Why do people like Rev. Jeremiah Wright travel across America to exhort audiences to denigrate Tea Party Americans as racist? Because failing to personally discredit your fellow man with false witness means people might actually listen to his reasoned policies and thus disagree with yours.
Recently in Wilmington, Delaware, the Reverend called the Tea Party a “lynch mob” wanting to get “that black man out of their White House.” Sadly, many in the audience reportedly cheered at this divisive slander.
This, despite the fact that Tea Parties across America supported 38 black Republican candidates for Congress in 2010, and 9 won House primaries in 2012. There are at least a dozen Tea Party organizations in America with African-American leadership, including the Conservative Campaign Committee, whose “About” page shows a number of people working for the Chairman, Lloyd Marcus, who don’t exactly look like him.
It must be difficult for those Tea Party “racists” to be forced by some unseen power to choose such a boss. Perhaps they have more in common than outward differences.
Fortunately, some conservative considerations are slipping into the American consciousness despite these disparages, such as the failure of gun buybacks.
Some Democrats still promote gun buybacks with taxpayer dollars as “doing something” about violence, even though studies by universities, newspapers and police departments prove gun buybacks do not reduce any number of crimes or suicides involving guns.
Researchers have found that targeted police patrols and intervention with known criminals is effective, not gun buybacks. Watch and read the news over the near future and I believe you’ll start seeing more positive results with police departments targeting specific neighborhoods based on applying 911 calls research to deploy teams to troubled areas in advance of the next crime to prevent crime.
Unfortunately, those tactics aren’t as photogenic as a politician standing next to a pile of old, beat-up guns. That makes for great campaign literature as long as the recipient isn’t aware of the real truth that the only person who benefits from this propaganda is the politician.
The buybacks are actually dangerous because they give uninformed people the false impression that streets are safer after the buybacks.
Another conservative idea that must be crushed using the politics of personal destruction is that increases in the federal mandated minimum wage actually cause more unemployment, especially among black teenagers.
Research based on the federal U.S. Census and nonpartisan federal Bureau of Labor Statistics shows an increase in minimum wage unemployment every time the federal government mandates an increase. .
For those who do earn the minimum wage, about half are ages 25 or younger.
Teens are the big majority of minimum wage earners.
Inner city teens have the toughest time finding part-time work.
In 2009, Democrats raised the minimum wage from $6.55 to $7.15. Teen unemployment during this recession went from 20 percent in 2008 to 27.6 percent the year the minimum wage was increased.
Black teen unemployment climbed to 49 percent. Black teen male unemployment exploded to a staggering 52.2 percent from an already high 30 percent in late 2008, a year into the recession.
It would be nice if raising the minimum wage helped minimum wage earners, but it doesn’t.
Why would anyone in Congress want to cause this much pain to city teens? Why put these kids onto the streets? Because “fighting” for an increase in the minimum wage gives the “appearance” of caring.
These facts are damaging to liberal policies, so conservatives must be stopped. Senator Tim Scott, South Carolina’s first black senator since Reconstruction, is such a target.
North Carolina NAACP Chapter President Reverend William Barber celebrated Martin Luther King Day by calling fiscally conservative and Tea Party American Tim Scott a puppet, saying, “A ventriloquist can always find a good dummy.” This insult presumes that any black man who disagrees with the liberal leaders can’t think for himself.
Senator Scott schooled his haters with a thoughtful statement: “I will honor the memory of Dr. King by being proactive in holding the door for others and serving my fellow man. And Rev. Barber will remind me and others of what not to do.”
We could all learn from Senator Scott’s tempered response.
Rick Jensen is Delaware’s Award-Winning Conservative Talk Show Host on 1150AM WDEL and 93.7FM HD3, Streaming live on WDEL.com from 1pm - 4pm EST. Contact Rick at rick@wdel.com, or follow him on Twitter @Jensen1150WDEL.