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Mad Barbarians at the Gate in Gettysburg

Leftists and libertarians on one side, and the supporters of Rick Santorum on the other side.  That was the more recent “Battle of Gettysburg” that I reported taking place this past Tuesday night.

It seemed to stir up quit a fuss when I reported on the recent “line in the dirt” at Gettysburg between the two sides in that battle.

It wasn’t just my opinion but the actual FACTS that seemed to be in dispute by people who weren’t even there but wanted to continue their attack – on Santorum but also on Romney and Gingrich and all conservatives – which I wrote about.  They proved my point by their response to that article.

These are the mad Barbarians at the Gate of the conservative cause we saw in Gettysburg.

These are the people who have targeted you and me just as we reach the beginning of the end of our GOP presidential primary process and the start of the Battle for the White House and the future of America.

On one side for the Rick Santorum appearance were those who either support him or those who wanted to respectfully listen to what he had to say.

On the other side out in the street were what at first glance appeared to be a crowd of leftist protestors. The mad Barbarians, trying to crash the party, to “occupy” the high ground held that day in Gettysburg, by the supporters and friends of Rick Santorum.

To seize as much of the Santorum “earned media” as possible – and they in fact, succeed in getting nearly half of all such media attention (high five’s for the mad Barbarians).

Eyewitness accounts and news media cameras both reported Ron Paul signs in that protestor street crowd.

No one has reported that Occupy Wall Street (in the main) is a hotbed of Libertarian Party and/or Ron Paul support so, I suppose, whether you like it or not, you can truthfully report – as I did – that they were together to protest Rick Santorum, and they were literally so intermingled in the street that you honestly could not tell them apart.

But I did go further in my report.  I expressed my opinion based on the facts that I reported:

The leftist-libertarian crowd hates not just Rick Santorum.  And believe me if you were there with those who provided me eyewitness reports, you’d know they were not exaggerating – the protestors really do very intensely dislike us (or go ahead and say it: HATE us).

There is no doubt of this, and hardly a surprise to anyone who has attended a Conservative Political Action Conference in the past, or watched (as did I) on TV and saw the boos from Libertarians in the room during the standing ovation for former Vice President Dick Cheney, the second most popular speaker in the history of CPAC (behind only Ronald Reagan, who the Gettysburg street people ALSO do not like at all).

No, it isn’t just Rick Santorum they hate.

They hate Santorum but also Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich.

They hate conservatives.  They hate Republicans.  They hate all of the above, far more than they hate any liberals or hate any Democrats, about whom incredibly enough, they are very silent.

But there’s more.

They hate you.

I mean the normal conservatives here at RED STATE who actually subscribe to its purposes as I do, and are here to learn or express their views in support of this cause, as I am.

They hate all the normal conservatives and while we are arguing among ourselves about our differences they are laughing because to them – that crowd in the street who represents some of the loudest people in our midst – they are full faith believers (if I dare use the word “faith” with that crowd) in the old maxim of someone most of them know nothing about – George Wallace.

And like George “not a dime’s worth of difference” Wallace of 1968, they say today’s Republicans, conservatives, and the whole “establishment” needs to be thrown out and lets start all over again, and lets knock down anybody standing in our way.

So, I suggested in my last column that you who are normal conservatives – like me sometimes pretty frustrated with what one of our rank long ago called “the stupid Party” you might need to be more careful who you associate with in the future.

Because to these allies of the left (which is what they are) you and I are also the same thing as the “Stupid Party.”  We’re all the same in their eyes.

The reason that these folks have influence FAR out of proportion to their numbers is that they spend far more time than other people with families and lives, on the internet, and they are very good students of Saul Alinsky (even if many of them learned from a teacher who didn’t bother to tell them his training source).

And they spend far more time on the attack, including personal attack, against their targets, just as their teacher suggested (Saul Alinksy of course) so they have no ground to defend and their purpose is to put YOU on the defensive.

If you have spent any time here at RED STATE as a reader you’ve noticed how they pop up with the arguments of the left even on these pages, but call themselves part of our team… but their arguments are the same, and their attacks are more often directed at conservatives than at liberals.

In other words, like the recent “battle at Gettysburg” you can’t tell “a dime’s worth of difference” between a leftist standing out there to protest Santorum, and a Libertarian or Ron Paul supporter who hates Santorum and wanted to also “protest.”  They stood shoulder to shoulder in their common cause.

How about it, men and women of Red State – shouldn’t we also stand “shoulder to shoulder”?

During the past few years I’ve noticed – especially in social media clubs and pages – that this small minority I am speaking of is 100x more active than our folks are in the internet world.

There are a number of logical reasons for that.  For one, less of them have regular jobs.  For another, more of them have hourly paid jobs where they go home and they are done – they don’t own businesses as much where you are “at work” all the time.

For another, many are younger and their parents pay the bills and instead of doing homework well, this is what they do.

Many of them have those little “smart phones” they call it.

You know – where you type with your thumbs (how smart!) instead of all 10 fingers, and you squint at a little screen about 3 inches by 4 inches (instead of my 25 plus inch monitor).  And so many do NOT use high speed cable for their internet access, nor speak in more than grunts and short messages (it is hard typing with your thumbs).

Perhaps the most innocent and innocuous reason they have an internet advantage over us is that we – the older people – paid for our kids computers, smart phones and internet access.  What library’s costs – where you can access the internet for free – was paid for by taxes from teens?

They grew up with this “free stuff” and many of our age have still not figured out why they should even CARE about this Facebook and social media thing.

But before you laugh about them too hard remember, you and I are also paying many of these youngsters to use their “smart phones” right now – some 20% of all hourly paid work hours are now used by employees to surf, send texts and emails etc. – or perhaps to post Occupy Wall Street anti-establishment rhetoric here at Red State and on Facebook.  Yes, while on company time.

And so even at conservative-Christian pages their anti-conservative, anti-GOP and Ron Paul arguments sometimes fill a page far more than those who are members of and founded that group.

And if you read the above you will understand better why so many of their “posts” are short, negative attacks which so often sound very similar – they are typing with their thumbs onto little tiny screens.  These are not, very often, very deep thinkers.

You can go to the York and Adams County parts of Pennsylvania (as I have) and easily find such Facebook pages but they are all over America.  They proclaim Tea Party, 912 or even Christian/conservative but for some of these pages, when you arrive “in their room” you find that it is full of news about the Libertarian Party, or why conservatives and/or Republicans are terrible and are all the same.

That negative, anti-conservative and/or anti-GOP stuff easily outnumbers the conservative messages at best and at worst it dominates, on so many “pages” which attracted your attention because you thought they were conservative and/or Christian oriented.

But I wish to go further and to my point:

Look at your own Facebook page and see: do you have those same people LISTED AS YOUR FRIENDS – the sort of people cheering for or using the same rhetoric as, the Occupy Wall Street/Libertarian Party/Ron Paul group out there in the street of Gettysburg this past Tuesday?

I wish you would understand: they hate us all.  It isn’t speculation. Anyone can read and see their words, even here at Red State, although very toned down.

They hate Santorum true – he is the flavor of the month they most hate currently, and he was even chastised by Bill O’Reilly recently.

The very wise O’Reilly chastised him for “falling into the trap” of allowing the media to get him to answer any social conservative questions and questions about his faith.

Any “smart politician knows” avers O’Reilly, “that the media can ask whatever they want but you do not have to answer them, you know what they are trying to get you to say.”

“Of course” says O’Reilly, “they’d never get away with that stuff with me, because this is the ‘no spin zone’ reports the very humble Irishman, a fellow humble but sometime errant Catholic.

His point is that Santorum brought his trouble on himself by stepping out into the public square and (in effect) admitting that he is a Catholic and that he would differ with Nancy Pelosi (as I prefer to put it) in NOT denouncing his own Church’s teachings.

Santorum also specifically differed with another famous Catholic, then Senator John F. Kennedy, who in 1960 said that we Catholics should silence ourselves on matters of faith when we step out into the public square (see my earlier RED STATE treatment of that, including direct quotes and analysis of what Santorum said versus what Kennedy in 1960 said).

But the point isn’t what Santorum said, or the “advice” that Catholic Bill O’Reilly offers, effectively, to follow the self-silenced Senator John F. Kennedy on the “separation of Church and state” and be silent on faith.

Nor is my main point that those protesters in Gettysburg – and the few in here too – hate that strawman they created – that Rick Santorum or the Catholics are “trying to tell us what to do.”

No.  They want us to be silenced on matters of faith, as O’Reilly and his ally, the late Senator and later President John F. Kennedy demanded.

My point is that even Mitt “etch-a-sketch” Romney’s “restart” and conversion from a “severe conservative” during the GOP primaries into a mainstream guy in the general election, even Newt Gingrich’s more skillful banter on this subject, change nothing in their eyes.

All these candidates AND YOU who support them, are the enemy.  They hate you.  They hate what you stand for.

When you offer any expression of your faith it intensifies their hate.  They want to tear you down, silence, you, humiliate you, embarrass you.

The mad barbarians in the Gettysburg street opposing Santorum weren’t there to say a single bad thing about President Obama.  They weren’t there to criticize the Democratic Senate.

Even the fool who carried a sign saying “Stop Medicaid Cuts” didn’t see the irony.

I was told that one of the conservatives on his way inside, had this fellow step in front of him brandishing his weapon, as if it would win the battle by his making such a stand.

My source reports he dryly asked, “so you oppose Obama’s recent cut in Medicaid.”  The poor fellow was totally confused.  I suppose they didn’t pay him to actually talk, just carry the sign.

At least with a Libertarian he would have talked…. or is that a disadvantage, if your purpose in being there was to go inside and listen to Santorum?

What then, is my advise to the group of us who, whether we like it or not, are in this together?

Not just advise for my fellow Rick Santorum supporters.

But to the Romney supporters, whose detractors may not have heard him say in the last 24 hours, that he will fight this President “who is crushing the dream, and the dreamers.”

Honestly, even if he did not do all that I would prefer on policy, if he wins the nomination and then does his “reset” with the etcha-sketch plan, he wins the election and then speaks like that good “We Believe in America” stuff for the next four years, wouldn’t that be a massive improvement over what we’ve had to listen to for the last three years?

The country would be far better off with speeches like that from Romney then what we have been listening to since “hope and change” arrived.

And I know those people standing out in the Gettysburg street, will be mad as heck, if they had to listen to a President Romney.  Oh you can be sure that same crew we saw in Gettysburg will be marching again if your guy wins.

To the Romney supporters, to my friends who support Newt Gingrich (whose books and movies I have read and watched and who I admire too), I suggest you keep your eye, on who our enemies are and on something very important they have to teach us.

They say, there’s no difference between us.  Romney, Santorum, Gingrich, conservatives, GOP.

While I see differences (as a Santorum supporter) and each of us may say the same thing – THEY don’t.  We are to them, ALL the enemy.

A specific example, even as I am writing this, is another attack-post from such a person at the ACTION OF PA Chester County Facebook webpage where I’d mentioned yesterday’s article about Gettysburg.

Actually the guy had a “wingman” (they often do).  The two anti-conservatives (or the same guy with two pen names) on duty there immediately went on the attack on my article of yesterday.

One wrote, “Romney is Santorum is Gingrich is Obama is Bush… All a sham man.. So tired & old.”

I do not know if by this he meant himself, his rhetoric or the candidates.

And immediately above brilliant riposte, another ally of Occupy Wall Street posted HIS attack on the SAME article I wrote.  Attacker number 2 attacked me by saying that (according to him) Rick Santorum says that Obama is the same as Romney.

Hilarious.

The two attackers essentially, shot each other – like a circulator firing squad – with their arguments.

They appear to not only NOT read what I wrote but not even what they each wrote attacking me.

And their attacks had NOTHING at all to do with my original REDSTATE article, but only PROVED my point: these guys (and them) hate us all the same.

(No.  Do not ask me why are they allowed to do this.   I have no idea. It is a Christian-Conservative group, so it says.  A rebuttal can be created and have its OWN Facebook page but, the attacks are right there on this groups page rather regularly).

Yes, it is laughable how these “not a dime’s worth of difference” guys attack you from BOTH directions and totally contradict each other in their attack.

But their “party line” or “bottom line” is always the same – the establishment, GOP, conservatives, Romney, Gingrich, Santorum, and you and me: all BAD, they complain.

“Overthrow it all, on with the Revolution, they are shout.

Exactly as the radical left of the 1960′s preached, and exactly as the Occupy Wall Street leftists and their libertarian/Ron Paul friends in the street at Gettysburg, say.

Anybody who would stand with those mad Barbarians in the Gettysburg street is not somebody I’d care to be associated with, not here, not on Facebook and most certainly not in real life.

The Occupy Wall Street leftists and those standing with them denouncing us all the time, there’s not a dime’s worth of difference” between YOU.  We conservatives are not “the establishment” but we will defend the American dream from your assault.

Thank you so much for reminding us who our real friends are.  Despite our differences, they are nothing compared to how we differ with you mad barbarians at the gate.

COMMENTS

  • keepcoolwithcoolidge

    It’s starting to seem like a case of the loyal spouse who sticks around despite the constant abuse. Ever since the Jerry Fallwellites in the moral majority took over the Republican Party, small government conservatives have gotten the short end of the stick.

    Under George W Bush every faction within the Republican coalition was played to except for Constitutionalists. The Tom Delay Republicans were fine spending lots of money and increasing the size and power of government to placate fundamentalists, farmers, business interests, old people, law and order types, and foreign policy hawks, but did nothing to decrease the size of government.

    Reagan said there were 3 legs on the stool of conservatism, but it’s increasingly seeming apparent that the Terri Schaivo wing of the party don’t care.

    You claim small government conservatives like myself “… hate conservatives. They hate Republicans. They hate all of the above, far more than they hate any liberals or hate any Democrats, about whom incredibly enough, they are very silent.” Where were you during the Tea Party rebellion of 2009. Of course there was pressure on the Republican Party during that time. The Republican Party was supposed to be the party that defended the individual and personal liberty against tyrannical government. So Tea Party activists purged as many of those Tom Delay traitors as we could who cared only about lining their pocket and increasing government to limit individual freedom.

    I want to vote Republican against Obama. I will gladly vote for Romney or Gingrich or Paul against Obama. But Santorum? Unemployment is high, the economy is stagnant, and gas prices are going through the roof, and all Santorum can do is complain about pornography? Really?

    The idea that you can lump small government conservatives in with leftists because they dare question the increasing size of government is downright offensive. Many in the media have pointed out that the marriage of convenience between the social “conservative” faction and the Constitutional faction is over. I’m starting to agree.

    If Santorum is the nominee, I vote for Congressman Goode or Governor Johnson.

  • https://www.facebook.com/HanoverHenry hanoverhenry

    …but I do appreciate your writing, even though what you write has little to nothing to do at all with what I wrote.

    Many people besides Ronald Reagan spoke of the 3 legs of the conservative stool and over many years. The wing of the party you appear to be defending was the group I reported standing side by side and intermingled with the Occupy Wall Street protesters against Rick Santorum in Gettysburg. Just like you, they created a strawman of what Rick Santorum has said and then attacked that image they invented. So you can be the obedient servant of the Obama forces who followed Stephanopoulis in asking absurd condum questions at a debate (for which he was booed). It really hasn’t got anything to do with what I wrote about and what Rick Santorum said. Please restart.

    For example, if you want to defend the idea actively promoted by the left that those who are people of faith should be silenced when they step into the public square you might want to actually READ what your hero, then Senator John F. Kennedy, said about the “separation” of church and state, which “constitutionalists” like you and your leftwing allies haven’t ever seen or read – because it isn’t there. For the actual quotes of what Santorum referred to several weeks ago – in a few MOMENTS where George Stephanopolous persisted in asking him about this, go to my earlier article, http://www.redstate.com/hanoverhenry/2012/02/29/did-santorum-criticism-of-catholic-john-kennedy-1960-speech-cost-him-in-michigan/. If you are going to parrot the leftwing attack Christians stuff at least you might want to stick with factual content including what exactly are you advocating in your attacks?

    And to read the actual content of THE FEW SENTENCES of actual Rick Santorum speeches you are are echoing the leftwing line in attacking, why not go to my other, earlier article, http://www.redstate.com/hanoverhenry/2012/03/15/santorum-centrality-of-faith-provokes-leftwing-hate/.

    Again, you are attacking something that does not exist. Rick Santorum has spoken of freedom, the constitution, reducing gas prices, defending our economic interests and a full range of issues of interest and concern to conservative.

    Although many Americans may get their information from very biased sources with do not report ANYTHING which bears even faint resemblence to the truth – such as you, Rachell Maddow, Daily Kos, Media Matters, Huffington Post and other such sources, the fact is that a lot of people are tuning in to accurate information or hearing the words for themselves and realizing that you are simply making things up as you go.

    The economics conservatives you claim to be speaking for don’t even see 20% of their ranks voting for your buddy Ron Paul, so while bemoaning the fact that national defense and values voters in our coalition simply do not agree with you lets not forget no one has appointed people like you as our spokesman. Nor do people who exhibit so little knowledge of what the Constitution actually says, warrant appointment as our spokesmen.

    And most especially, people who have no clue how right Rick Santorum has defended the right of Christians to be left alone from government interference as the First Amendment actually guarantees?

    The “restraint” is not on our free speech, nor our right to teach our children the religion of our choice, nor on Catholic priests or other ministers to differ with you on the use of condoms.

    Nor is the First Amendment there for you and your pal Sandra Fluke – a 30 year old Georgetown University Law school student – on the path to a $200,000 a year starting income when she graduates – has the “right” to $3000 of our taxpayer money to pay what she claims are the expenses she incurs having sex apparently a few dozen times a day for three years without time off (see my earlier article, http://www.redstate.com/hanoverhenry/2012/03/06/female-law-school-student-sandra-flukes-right-to-sex-at-our-expense/)

    The First Amendment is there to keep your friend Barack Obama from trampling on our freedom, to restrain the feds. I strongly recommend you acquaint yourself with a few basic facts before you blast away as you have here, based on no facts and based upon some wild eyed fantasies.

    I am delighted to hear that you are one of the 10% or less of Ron Paul voters who when asked, said they will vote for which nominee wins the GOP nomination contest. Hopefully after all of the above you might take a break from fantasy writing and direct some of your commentary towards your fellow Paulies who told exit pollsters by an over 80% margin that last time they voted for Obama or for a third party candidate, and by that same margin, if their candidate does not win they will AGAIN vote for Obama or a third party candidate.

    As for where I have been, in the real world I recommend you visit, I was holding placards up and marching in Washington, from all of the major Tea Party events on through the Glenn Beck events and in full support of those goals that we share in common.

    I am of course, highly amused to read some of the new Tea Partiers saying (a) they just woke up and got active in the last 2 years (hence admitting they slumbered thru the election of Barack Obama) and (b) they are so very critical of conservative Christians like me who were out donating and campaigning to STOP the Obamunists from winning that election and were on the front line for years before then, including in GOP primary contests to support the conservative.

    How far back do you go in attacking conservatives?

  • keepcoolwithcoolidge

    “How far back do you go in attacking conservatives?”

    Which conservatives am I attacking?

    Barry Goldwater said of conservatives, “The Conservative knows that to regard man as part of an undifferentiated mass is to consign him to ultimate slavery.” And that “Thus for the American Conservative, there is no difficulty in identifying the day’s overriding political challenge: it is to preserve and extend freedom. As he surveys the various attitudes and institutions and laws that currently prevail in America, many questions will occur to him, but the Conservative’s first concern will always be: Are we maximizing freedom?”

    Are farm subsidies maximizing freedom?
    Are union handouts maximizing freedom?
    Is a ban on internet gambling maximizing freedom?
    Is prohibiting gays from serving in the military maximizing freedom?
    Is ignoring the right of the state to tax marijuana maximizing freedom?
    Is removing due process from citizens maximizing freedom?
    Is nationalizing our local public schools freedom?
    What about bailing out the airline industry? Or the financial sector?
    How does requiring me to have a national ID maximize freedom?
    Did the large, unfunded expansion of Medicare make me freer?
    How about Congress’s claimed jurisdiction over movie theaters in 2005?
    Does imposing ex post facto laws on certain criminals maximize freedom?
    Or when Congress criminalized embellishing military records?
    Do I even have to bring up Terri Schaivo?

    I give you the Bush Presidency. I gladly attack it and the big government leftists who made it what it was. It was this group that destroyed the Republican Party and gave us Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama. It was small government conservatives like me who had to purge those left in 2010. Funny how a lot of them had already gotten picked off by Democrats then, because by 2006 and 2008 the public couldn’t tell the difference.

    You see, you claim that I’m a “leftist” because I believe that everyone has inalienable rights and don’t support increasing government when it suits me. At least I’m consistent. unlike the Falwellites who openly say to get their wishes on gay marriage “we’ll go through the federal government to get our way, and if that doesn’t work, we’ll try state’s rights for a while, and if that doesn’t help we’ll go the court route, and if that doesn’t work I guess we can try an amendment.”

    I’m a baptist. I’m fine with religion. But I don’t think that religion can be a justifiable excuse to impose subjective moral principles on everyone. Jews don’t eat pork. Should they be able to force that prohibition on me? After all, if memory serves the villains of the New Testament were the Pharisees who hypocritically sought to enforce moral standards against everyone despite the fact that everyone is a sinner, and that all sins are equal. Since they are equal, the idea that you can pick and choose which sins you criminalize and which you don’t is hypocritical.Murder is illegal because it violates the rights of another, not because it is in the 10 Commandments.

    In 2003, Santorum said he wanted to criminalize sodomy? What? Unless he also wants to criminalize taking the lord’s name in vain and lying too that’s hypocritical. He’s focusing on the speck in his neighbor’s eye while ignoring the log in his own. The pornography thing is legit to.

    I’m confused as to why you brought up Sandra Fluke as your own straw man because I agree that she doesn’t have a right to the fruits of someone elses labor and that a contract can include any insurance plan (or lack of one) agreed upon.

    It’s amusing that you keep assuming I’m a Paul supporter despite multiple comments by myself on this site to the contrary. If anything I’m a Mitch man. Funny how wanting the government to actually leave people alone is considered leftist now. But that’s the revisionism that’s been happening. Apparently not hating gays or supporting the freedom to choose whether or not I can gamble away my life-savings means I actually want to increase the size of government. Remember it was the “progressives” of the early 20th century that enacted prohibition. Not conservatives.