says, tea party activists and conservative voters kept pushing him to describe Obama as a "socialist." But, he says, "It's a dangerous strategy to build conservatism on information and policies that are not credible...This guy is no socialist."

"The word is designed to have emotional charge to it. Throughout my primary, there were people insisting that I use the word. They would ask me if he was a socialist, and I would always find some other word. I'd say, "President Obama wants a very large government that I don't think will work and that spends too much and it's inefficient and it compromises freedom and it's not the way we want to go." They would listen for the word, wait to see if I used the s-word, and when I didn't, you could see the disappointment."

I refused to use the word because I have this view that the Ninth Commandment must mean something. 'Thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor.' For me to go around saying that Barack Obama is a socialist is a violation of the Ninth Commandment. He is a liberal fellow. I'm conservative. We disagree...But I don't need to call him a socialist, and I hurt the country by doing so.

Inglis lists examples of how his party turned toward demagoguery: falsely claiming Obama's health care overhaul included "death panels," raising questions about Obama's birthplace, calling the president a socialist, and maintaining that the Community Reinvestment Act was a major factor of the financial meltdown. "CRA," Inglis says, "has been around for decades. How could it suddenly create this problem? You see how that has other things worked into it?" Racism? "Yes," Inglis says.

"We're being driven as herd by these hot microphones—which are like flame throwers—that are causing people to run with fear and panic, and Republican members of Congress are afraid of being run over by that stampeding crowd." Inglis says that it's hard for Republicans in Congress to "summon the courage" to say no to Beck, Limbaugh, and the tea party wing. "When we start just delivering rhetoric and more misinformation...we're failing the conservative movement," he says. "We're failing the country." Yet, he notes, Boehner and House minority whip Eric Cantor have one primary strategic calculation: Play to the tea party crowd. "It's a dangerous strategy," he contends, "to build conservatism on information and policies that are not credible."

What about Sarah Palin? Inglis pauses for a moment: "I think that there are people who seem to think that ignorance is strength." And he says of her: "If I choose to remain ignorant and uninformed and encourage people to follow me while I celebrate my lack of information," that's not responsible.

Inglis is a casualty of the tea party-ization of the Republican Party. And when he thinks about what lies ahead for his party and GOP House leaders, he can't help but chuckle. With Boehner and others chasing after the tea party, he says, "that's going to be the dog that catches the car." He quickly adds: "And the Democrats, if they go into the minority, are going to have an enjoyable couple of years watching that dog deal with the car it's caught."

motherjones.com...


[edit on 3-8-2010 by 12GaugePermissionSlip]


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MOD NOTE: Posting work written by others

[edit on Wed Aug 4 2010 by DontTreadOnMe]

This is an interesting article. Do you a link to it still?
second line.

reply to post by 12GaugePermissionSlip


"Inglis is a casualty of the tea party-ization of the Republican Party. "

Got that right buddy.

One fascist down, 429 more to go.

Oh dear, I really do feel sorry for that man. It reminds me of a story I heard from a US Senator a couple years ago. I asked him, as we were walking from an interview what he thought of the partisan nature of the Republican party and the turn towards neo-conservative ideas it had taken.

He said that near the end of his life, Senator and presidential candidate Barry Goldwater said to Senator and presidential candidate Bob Dole that "we're the moderates now."

reply to post by mnemeth1

One fascist down, 429 more to go.

Which five are you exempting? Congress has 435 members.

Article is interesting.

reply to post by mnemeth1


Do you see everyone in government as fascist?
Second line.

Originally posted by jam321
reply to post by mnemeth1

 

One fascist down, 429 more to go.

Which five are you exempting? Congress has 435 members.

Article is interesting.

431 members of Congress are republican or democrat.

exemption 1 = Ron Paul

exemption 2 = Bob Inglis

reply to post by mnemeth1


I see where you're coming from now! I like the way your mind works.

Originally posted by Romantic_Rebel
reply to post by mnemeth1

 

Do you see everyone in government as fascist?
Second line.

No.

Ron Paul is not a fascist, I would call him a constitutional libertarian.

Bernie Sanders is a socialist.

So not everyone is a fascist.

Great article, nice to see some honesty.

The only thing I don't like is no one in government ever wants to speak to conspiracy theories, they just call people crazy without offering any evidence to the contrary.

Dismissing something so quickly usually means it has some validity. These government agents can feign ignorance but that ploy is fastly becoming useless.

Even if all the theories are lies. Why can't these agents do some research and debunk them?

Especially because they have become such big issues to the people that THEY REPRESENT!!!

The fact that they wont due diligence only gives more credibility to these theories.

Originally posted by mnemeth1


Bernie Sanders is a socialist.

So not everyone is a fascist.

Are you implying that socialism and fascism are not pragmatically the same damn thing with different rhetoric?

What a joke. Read the damn bill. It contains exactly what it is accused of containing. I know very few people who oppose obama that oppose based on race. we oppose based on his policies, where he wants to take us, his ignoring the constitution and his extension of the rino bush.

Originally posted by pacific_waters
What a joke. Read the damn bill. It contains exactly what it is accused of containing. I know very few people who oppose obama that oppose based on race. we oppose based on his policies, where he wants to take us, his ignoring the constitution and his extension of the rino bush.

LOL... I heard a good one today as well.

Obama is an "angry" Bush on steroids... continuing all the bad policies but accelerated x10.

It rings so true, the Bush 3rd term lives on with additional corruption thrown in. Same bad policies, different front-man.

Strange that few posts have actually addressed the OP yet.

Guess that is what happens when truth is spoken.

S+F from me.

We are in for a crazy couple years as the GOP takes a majority in congress in Nov and tries to reconcile themselves with the rhetoric they have embraced.

reply to post by 12GaugePermissionSlip


S + F

Strange to see someone not blinded by his political party.

There are tough and challenging times for true, non-fringe conservatives and libertarians, with so many people trying to find safe haven and attempting to co-opt and coattail off values and ideologies they don't have a clue about.

Great post, 12. We need more reminders of this.

[edit on 8/5/2010 by ~Lucidity]

Originally posted by 12GaugePermissionSlip
"And the Democrats, if they go into the minority, are going to have an enjoyable couple of years watching that dog deal with the car it's caught."

If Republican's take control, then I know I will certainly enjoy sitting back watching the Democrats stonewall EVERY piece of Republican sponsored legislation.

Originally posted by SpectreDC
Are you implying that socialism and fascism are not pragmatically the same damn thing with different rhetoric?

Socialism is an economic platform. Fascism 'merger' is a merger of authoritarian political platform that meets the capitalism platform. Also, to a lesser extent is Corporatism (what the US is currently).

I think your thinking of Marxist Communism. Both Marxist Communism and Fascism are authoritarian. The only difference is who gets all the money in the end (the government, or the one controlling the government though enterprise). You can be a socialist (and even a communist) without being authoritarian.

Does that help?

reply to post by mnemeth1


The message to the Conservative politicians is becoming increasingly clear:

"Support us on our FOX hyped hard right delusions, irrational fears, and bigotry or get out of my way."

Now instead of pandering to fools they manipulate with their own rhetoric, politicians are going to be pandering to fools manipulated by the outright nonsense of Conservative rockstars.

They'll even have to say they believe in it, too.

- Lee