You Can’t Have It Both Ways
This is about the Constitution.
No, it’s not about the Tea Party carrying signs that say to Respect the Constitution and then screaming against a Democratically-Elected President. Nor is this about the GOP crying that we need to Honor the Constitution and then trying to re-interpret the 14th Amendment to get those babies born on 
American soil called non-citizens. Nor is this about those Patriots who scream for Freedom of Religion, unless it involves Islam, a Community Center near Ground Zero or a President who doesn’t wear his Christianity on his sleeve while he bombs innocent people into oblivion.
This is about the Donkey Party, you Democrats, who point at the tea party, the GOP, the ignorant, the haters and the racist and yell HYPOCRITES!
You are being hypocrites as well.
Glenn Beck
and whatever his followers call themselves this week (Freedom Fighters? Beck-o-philes? Zombutts?) have reserved the space in front of the Lincoln Memorial for their latest gathering. The part that is making you mad…they reserved that space on the anniversary of the day that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr gave his I Have a Dream speech.
You are angry, you are offended and you are shouting that it is disrespectful for a group that focuses on fear, hate and ignorance is doing something to so blatantly dishonor what should be the celebration of a man who gave his life for the equality of all.
Well, too bad, stop your whining.
The fact is, this group of Americans (regardless of how psychotic and dangerous you may think they are) have EVERY RIGHT to gather in this place and to say whatever they want while there. THIS is the freedom of assembly, THIS is the freedom of speech and THIS is what the Constitution is all about.
By Vince Yanez
You CANNOT scream that the mosque is okay because the Constitution allows it, the President’s religion is irrelevant because the Constitution says so and immigrant babies are citizens because the Constitution spells it out, and then scream when the other side uses the rights of that same Constitution to gather it’s misinformed masses.
Sure, we are all aware that Beck has attacked Al Sharpton on numerous occasions, and yes, we all know that Beck referred to Jesse Jackson as the “the stinking king of the race lords” and of course we all remember that Beck has called Obama a racist who ‘has a deep-seated hate for White people’ numerous times (despite the fact that his mother and grandparents were all white).
And of course we all cringed when Beck said, about the Liberals attitude towards his followers, that he “wouldn’t be surprised if in our lifetime dogs and fire hoses are released or opened on us. I wouldn’t be surprised if a few of us get a billy club to the head. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of us go to jail — just like Martin Luther King did — on trumped-up charges. Tough times are coming.”
Yes, he just compared himself and his pack of morons (who swear they aren’t racist), to the atrocities faced by thousands of African-Americans under the hands of a pack of morons who swore they weren’t racist. And the icing on the cake, after denying having ANY IDEA that his march was falling on the Anniversery of King’s speech, he then added that the scheduling coincidence as “divine providence”, as if God not only cared about the rantings of a lunatic, but actually blessed him with this particular spot in order to cry and spit his version of patriotism.
But again, this is the FREEDOM of assembly, the FREEDOM of speech and the exercising of what our Constitution is all about.
If you are so offended that he is in that place, on that day, then move faster to reserve it next year. If you are so bothered that he is able to mobilize those American’s who find education elistist and refuse to look up facts for themselves, then stop cutting school programs and creating more zombies. If his type of ultra-conservativism scares you, then stop being complacent every time your party is in the majority and get your butt to the voting booths. And dear Democrats, if you are going to cry that the other side is being hypocrites concerning the Constitution, I suggest you look in the mirror.
You aren’t looking much different from that Weirdo from Alaska, that Orange Guy in Congress or the Flip-Flopper Maverick in Arizona. You MUST support the Constitution even when it protects something you despise, because that is the ONLY way this country is going to get it’s honor back and it’s the ONLY way we are going to be able to differentiate your party from those who’s version of Patriotism we look at with skepticism and it is the ONLY way screaming that you Love America is going to be more than just words shouted to win elections or start wars based on lies.
You MUST defend the rights of everyone, even those who move our country back a few steps every few years… or eventually, there isn’t going to be anything left to fight for.
Glenn Beck has a dream, and his followers, who happen to be only about 2% African-American, will gather on those sacred steps to hear that dream, then shuffle back to their guns and their bibles…as is their Constitutional right. Suck it up!
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- Glenn Beck Rally, ‘Restoring Honor’, Stirs Controversy (huffingtonpost.com)
What can I say…
Come hug a Democrat, and we promise to hug you right back. And give you a balloon! Even a cup of tea if you like.
Saturday, Sept. 4, 5 – 8 PM
996 N. Broad
Globe
Share your views with elected officials and candidates.
Feel the love and respect.
=)
Let’s see now, 500,000 people gather non-violently and discuss unity, personal integrity and honor our veterans. 260 pastors, rabbis. clerics, and priests hold hands on a stage and ask the people to pray daily and in particular to pray for our president, even though most oif the audience probably feels he is going in a wrong direction. They are challenged to spend the next 40 days becoming people of their word. To commit to the truth in all their dealings and to pray daily.
They discuss nothing political at the entire event. When 3000 marchers arrive with Al Sharpton in the lead they are greeted with kindness and merge right in. Not a single episode of violence occurred, an almost unheard of occurrence at such a huge gathering. They leave the area totally clean, without so much as a single scrap of paper waste left behind.
Just sounds TERRIBLE!! This is certainly something we should put a stop to.
I’m surprised you know how much litter they left, that’s very impressive. =)
They showed the site on the news after the crowd left and commented on it or I wouldn’t have.
Then they showed the crowd leaving the Obama Inauguration with trash blowing through the crowd knee high. Don’t interpret this as being an Obama thing, just another large gathering of a cross section of people. It could just as easily been a Bush thing, it was the contrast of a generic event to one of a very caring population who consciously went to the trouble to be personally responsible, which was the message they were hearing. Would have been pretty low to leave your popcorn bag after 260 preachers told you to take responsibility for your actions, I guess.
Well, CBS aerial photography said it was about 96,000 people as opposed to 500,000 claimed, and we all know how big Obama’s thingy was…so that probably had something to do with it, number of popcorn bags and all.
Just How Large Was the Attendance At Beck’s ‘Restoring Honor’ Rally?
Posted by Mike Opelka Aug 30th 2010 at 5:58 am in Featured Story, Politics | Comments (156)
In an era when satellite imagery allows one to count cars from space, and in a country fascinated with numbers (weekly box office take, home runs, calorie counting, etc) the MSM is having a difficult time with the math on Glenn Beck’s Restoring Honor rally held on the Mall in Washington yesterday. By all reasonable estimates, nearly half a million people were in attendance, and yet, confusion (or perhaps subterfuge) rules the day.
http://bigjournalism.com/mopelka/2010/08/30/just-how-large-was-the-attendance-at-becks-restoring-honor-rally/
There is a picture, you can count them if you like.
It takes roughly 200,000 to reach the Washington Monument on the concrete. The Grass area holds 350,000 more. Both are full as you can see.
To their credit, ABC News did state “hundreds of thousands of people from around the country converged on a hot summer day.”
a firm hired by CBS News to estimate the crowd put attendees at between 78,000 and 96,000. The firm, AirPhotosLive.com, had three estimators go over high-resolution aerial photos of the event, and then combined the three estimates. (One of the estimators talks about the experience here.) ~ Christian Science Monitor
Guess we’ll never really know.
CBS News/ Airphoto Live.com …….87,000 (error +/- 9,000)
ASU Professor Steven Doig………..80,000
Associated Press……………………….tens of thousands
NBC Nightly News ……………………………..tens of thousands (perhaps hundreds of thousands)
ABC News……………………………….hundreds of thousands
New York Post…………………………300,000
Washington Examiner……………..six figures
NBC News……………………………300,000 says unnamed source
MSNBC……………………………..tens of thousands
Glenn Beck…………………………….up to 650,000
Michele Bachmann……………………One Million to 1.6 Million.
I say we take Bachmann’s numbers as fact, cuz Gawd knows she’s a honest person who would never say anything to make ‘the cause’ look good. Actually, same logic would apply to Glenn Beck. haha. The average would be about 150,000, that’s pretty good crowd, considering he used Fox News as his advertising vehicle for an entire month before the event.
And witnesses say they were selling Don’t Tread on Me and Dump Obama flags outside the non-political event, and unfortunately, most teaparty sites had to tell their ‘followers’ not to bring political, anti-obama or racist signs to this event.
Gotta wonder…why would you need to tell a group of Patriotic, Christians Americans not to bring racist signs to a rally? Is there a chance they would have brought them if you hadn’t said anything? Just something to think about. Curious to the other 98% of us.
You have a real problem with truth. Everything you quote you add something to or mis quote. “not to bring racist signs” of course you added the word “racist”. The request was to “leave your signs at home”. It is not possible to have a conversation with someone so off the scale prejudiced.
I agree, I’m not sure why you keep trying.
Cheers.
Fun stuff:
“what was absent from the coverage …of 8/28? That they were racist? …and then showing racism, you know, racist signs.” ~ Glenn Beck ( http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201009150013 )
So if the only thing that was ‘absent’ from the coverage of the Beck rally (besides facts, as he likes to say) was the racist accusations based on racist signs, and he asked beforehand, ‘please leave you signs at home’, one would think, logically, that what he hoped to acheive was that this gathering was not seen racist, otherwise, why would he be so worried about the signs being brought? What happened to Freedom of Speech?
Of course, I guess you can say that he wanted this to be seen as a ‘god only’ event, not to be political or full of hate, and having it on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on the anniversary of MLK’s speech was ‘an unfortunate coincidence’ (as he puts it). Well, I know I feel better.
I’ve been to MANY gatherings, peace marches, anti-war marches, pro-healthcare marches, pro-Obama marches, etc…and not once was anyone told to Leave Your Signs At Home so the ‘other side’ won’t perceive you as a racist. That is because those of us who aren’t racists, or part of the ‘tea party’ or scream ‘Muslim’, Kenyan Witch Doctor, Terrorist, question Obama’s birthplace, question his religion or hold up sign that have pictures of monkeys, use the ‘N’ word or use the word ‘slave’….never put the fear of ‘possible racist signs’ in those who organized our rallies. We weren’t worried about ‘being perceived as racist’ because we are usually the side that is standing up for the rights of the blacks, the minorities, the gays and the women. Of course, there are many good conservatives that also stand up for the rights of the individual, the gay couple, the underpriveleged….but I’m willing to bet those people don’t attend rallies like this (but I’m sure you’ll say they do, because without facts, it’s just opinion).
And of course, you will probably want to debate whether the signs of the teaparty in the past were racist or just ‘misunderstood’ by the other 98% of us. Or you will claim those people were ‘liberal plants’ as I’ve heard a million times. Guess we’ll never really know, but we all know one thing, racism is racism, hate is hate and telling his followers to ‘not appear crazy’ by leaving their signs home and dressing ‘normal’, that says volumes.
Here are some examples of signs Beck hoped not to see during other tea party/Faux rallies. Signs ‘misunderstood’ by the rest of us:
http://chattahbox.com/images/2010/01/teaparty_robertson_spelling_racist_problem.jpg
http://viewsacrossthepond.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/tea-party-racist-signs-04-back-to-kenya2.jpg
http://www.darkpolitricks.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-o-matic/cache/6e91e_tea-party-racist-signs-07-white-slavery.jpg
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_svHMgvFhF90/TEEO2oneFYI/AAAAAAAAAYk/iYaEDeN9SxU/s1600/teapartysign1sm.jpg
http://www.blueridgemuse.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/teapartyracism5.jpg
http://hillbillyprogressive.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/tea-party-racist-signs-01.jpg
http://img.wonkette.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/racist_tea_party.jpg
http://urchinmovement.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/racist-tea-party-sign-1.jpg
http://images.mylot.com/userImages/images/postphotos/2372312.jpg
This one isn’t racist, just in very bad taste:
http://action.naacp.org/page/-/TeaParty/jews.jpg
The event was a spiritual event. The “no signs” was to keep it from being a political event. He wanted to be clear it was not a Tea Party event, although he knew a lot of Tea Party’er would be there. It was still analyzed as political by the pundits but if you saw even the excerpts of it you would see it wasn’t. You might accuse Beck of “preaching without a license” or being a “religious nut” or “evangelist” but his message was faith, hope and charity and prayer and fasting for our country. He didn’t preach of conversion but of renewal or restoration for those who already had faith of one type or another. He had 260 pastors, clerics, rabis and priests from many denominations on stage holding hands and committing to pray for the country and the president. No brand of religion or political agenda was mentioned. He had MLK’s niece as a guest speaker speaking of the dream of her uncle who was also a pastor. They spoke of 3 great spiritual awakenings, Ghandi, Jesus, and MLK. They believe we are on the verge of a fourth. Dr. Dobson committed to a 40 day prayer and fasting campaign for our country, along with 259 other pastors and is the topic of his radio spots every day. To say it was a political event would be incorrect. To say it was religious would be accurate. To say it was disingenious would be an opinion. You might hate it or be critical of it but that should be based on what it actually was, not what people thought it would be. At least that is what I think would be fair.
To say it was a ‘religious only’ event by a group of people (palin, beck) who spend EVERY DAY of their lives demonizing the current administration, is simplistic and ignorant at best. I suppose the same could be said when Obama tried (TWICE) to tell kids to stay in school, and the SAME PEOPLE were calling it socialist indoctrination of our children in the way of Chairman Mao. So they can be ‘spiritual’ suddenly on one day and we should all ‘respect’ that, but Obama tries to ask our kids to be more responsible and THOSE SAME PEOPLE see it as an ‘agenda’ that needs to be avoided? Haha. Nice try. I want what your drinking.
‘Don’t dress crazy’ is an odd thing to ask those who ‘follow a spiritual path’. Considering Ghandi wore a sheet and jesus wore a robe, seems the last thing they should be asking their followers is to worry how they look to others. And when you mobilze a group of people who would normally carry signs and wear teabags on their heads, and ask them NOT to do such things, you have to wonder…was this an entirely different group of people? Hard to tell, since they were all disguised as ‘normal people’. Again, an interesting thing most of us will consider, apparently not all of us, I’m sure in ‘some peoples heads’ they were just good old, patriotic, god-loving Americans who happened to heed the call of a man that has only mentioned God probably one time for every 100 times he’s said the word ‘socialist agenda’, but again, I could be wrong, I’m sure, deep deep deep deep deep deep down, Beck is a really decent human being that is more concerned for bring peace and love to this world rather than hate and divisiveness (yup, I just laughed when i typed that).
SO yes, I think it was COMPLETELY DISENGENIOUS. Ever hear of the word HypoChristian? Look it up. That is what people like Beck and Palin are, they are no more ‘real christians’ than I am a car for walking into my garage. The KKK calls themselves a Christian organization, Nazi’s considered themselves ‘doing the work of god’…and am I comparing beck to nazis or the kkk, no, what I’m saying is it is the ACTS that most of us like to use as a basis for our FACTS, not what they decide to tell us from one day to the next. Guess you are just more open minded then the rest of us.
Oh, and yes, again, this is ‘opinion’, being an ‘opinion’ blogger I do stuff like offer emotions, sometimes anger, sometimes sarcasm, somtimes jest. It comes with not being robotic in nature.
Thanks for responding and trying to educate….yet again.
Cheers.
No problem. I just give you information. You get to choose what to do with it. You are correct too, in that, when a person is known for one thing they can not do anything outside that without it being evaluated through that prism. The president could not even roll a bowling ball without pundits discussing the effect on his political career.
I find it odd that you would compare the yammerings concerning bowling ability with a man’s ability to govern, to a person who has spent every single day of his career spewing hate, fears and lies (then one days decides to talk about the peace and beauty of a world with God) as ‘viable’ information on any level? Really? Interesting. And you feel good about that comparison? I find that even odder. Logic? Not judgemental? LOL.
It’s the same kind of ‘blind eye’ that was offered when Bush used his ‘I prayed to god’ then announced a war based on lies that has killed thousands of Americans and up to a million innocent Iraq civilians. I suppose, whatever helps you sleep at night. The rest of us call that (and what Beck is doing) as blasphemy (amongst many other words). Again, look up HypoChristian, it will speed up these conversations.
Cheers.
I don’t understand your post but it seems I can’t even agree with you in peace.
I guess it’s like the Glenn Beck rally for ‘god’, when ‘agreeing’ comes out of the blue after days and days of being ‘the guy who disagrees with everything’…. it is looked at with skepticism.
Ever read The Boy Who Cried Wolf? Sorta like that.
Peace
Perhaps but I just meant that you were correct. When a person is political that is how they should expect to be viewed and there are no exceptions. Obama was criticized for going to the wrong place on vacation and not staying in the gulf long enough when he was there and being too good at basketball and not good enough at bowling. The guy can’t do anything right according to his critics. I try to look for good ideas from all sources. I don’t have a dog in the race. I like some of Obama’s ideas, some of Clinton’s, some of Beck’s, some of … and a whole lot of Thomas Jefferson’s. He is a good example too, very flawed but still very bright, Lincoln as well. I agree with you more than you suppose. I liked the paragraph in your most recent post about us being viewed as the “little people” and bureaucrats being elitist and self serving. After having so much power for so long they start to believe they are better than those who put them there. Sad but true. Term Limits for them all.
You are right on Vineeya! Beck and Palin are no more “real christians” than you are a car for walking into your garage. Both Palin and Beck are in the entertainment game – unfortunately, hate mongering is a big part of that game.
http://politics-and-world-5678.blogspot.com/2010/10/one-nation-rally-attendance-bigger-than.html
Crowd estimate pictures of 8/28 Beck Rally and 10/2 One World. Picture on the bottom of One World claims crowd size of 175,000. A picture is worth 1000 words.
Two things are interesting about that link. The comments below are correct, the person who shows these photos as ‘facts’ somehow decided not to post the times the pictures were taken. Those at the rally say those spots which appear ‘empty’ were actually filled at the time of the rally, so one must wonder, did they take the picture before the rally started?
The reason one must wonder is because during the Tea Party rally in DC, Faux News showed film from a DIFFERENT RALLY to make it look like more people were in attendance…but observers were smart enough to notice the leaves in the trees had suddenly disappeared during the Faux News film. So, now everything supporters of people like Beck must always be looked at with skepticism, sorry, but you all brought it on yourself. Facts are facts, unsubstantiated photos are just that.
Second interesting thing we’ve all noticed….the Beck rally was a sea of white faces with the occassional minority popping up here and there like black dots on a white sheet. The One Nation rally was a wonderful mix of every race, color and age….with signs representing womens groups, gay groups, civil rights groups, christians, athiests, etc…..so I suppose we can say that the One Nation rally was a good picture of what America ACTUALLY looks like, the Beck rally was a good picture of what ‘those people’ WISH America still looked like.
Interesting indeed.
You love facts. Let’s see what time those photos were taken…otherwise, it’s just believing in what someone else tells us…and we all know that’s not ‘practical’. =) A picture IS worth a 1000 words, but not if those words are not true…then it’s not worth much of anything.
Of course, we are overlooking the obvious. It really isn’t the size of the crowd, but what was said and accomplished at those rallies that is really the most important thing. Was it about moving this country forward, or trying to ‘take it BACK’…? Was it about moving this country ‘toward God’, or in a direction that ALL Americans can relate to, even those who don’t believe in a God? Was it filled with people who felt they ‘needed to restore the Honor’ of this country….or people who felt that standing against corporate greed, fake wars and letting people die due to lack of healthcare was actually a great way to ‘restore honor’ in their once great country?
Was the rally to strike fear in those followers about what ‘could happen’ if we don’t make a change, or about ‘what could be accomplished’ if we don’t give in to fear?
I suppose it’s how you look at things.
Is it the SIZE that matters, or what you do with it? Guess the age old question still exists in this day and age.
There are many photos posted of both events. All of them show the same results. If you can find a photo of either event from any credible source which shows something different I would love to see it. I am sure all the news agencies took pictures of both. I can’t find any photos of smaller attendance for Beck or larger for One World.
There are many things which could be discussed but if a simple objective observation of the number of people in attendance can’t be ascertained there is no place to start. This isn’t the venue for a drawn out political discussion between us and no one is interested in that anyway. You may now have the last word.
Sorry, One Nation not One World.
Apology accepted <—-(last word)