Mainstream: We must seize the initiative

After years of talking about transparency, liberals have finally achieved it. Their cynical, amoral and ruthless pursuit of political power is exposed for all to see in their exploitation of the Arizona shootings.

The pattern could not be clearer for anyone willing to see it. Reports of the suspect's bizarre behavior, college instructors and classmates concerned for their safety, nonsensical postings on the Internet: All the trouble signs were there, and mainstream Americans drew the obvious conclusion. We feel sadness for the victims and revulsion at the act itself.

But liberals have gone straight off the deep end. Those who refer to Islamic terror attacks as "man-caused disasters" unrelated to any religious or political point of view say the Arizona shootings were the result of the tea party's opposition to the left's political agenda.

Liberals have lined up to blame the tea party, talk radio, Fox News, Sarah Palin and essentially everyone who has ever disagreed with them. They blamed everyone, that is, except the person who is actually charged with the act.

There are two possible explanations for the left's reaction.

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One is that these liberals are stupid at best and deluded at worst. The only acquaintance to mention the suspect's political leanings described him as liberal and leftist. Furthermore, the suspect listed "The Communist Manifesto" and "Mein Kampf" as favorite reading.

Marx and Hitler advocated big government, control of any speech they did not like, and gun control. Those ideas are repugnant to the tea party, but they are apple pie for liberals. So, if the suspect has any discernible political beliefs at all, he seems to have far more in common with the left than with the mainstream.

Finally, if liberals believe the shootings were caused by political actions, maybe they should look in the mirror. Remember the video of the New Black Panther party members with nightsticks outside the polling place in 2008? What message did Team Obama send to angry discontents when they dropped the subsequent voter-intimidation charges? And how about Obama's use of rhetoric such as "get in their face" and "punish your enemies" as setting a dangerous tone?

People with even rudimentary intelligence would have to consider those factors. But, through the warped lens of the left, mainstream Americans who stopped mowing their lawns long enough to participate in the political process somehow contributed to the shootings in Arizona.

Which leads us to the second and more likely explanation for the left's reaction: Liberals do not believe for a minute that the tea party or talk radio had any influence on the shootings, and they do not care.

Liberals are not looking for causes. They are looking for power.

The red herring about the danger of the tea party is a classic liberal tactic, controlling the political narrative to keep the mainstream on the defensive. Reason and facts do not matter to the left. Only power and their socialist agenda matter to the left, and controlling the narrative is a prerequisite for political power.

Socialized medicine, gun control, carbon controls, bailouts and crotch massages instead of profiling terrorists all came out of the left's agenda. They use their control of the news media to define the terms of debate, and the mainstream reacts to those terms. The mainstream resists, but always from a defensive position.

And, since the shooting, the question liberals posed for the nation has been whether the tea party did or did not contribute to the shootings. The implication is that those dangerous taxpayers should tone it down, just shut up and pay the bills.

Censorship, gun control and harassment of opposition: We know where they are going with this.

Mainstream America has surrendered control of the narrative for too long. We need to realize that disputing the left's bizarre accusations with facts and evidence may be a rational response, but facts and reasoning are useless with the left. They know they are lying.

Furthermore, by trying to prove ourselves innocent of their accusations, we play into their hands by accepting their accusations as even worthy of rebuttal.

It is time for the mainstream to change the narrative and seize the initiative. The question to be discussed is, "What kind of people would exploit such a violent act in order to slander, intimidate and silence mainstream taxpayers who are concerned about the growing arrogance and irresponsibility of the government we fund?"

Maybe Congress should hold hearings on the propaganda and hate speech coming out of the liberal media. Maybe we need to consider a neutrality doctrine for network news and let the left defend their freedom of speech for a change.

We gave the Republicans the power to do so in 2010. They should use it while they still can.

Tim Daughtry is a conservative writer, speaker and political consultant with Concord Bridge Consulting in Greensboro, N.C.