Labeling

Okay. Something has been bothering me politically lately. I was just watching TV and flipped to ‘Hardball’ with Chris Matthews on MSNBC. Florida Republican Congressman Allen West has recently stated that he thought 78 to 81 members of the Democratic Party in Congress were “card-carrying communists”. Liberals and Democrats like Chris Matthews are upset. West has done the typical Republican reaction of blaming the liberal media and how he is the victim for speaking his mind. You know, typical GOP BS.

I would like to say, that yes, his statements are highly unfair and reflect the bitter partisan tone in this country. The GOP and Tea Party have thrown around the terms “Communists” and “Socialists” so frequently that they have lost all meaning. They are big fancy words for “they hate America and your freedoms”. Anyone who knows anything about those ideologies knows that the Democrats and President Obama are not that. They like the free market but want to see it regulated. They think the government can be a positive force in society and should protect people. It is unfortunate that calling Democrats and liberals “Communists” and “Socialists” has become so normal that this isn’t really big news (outside of a handful of people and organizations). There is so much vitriolic poison in politics today it is frustrating.

To be a partisan Democrat for a moment, Rep. West really shouldn’t complain about how far the Democrats are leaning from the center since the GOP has been moving farther to the right than the Dems have been moving to the left… Oh, and the Dems might (in your view) be taking away economic freedoms, but the GOP seems intent to take away personal freedoms. Voter ID laws, ultra-sound laws, union-busting. That does reek of “personal freedom”, doesn’t it?

But what is really bothering me is this view that no one is or has ever called Republicans “Fascist”. On ‘Hardball’, they were talking about how much trouble people would get into if someone called a Republican a “fascist” and this article says that referring to them as such is “something only the most brain-dead Occupy protester would attempt.”

Really??? Do these people not remember 2003 to 2008? How many times have George Bush or Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld been called a fascist? Hell, even John McCain is being called a fascist, and I thought he was a moderate! Google “bush hitler mustache” and see how many pictures you get.

I’m really disgusted by this selective amnesia liberals seem to have right now. Yes, they threw around stupid terms to describe the opposite ideology too and I don’t think anyone ever made a big deal about it during the Bush presidency (besides Fox News, of course).

I guess I understand that because it is a Congressman using the label instead of some idiot like Limbaugh or Coulter, it’s a bigger deal. I don’t think a Democratic member of Congress ever stated that a Republican or “a reagan” (note: a group of Republicans is called “a reagan”) was a fascist. So, this is a bigger deal. But c’mon, liberals. Don’t act like no one has ever mislabeled a Republican for cheap political purposes.