This article is based on three articles--a Daily Caller article from yesterday, and two Ed Morrissey articles from Hot Air posted yesterday, HotAir, and Hot Air.
The Daily Caller article dealt with the trash left behind by the crowd. If you follow the link to their article, you will see one picture--there are other pictures of the mess all over the internet. Just as a contrast, there was no litter left after the Glenn Beck rally. My conclusion--the people who attended the Glenn Beck rally obviously had better manners and more concern for the earth than the crowd at the One Nation Working Together Rally. If you are going to talk to me about carbon footprints and pollution, you best learn to pick up after yourself first. The conservatives are always being accused of not caring about the environment, yet they cleaned up the area and left it in the condition they found it. That in itself should be an object lesson for anyone who is willing to pay attention.
Ed Morrissey reported in the first article in Hot Air:
"Nick Gillespie and the Reason TV crew spent some time at the One Nation rally, talking to the organizers and the speakers, and provide some enlightening moments. For instance, ALF-CIO chief Richard Trumka says that the auto bailout was a great idea, but refused to answer a similar question about AIG. Julian Bond says he hasn't seen enough government yet. Bond does say, however, that the US is a better place since 1968, while Dick Gregory claims it's actually gotten worse. There seems to be a new reluctance to play the race card on the Left, but it doesn't take Nick long to get Ed Schultz to at least give him a peek at it. Nick also stumps Mitch Kapor on how government can create jobs, which seems rather humorous since the proclaimed purpose of this rally was to highlight job creation rather than partisan politics."
In the second Hot Air article, Ed Morrissey comments on the elusive goal of unity:
"We have seen systems that created unity, of a sort, over the past century. They did so by stamping out dissent. The 10:10 Global video provides an instructional look into how a demand for unity and consensus would work. Unity on policy can be achieved in small groups, but once one gets beyond a few dozen people where the like-minded can keep out those with heterodox views, one cannot demand unity and freedom at the same time. As F. A. Hayek repeatedly pointed out in his seminal Road to Serfdom about central planning, a popular demand for unity puts people in charge who are most likely to impose it, because it has to be imposed in order to exist. At the very least, this means that groupthink rather than individual liberty prevails, and usually requires the suppression of dissent, the punishment of the heterodox, and the end of freedom in any meaningful sense."
Unity is not a goal--it is the occasional by-product of good public policy.
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