Righteous Lie
- Zach Danesh
- Jan 8, 2017
- 3 min read
I recently read "Righteous Indignation" by Andrew Breitbart. I knew of him. I knew of the Tea Party. I knew only vaguely of the right. I was an art school student in 2004. All of us, students, were all leftists. We all loved Obama. We all fell in line with liberal thought.
I went to a school in Miami. The academics weren't difficult. We all received our associates degree through Miami Dade Community college. We didn't hear things like heteronormative, Queer Theory, gender norms, and dialectic materialism. We were a mixed bunch of students. We had every color, creed, sex, and sexual orientation. We all got along.
I didn't read nearly as much as I read today. I only looked to New York Times as my news source. Most of the main news channels I watched were also liberal. NBC, CBS, and MSNBC were all left. This was before my understanding that all media is biased in nature. Some media sources will carve out a narrative they choose. I recently read a New York Times Article about Esteban Santiago, and his murder spree at Fort Lauderdale Airport. I used to fly into this airport when going back to art school. The Times wrote at the heading of a section, "An Unknown Motive". In fact, we do know the motive. I'm sure more information will be rolling in, but you'll have to read a different paper to get the answers.
The sentiment among us at art school was that these Republicans were rednecks. We never met any out Republicans, but assumed that if we had we would hate them to their gun toting core. It was a strange time to be a young person. We were only exposed to liberal thought. If we heard the Tea Party were White Nationalists we didn't look into it. We just accepted it. It was fact, and nobody seemed to care to look it up.
I know Sarah Palin was not a great ambassador for this particular movement. It doesn't mean the whole party needed to be painted with the same brush.
Andrew Breitbart writes in his book, "Righteous Indignation" that, "...I was more than simply a defender of the Tea Party- I was a true believer. These were my people. I walked through the crowd and I spoke to many of the speakers, to a group of veterans congregated together and enthusiastically cheering, to housewives, to African-Americans, to Hispanics- all sorts of people had finally awakened."
Breitbart even dedicates, in part, the book to Clarence Thomas (an African-American Supreme Court Justice). To us, young people, The Tea Party represented white nationalism. It couldn't be farther away from it.
We are bombarded with misinformation, biases, and a lack of the whole story. It is easy to render someone a hate monger before they have a chance to speak. "Ad Hominem" attacks are commonly employed by the left to attack anyone less left (even if they still consider themselves left of center). Saul Alinsky even taught it as a strategy to win the political battle.
We need to wake up, and smell the coffee. Don't take someone's word about someone or some group. Hear what they have to say. See what they do. Make up your own mind.
America, and the West are beautiful. Our first amendment rights are not universal. No person, place, thing is perfect. American comes pretty darn close. Most people don't get to express themselves openly around the world.
I'm an artist, and can't think of a better place to be me. I have tremendous freedom in making, posting, and getting my work out into the world. I won't get fined for being politically incorrect. If you live in Canada then you can be fined. Just ask Mike Ward, a comedian. He was fined for making an "offensive" joke. If you are an artist then you're like me. You have been exposed to leftist thought more than you even realize. Please do yourself a favor, and read Breitbart's book. It will pull you back from the deep end.