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EDITOR OF REDSTATE

Dear Thomas Friedman

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  September 30th, 2010 at 11:02 PM  | 

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Dear Mr. Friedman,

I read your column on Wednesday in which you wrote, “The Tea Party that has gotten all the attention, the amorphous, self-generated protest against the growth in government and the deficit, is what I’d actually call the “Tea Kettle movement” — because all it’s doing is letting off steam.”

I suspect you are writing more about yourself than the actual Tea Party Movement. You see, I was sitting across from you on the Acela Express last week from New York to Washington. We all saw and all heard you berate the Amtrak worker for not picking up your trash quickly enough. We all heard you complain that you were trapped in your seat because, heaven forbid, you had your tray table down and couldn’t be bothered to move your laptop to get up.

Never mind that the Amtrak employee was actually in the midst of doing his job.

We also all heard you mutter about how the Amtrak employee’s failure to pick your trash up quickly enough was a sign of why the country was disintegrating or something or other like that. Yeah, you said that too. We all heard you. You were too busy lecturing to see all the glances back and forth among those around you and the smirks caused by that last line.

Now you are rattling on about tea partiers having “no plan to restore America to greatness.”

I guess we need to go ask your buddies the Chinese for a plan. I’m sure they have one. I’m sure they can impose it by fiat. And God knows if you were in China last week, the poor train worker could have been taken out back and shot for not picking up the trash of China’s greatest American propagandist.

That’s what the Chinese do. They are, lest you forget, communists. If that surprises you, it is probably because you know less about China than you think you do and you sure as hell know nothing about the tea party movement.

Sincerely yours,

Erick Erickson

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COMMENTS

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  • SoFiMil

    And the left will be as well come Nov 3rd. Regular Americans are gassing up the truck.

  • fpete13527

    Excellent

  • billyd

    The man who loves to say how a bigger government is better, goes off on an Amtrack employee for not working fast enough for him. I guess he didn’t realize that Amtrack is basically owned by the Federal Government.

  • Jack_Savage

    Passing by all those shuttered charter schools in D.C.

    It’s all astroturf anyway, Tommy. Right?

  • neomom

    N/T

  • http://www.neoavatara.com/blog neoavatara

    …is that he has become the classic ivory tower academic.

    He complains about trash, while others in the Tea Party and elsewhere are complaining about something more basic…about their LIVELIHOODS. Their children’s education and future. The future of the country.

    The tea party has grown because of fear of the future, because they see where people like Obama are taking us; to a place that we recognize, where the social state rules, and freedom is restricted, and people struggle to make ends meet.

    So Friedman can continue his whining all he wants. He can stare at the walls in his tower and complain…while the rest of America looks for a way to move forward.

  • bobmontgomery

    ….Friedman, the foreign affairs and Global Warming expert, whined that the Tea Party didn’t criticize Bush back when he was spending too much money….Uh, Tom, the Tea Party wasn’t uh…oh, never mind, Tom, keep up the excellent work.

  • http://www.redstate.com/tnjim TNJim

    who think they have the Tea Party movement all figured out but prove they have no clue when they write about it.

    Frankly, Erick, his conduct on the train doesn’t surprise me at all. Thanks for sharing this. It is just so telling of the liberal mindset, that things should be done for them, when they want it done. God forbid they have to fend for themselves, and woe to us “servants” like the Amtrak employee who fails to attend quickly enough.

  • NeoKong

    ?People think the country is in trouble and that countries like China have a strategy for success and we don?t.

    I can’t tell you how many times I have heard that. While we are at it we can also have a one child policy, kill 10,000 demonstrators and have forced sterlizations. Oh…there was also that huge genocide thing but let’s not quibble over the small stuff.

    I think Friedman admires China so much because he envies the power to kill people he doesn’t like or torture those who didn’t pick up his trash fast enough. I think he is certain that in China he would would be the Governor of a province. I wonder if he realizes that in China he couldn’t have a Barack Obama just come from nowhere to be a president or that Barney Frank would have been hauled off to jail long ago and shot. His family buys the bullet.

    I won’t bother with the rest because it was just a spittoon full of the usual leftie, socialist, elitist crap.

    p.s. I bet he complained about the employee before he left.

  • zollistar

    N/T

  • zollistar

    N/T

  • http://www.theprecinctproject.wordpress.com ColdWarrior

    http://www.lesjones.com/2009/07/28/lifestyles-of-the-rich-and-enivronmentalist-thomas-friedman/

    For Liberty,
    ColdWarrior, PC (that?s ?precinct committeeman,? not ?political child!?)
    Conservatives, UNITE! CHANGE the Republican Party and save the world by UNITING INSIDE the Party as precinct committeemen. NOW! (33 days until Nov. 2 — what are YOU DOING to help get out the vote in your precinct?)

  • Mike

    This is clearly a misunderstanding of the disaster area that is the mind of Thomas Friedman. Here’s why:

    We know the guy loves centralization. Beautiful, glorious, top-down, bureaucratic, autocratic, automatic centralization.

    We also know that the Tea Party is a largely decentralized group, only getting called together by those with the means to get the word out (blogs, usually; though sometimes Glenn Beck can get a party going too…).

    Tom likes centralization because he can understand it. It’s simple. People at the top are there for an easily understood reason (they worked really hard to consolidate their power). They order something be done, and it happens. It’s not difficult to understand, at any point.

    Decentralization, or freedom, is more complicated. What if what needs to be done isn’t getting done because the cats refuse to be herded? Self-interest sometimes gets in the way of what The Experts say must be done for our own good — and in freedom, The Experts sometimes get overruled by We the People. It’s tough to understand why that’s better, at least for someone who loves centralization.

    We also know that you always fear what you don’t understand.

    Tom is scared. He’s afraid of you and I. He’s about to see all that he knows and loves take a hockey stick to the teeth, and the alternative is too difficult for him to comprehend.

    Y’see, Tom is not free.

    Tom lives in a world where he goes to work, performs a function, has all of his needs and many of his wants taken care of. He cannot imagine working anywhere else, living anywhere else, eating anything other than what he eats, driving anything other than what he drives, living any other lifestyle than what he lives.

    It’s been too long since he was hungry. Since he was unemployed, and facing the desperate decision between paying the mortgage and buying food for his kids. He’s likely not thought about facing down an intruder in his palatial home in quite some time (not a threat, mind you. Just an observation of his lifestyle. I wouldn’t have to note that in dealing with a normal person — but dealing with liberals has made me cover my bases).

    He’s weak, in body, in mind, in spirit. He can’t change, because he’s afraid.

    But I can. You can. Dare I say it?

    Yes. We can.

    We in the Tea Party are free from the fear of freedom, because we know what we can accomplish with it. So go, you tea-partying wackjobs :D Go change the world.

  • Libertarian Republican

    … Friedman U got pwned :-)

    Excellent citizen journalism Eric!

  • http://www.libertytreehugger.com reverelth

    to the service industry, too.

    And we know they all want to be like F. Chuck.

  • daveoconnor

    Why am I not surprised that Friedman is a dork. He and other middle-aged brats will never understand the bottom-up Tea Party approach.

  • jackhammer

    And have one of those flip cameras with you.

  • gwalt

    Hey Tommy,
    When you move out of your (wife’s) gargantuan carbon spewing mansion and start living the life you want all of us to live—-China-style—-you may get my attention.
    Until then—the earth may as well be flat.

  • nateleyswhore

    Which other liberal hypocrite would you like to catch in a moment of being their everyday elitist selves? I’d love to spend a day with Michelle Obama unguarded. You know Sean Penn treats his underlings like dirt. I’ll bet Nancy Pelosi treats her dog’s servant like crap…

    Elitist liberals divide everyone else into two groups: the stupid but useful ones who come take the scraps that fall to the floor from their tables; and the wild and free, violent, racist, ignorant, religious fanatics whom they must destroy.

  • RedBeard

    No matter what political affiliation they have, elitists are boils on the backside of humanity.

    I greatly prefer the company at the local biker bar over the folks breathing the rarified air of the University Club downtown.

  • mirac777

    The so-called TeaParty steam that is blowing across this country is going to burn a hell of a lot of elitists and liberal politicians this Novermber! Throw in the socialism-pimping MSM of today, and there will be a huge increase in the skin graft business next year!

    Get out and vote! And make your friends and family get out and vote. Watch your polling stations with cameras at the ready. Call your local GOP office and get those yard signs put up today! ( No RINOS)

    Last but certainly not least, keep on hittin the Left with a Right, with the truth, with firm resolve that we will beat socialism! Just as redSatate does every single day in here. Keep up the great work and TY all for the informative articles and comments!

  • mirac777

    Correction: RedState ! Apologies for not editing better.

  • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

    well said

  • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

    but it surprises no one that lefties are hostile to those who serve their needs.

    Just like giving to charity, there is a big discrepancy in what they practice and what they preach.

  • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

    but it surprises no one that lefties are hostile to those who serve their needs.

    Just like giving to charity, there is a big discrepancy in what they practice and what they preach.

  • Darin_H

    personally leaves behind more trash the an entire Glenn Beck 8/28 rally?

    I do believe there’s a metaphor somewhere in there :)

  • kevinwilliams

    and that THEIR poop doesn’t evn stink…but their farts (and rude behavior in public) give them away!

  • johnt

    Everybody knows that, pushing questions of what constitutes greatness aside. We do know that it is achieved through high taxes and $trillion plus deficits, and a managerial system that moves like a dead snail & always in the wrong direction but rewards it’s own like nobility.
    The fanaticism is breathtaking, as usual.
    Read my signature/quote, says it all.

  • runner12

    Unfortunately, this is par for the course for the Leftist academic elite. They spew platitudes on compassion and the common man, but have no true concern for them. In fact, they actually despise them and look at them as “less than.” This was evidenced by the treatment of the Amtrak worker by Mr. Friedman. Way to expose his hypocrisy.

  • Ausonius

    Perhaps as a letter to the editor or as a proposed “op-ed” piece to rebut Friedman’s column?

    Maybe you can send it to Glenn Beck or FOX News or one of the other New York papers: the incident needs greater exposure, especially since there were other witnesses on the train who would verify what you wrote.

    A classic example of the East Coast leftist elite: stories from the Soviet Union (e.g. from Alexander Solzhenitsyn) about the Russian Communist Party elite and their behavior toward their “working comrades” are no different.

  • Ausonius

    Perhaps as a letter to the editor or as a proposed “op-ed” piece to rebut Friedman’s column?

    Maybe you can send it to Glenn Beck or FOX News or one of the other New York papers: the incident needs greater exposure, especially since there were other witnesses on the train who would verify what you wrote.

    A classic example of the East Coast leftist elite: stories from the Soviet Union (e.g. from Alexander Solzhenitsyn) about the Russian Communist Party elite and their behavior toward their “working comrades” are no different.

  • peterb

    besides gassing up our trucks, we’re also picking up our own trash.

  • peterb

    Bothered being a kept man Tom?

  • peterb

    For too long we have paid attention to them.
    They’ve had their 15 minutes in the spotlight, it’s time we let them crawl back into their holes, and leave them there, where they belong.

  • SoFiMil

    communists are revered and bowed down to.

    http://www.foxnews.com/slideshow/politics/2010/02/19/dalai-lama-trots-past-white-house-trash#slide=1

  • oculusdexter

    Friedman complains that the Tea Party “hasn’t offered a credible solution” — he still doesn’t get it. The plan is that there should be no plan.

    –We do not want a centrally planned economy.

    –We do not want the government to stumble in and try to smooth out every little burp in the economy, which makes things worse every single time. Keynesian economics has failed every time it has been tried.

    –We do not want the federal government to spend one penny beyond those functions DIRECTLY and SPECIFICALLY named in the US Constitution–and no phony reliance on the “interstate commerce clause”. Most of the government spending that goes on today is unconstitutional, and must be stopped.

    If the people really want the government to be in the healthcare business, there is an amendment process that they are welcome to pursue, but as things stand right now, such spending is illegal, regardless of what statutes may be “deemed” to have passed in Congress.

    The great danger to the country is that we now have all three branches of government saying the Constitution doesn’t matter, and that needs to be corrected before we start worrying about any individual line item in the budget. Gotta get the big things fixed first.

  • http://theminorityreportblog.com Repair_Man_Jack

    He craps ont he rug, you rub his nose in it, he’s so senile that he doesn’t connect his defecation to the smell. He waddles off farting, and then you have another bill for cleaning the rug. He’ll land a gig at Rolling Stone once he’s too stupid for even the NYT. (Perhaps, at that point, we could describe him as hitting below the Dowd line.)

  • teresakoch

    you know, the one that doesn’t exist; the one that’s just astroturf; the one that’s filled with knuckle-draggin’, cousin- marryin’, tobacco-chewin’ rubes from the boonies.

    Welcome to the party, pal – we’re real, and we’re SPECTACULAR.

    And BTW, if you get too close to steam, you can get a REALLY nasty 3rd-degree burn on you – it may look harmless enough, but you’ll know it if you try and mess with it……

  • teresakoch

    you know, the one that doesn’t exist; the one that’s just astroturf; the one that’s filled with knuckle-draggin’, cousin- marryin’, tobacco-chewin’ rubes from the boonies.

    Welcome to the party, pal – we’re real, and we’re SPECTACULAR.

    And BTW, if you get too close to steam, you can get a REALLY nasty 3rd-degree burn on you – it may look harmless enough, but you’ll know it if you try and mess with it……

  • d4114j

    Throw down on the Tea Party, berate the working man, abhor
    anyone with a little self earned money.

  • renny

    a bee-yitch?

    These people all think the whole world grovels at their feet.

    That’s why we have to get rid of the ruling class.

    I can see Nov. 2 right around the corner.