William A. Jacobson: Tea Partiers represent the sum of Liberals’ fears
One day, we are totalitarian control freaks who want to post police at every ice cream shop to check for papers.
The next day, we are pseudo-anarchists who want no government at all.
Today, apparently, we are anarchists in their scary world (emphasis mine)
This passage, from an article by Mark Lilla, “The Tea Party Jacobins,” in the New York Review of Books, is quite the favorite nowadays among those who not long ago were calling Tea Partiers totalitarians and Nazis.
Which extreme are we supposed to be, or are we everything to them, the sum of all their fears?
The argument by extreme reflects left-wing epistemic closure, an inability to engage in meaningful discussion of the failures of big government, resulting in a series of strawman arguments and extensive hyperbole meant to marginalize those who disagree.
We have seen this time and again. It seems to be all they know.
I really want to take these people seriously, but it is hard. But then again, what do I know, I am the mob.
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