Striking castrated conservatives wherever I find them...

David Frum, one the most infamous castrated conservatives published another article attacking the Tea Party movement. The article's title speaks for itself - "Why conservatives should beware of the tea party". Of course, Andrew Murphy, the author of this dribble, does not really explain why the conservatives should abandon the tea party movement - indeed the movement is far more conservative-libertarian than the republican party, and is quite effective in energizing the conservative base and educating the American population. The entire article is devoted to the topic of why Murphy himself dislikes the tea party movement (you guessed it - the movement supports smaller spending and smaller taxes, and this cannot please the big-government "conservative" Murphy).

But even the arguments that Murphy makes are all wrong. One of his main complaints is that the Tea Party movement is simultaneously populist and ideological. Populism requires ideological flexibility as well as a desire to follow the fickle emotions of the masses. But what Murphy is describing for the Tea Party sounds more like a solid libertarian-conservative ideology, which is not flexible, not compromising, and not following the whims of the moment. More generally, Murphy takes a couple of quotes by Russel Kirk and attempts to link the Tea Party movement to a few words that he borrowed from those quotes.

Murphy's complaints about the factual errors and ignorance of the Tea Party movement are quite silly. He starts by saying that he intends to demonstrate the civil courage and criticize the Tea Party movement - a statement of a DC insider, the man whose articles are published by the mainstream media specifically because he hates the Tea Party movement. Moreover, it is same man who in 2008 was amazed at the depth and intelligence of Barack Obama - including but not limited to how our future president criticized the Jeremiah Wright's anti-American diatribes. It's a bit strange to hear the pronouncements of personal courage from a man who shows an unbelievable ability to deliver exactly what the ruling elites want and when they want it.

The facts that Murphy states about the movement are unbelievably stupid. For example he claims that pictures of Obama as a witch doctor during the Tea Party movement proved to him that the movement is filled with paranoia. According to dictionary,

Paranoia is a thought process heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs concerning a perceived threat towards oneself.

On what planet mocking our dumb president with funny picture equals paranoia is never explained. I believe that poor Murphy needed some way to link the Tea Party movement to the word he recently located in the dictionary (paranoia), but he was short on time.

Murphy keeps trying to link the Tea Party movement with unfettered and unlimited democracy - while the movement itself proclaims a simple and reasonable demand - to be left alone by the government. The Tea Party movement does not demand more power over the government - they demand that the government loses its power. Surely the Founding Fathers would not miss that Murphy gives aid and comfort to the oppressive government, while decrying the people who believe in small limited government. In other words, the Tea Party movement does exactly opposite of what Murphy accuses it off - but he is too stupid to realize this.

Murphy's attempts to analyze the Tea Party tax and spend policies are equally devoid of any reason. Read this sentence and notice Murphy's logical fallacy:

When asked what a median American family pays in taxes (with a $50,000 income), those same Tea Partiers said on average it was $12,710 when it fact, the typical $50,000 family in America pays $7,500 in federal taxes.

In fact, the Tea Party activists are surely correct in their assessment. Note that while the Tea Party activists talk about all of government taxes, Murphy limits his statistics to federal taxes. Indeed, if all taxes (federal, state and local) are taken into account, the $12,710 number for the media family is a much more accurate number than $7,500 quoted by Murphy. Based on this one error we can easily conclude that when it comes to knowledge of government affairs, an average Tea Party activist is much more knowledgeable than Murphy - assuming that Murphy is simply ignorant, and not deliberately obfuscating.

Murphy's whining about Obama's tax cuts are equally disturbing. After all, Obama and his liberal henchmen in Congress are on track to dramatically raise taxes - and this includes the end to Bush's income tax cuts as well as the introduction of Obamacare taxes and proposed massive federal VAT. All in all, Tea Party movement is surely much in tune with the times and the nature of Obama's regime than Murphy - again, assuming that Murphy is not misinforming the public in order to keep his job.

Murphy's pronouncements on federal budget are completely insane. Let me quote him at length:

And in a recent survey of Tea Party activists, they stated they want government cut down to size and to focus in on “waste” but many of them did not want Social Security or Medicare to have its benefits cut. Currently, sixty-eight percent of the federal budget goes to defense spending and health and social security, everything else the Federal government does from border patrol to the F.B.I. to interest payments on the debt to earmarks and a ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ is in the remaining 32% of the budget.

Lets try to look at the government budget and include federal, state and local. I believe the numbers for 2010 would be most helpful. In this year alone, total government spending (federal, state and local) is estimated as 6.5 trillion dollars.

The total pensions paid were 987 billion dollars, with 721 billion dollars in Social Security. In other words, more than 25% of government pensions go to government workers (267 billion dollars), and this number will most likely rise a a percentage and in absolute value in the near future.

Total government medical expenses are 1,090 billion dollars, and only 547 billion dollars (exactly half) is going to seniors. The rest is mostly aid to the poor (i.e. a cool half a trillion dollars).

Total education spending (federal, state and local) is 1,046 trillion dollars (which is slightly less than Medicare and Social Security combined).

Defense spends only 896 billion dollars.

Total welfare spending (not counting Medicaid, housing, utilities and others) is a cool 751 billion dollars - on par with defense.

Police, prisons and the like is 352 billion dollars - less than half of welfare spending, while transportation is a cool 315 billion dollars.

"Other government spending" costs the taxpayers 585 billion dollars, and include 56 billion dollars on housing development (read "welfare"), 67 billion for electric utilities (read "green energy" and "subsidies for the poor"), 56 billion for agriculture (read subsidies) and many, many other spending items.

Now compare the numbers provided by Hyphenated American and Murphy - who is more fact-based? Once you did that - tell me if Murphy is more or less knowledgeable than a typical Tea Party activist?

The rest of Murphy's article is just silly. He says that "...the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in January 2009 BEFORE Obama came into office were projecting a $1.2 trillion budget deficit.", but he forgets to tell the reader that the actual deficit in 2009 was 1.9 trillion dollars - a rather disturbing increase of 700 billion dollars - even after most banks returned the TARP money. He also claims that 800 billion Obamastimulus cost the budget only 200 billion dollars, but neglects to explain who covered the other 600 billion dollars. Murphy is visibly upset that Bush's Medicare supplement would cost 1.2 trillion dollars in 10 years, but remains cool to Obama's deficits which are at least 10 times this number for same period.

In short - Mr.Murphy - have you no shame? And Dave Frum - what the hell is wrong with you? Do you really not understand that Murphy's article is so full of sh*t, that indeed it should be counted as pure undiluted sh*t?