Start talking, or forfeit the game

I was all set to go out to breakfast this Saturday. I had tickets to an event that I was very excited about. I had friends who were going to be attending and a good friend, Dana Loesch, who was scheduled to speak.


But a few days ago, as I mentioned in my last post, a few Marines made a poor choice in Afghanistan and, as is wont to happen when Chaos Theory is applied, in O'Fallon, IL, we got stupidity instead of liberty.


After the story broke about the Marines, Dana talked about it on her afternoon radio show. She adamantly supported the Marines, saying that in their place she would "drop trou and do it too."


The storm that followed on Twitter and in the media was a conflagration of people screaming outrage at the treatment of terrorists (or perhaps it was the ethical treatment of animals they were calling for?) while calling for Dana's head on a platter. CNN quickly commented that she was allowed her own opinion but she did not speak for them.


Backed by Andrew Breitbart and others, Dana unraveled the hypocrisy of her progressive attackers.


In spite of the blatantly obvious smear campaign, the Illinois Policy Institute tucked tail and ran, dropping Dana like a hot potato. The Independent Women's Forum, which claims to "provide a voice for American women who believe in individual freedom and personal responsibility," was quick to silence Dana's. And Smart Girl Politics had no choice but to sit on the sidelines and watch it all happen.


Folks, this is our problem. "The sh*t hath hitteth the fan...eth."* What the progressives did to Dana this week is what progressives will do to silence the rest of us. They will isolate us. They will attack us. And they will do it because it works. They will do it because the Illinois Policy Institute would rather avoid negative publicity than uncover and stand up for the truth. They will do it because the voice of one person who is drawing fire is not one that the Independent Women's Forum wants to be seen as defending. They will do it because, time after time, when they do it, we pack up our balls and go home. Sure, we talk about the game being unfair. We talk about the rigged deck and about how they've got all the marbles. But when our compatriots are under fire we don't talk at all.


Start talking, or forfeit the game.


P.S. I did end up going to the breakfast. Afterward, I spoke at length with Kristina Rasmussen - Executive Vice President of the Illinois Policy Institute - about the reasons that Dana was asked not to speak. She said that the comments about the Marines were seen to be too inflammatory and that they had feared that the fervor surrounding those remarks would likely derail the purpose of the event. She didn't even seem aware of the massive attacks on Dana executed by MMfA on Twitter and other social media sites.


I should have asked Kristina if, considering the turnout, she felt that the organization had made the right call. Given the number of unclaimed nametags and the number of empty seats, she would have had a difficult time making that case.  


I am personally of the opinion that if there was malicious intent in removing Dana from the program it came from higher up than Kristina, but regardless, the damage was done. Whether or not the action was taken in response to the progressive push to get Dana fired, it looks like it was. Whether or not three independent non-partisan and conservative voices circled their wagons and threw Dana - a fellow conservative - to the wolves, it looks like they did. And whether or not MMfA won this round, it looks like they did. 


*10 Things I Hate About You