William Barber and the North Carolina NAACP have decided to camp themselves in the General Assembly and engage in obnoxiousness. (they call it “civil disobedience” but they’re really just being obnoxious).
More than four dozen people were arrested Monday evening in a protest by the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP – its third consecutive week of protests and arrests – outside the Senate chambers of the North Carolina General Assembly.
In what state NAACP President Rev. William Barber II is calling “Moral Mondays,” an estimated 175 people showed up at the state Legislature speaking out against what the civil rights group and other activists say is a Republican-backed regressive agenda on social programs, voting rights, education and tax policy – actions that disproportionately hurt the poor and minorities.
It has long been transparently obvious that the NAACP was nothing more than a branch of the Democrat Party but Barber takes it to a whole new and disgusting level. First, it was his ridiculous and insane protests against the Wake County School Board’s attempt to inject a little bit of sanity into the school assignment system (and avoid a blatant violation of the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the 14th Amendment) and now it’s his protests against Republicans what exactly? Republicans being popularly elected and enacting the agenda that they campaigned on? The answer is simply that William Barber is a Democrat and he cannot abide that his cronies are not running the show in Raleigh.
Oh wait, Barber explains what he is protesting…
“The leadership of the North Carolina General Assembly and the governor ran on a platform of jobs and economic growth but are now governing directly against those goals,” Barber said Monday. “Rich right-wing entities and people fund and feed the ultra-conservative social issues agenda on one hand while they use a bait-and-switch maneuver to pass economic and tax policies that will transfer more wealth to them and hurt the same poor and working-class people they need to get elected. This must be exposed as not only morally indefensible but constitutionally inconsistent and economically insane.”
Let us examine Barber’s claims.
Claim 1a) The Republicans ran on a platform of jobs and economic growth. This is pretty much true.
Claim 1b) The Republicans are governing against those goals. This is completely untrue. The Republicans have been very aggressive in trying to mount reforms to hold the line on taxes, improve the efficiency of government, and lighten burdens the government places on everyday citizens. Mr. Barber is free to disagree that the Republican’s agenda will accomplish their goals, however, it is untrue to say that they are governing against their goals. They have instituted a program that in their sincere beliefs will reach those goals.
Claim 2) Rich entities are manipulating the government to get richer. This is a load of socialist bovine excrement. Not going along with two bit socialist schemes to “spread the wealth” is not trying to steal from the poor and give to the rich.
Claim 3) The GOP’s agenda is “morally indefensible, constitutionally inconsistent, and economically insane”.
3a) Morally indefensible. Not at all. It is a moral imperative. The United States was founded on the libertarian ideals that people should be secure in their life, liberty, and property (see the writings of John Locke). Barber’s preferred (blatantly communist) government of taking from some to give to others violates people’s rights to be secure in their possessions at a minimum. It is Barber whose position is morally indefensible.
3b) Constitutionally inconsistent. Hardly. In fact, both the US Constitution and the North Carolina Constitution recognize the rights of the people to be free of government tyranny. The North Carolina Constitution even goes so far as to recognize:
We hold it to be self-evident that all persons are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, the enjoyment of the fruits of their own labor, and the pursuit of happiness.
Did you catch the part about the fruits of their own labor? The agenda that Barber so despises respects the rights of the people to enjoy the fruits of their own labor. Were Barber the Communist to have his way, the fruits of our labor would be seized and given to those who did not earn them.
3c) Economically insane. You know what is economically insane? Communism. How about the way that this state was run under successive Democrat administrations (Easley and Perdue, I’m looking specifically at you. Although Jim Hunt isn’t innocent either.) What is economically insane is having the highest gas taxes in the region but not being able to pave a road. What is economically insane is having a government that collects money to provide legitimate government services and instead siphons that money away for special interests. But then again, at its core, what Barber and his lot are really upset about is that they no longer have the power to direct when and where that siphoning occurs and where that money is spent.
I hope that the Press can grow a spine and start calling people on this stuff. This isn’t about the poor, and it certainly isn’t some right wing scheme to oppress anybody. This is about a Democrat special interest group being butthurt that they can’t pull strings to get what they want in the state government anymore and they’re reacting poorly.