Defense wins championships...but offense wins the war

I grew up in Mason City, Iowa, which many of you know was home for a few days this week to the Obama-Hitler-Lenin billboard that wound up drawing nationwide attention, most notably on the Drudge Report. It's a tough, blue-collar town chock-full of men's men. I'm proud to have been raised there...it molded me into who I am today.

But within hours of the billboard going viral, it was covered up, bowed by media pressure. And once more, conservatives yielded our freedom of speech rights to those who continually beat us over the head and shoulders with theirs.

Why we have allowed this template to be executed time and again during my adulthood is a mystery I may never come to fully grasp.

My adversary says something I dislike. I say something they dislike. They claim offense, and get their powerful friends in the media to agree with them and they vilify me to no end. So I retract my statement. Their version of the subject stands. I look foolish and defeated. They win.

What the hell is going on here?

How many times was George Bush compared to Hitler during his eight-year administration? Did House Speaker Nancy Pelosi not compare the Tea Party to Nazis? Did CNN's Anderson Cooper not refer to them as teabaggers? And somehow these same vermin, who we wouldn't allow in our yards, are able to make Republicans and conservatives self-censor when we come up with something they don't like.

Personally, I liked the billboard. The Left has compared us to the SS since the Nixon presidency, so turnabout should be fair play. And there are millions of people in this country who believe that billboard had a point - that this nation is being fundamentally and purposefully altered at its foundations by a smooth-talking agitator who's as close to a dictator as this republic has ever seen. (Twelve more "czars" were unconstitutionally appointed in the time it took to write this paragraph!)

Let's contrast this with the other big political news this week. The NAACP national convention drafted a resolution in Kansas City that condemned the Tea Party as racist. Did you catch that? They flat-out stated Tea Party supporters are bigoted. So on one hand, we have a single billboard in a small Iowa town of 30,000 that draws the ire of the entire nation's Left-leaning media for being...well, it wasn't racist...and five hours to the south we have a powerful political organization comprised of one race, gathered for the sole purpose of furthering that single race's agenda, drafting a resolution labeling another political organization as racist.

The billboard comes down...but THAT stands?!? Hear the NAACP president, Benjamin Todd Jealous: "We have no problem with the Tea Party. We have a problem with the Tea Party tolerating racists in their ranks."

Pot, meet Kettle.

But there was no howling from the Left out of KC. No outrage. Only more critical focus on the Mason City billboard, which made the evening news on the networks.

CBS political analyst John Dickerson on the billboard: "But sometimes it's the community's leaders who go too far. The Iowa Tea Party purchased a billboard in downtown Mason City comparing Barack Obama to Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. The group has since covered it up, saying it was counterproductive."

What's "too far", John? Who gets to decide what "too far" is? Are you the one who decided it was "too far"? (I don't recall this level of disdain when Hollywood made a film about the assassination of George Bush - while he was in office. What if one was made about Obama? How would that go over?)

That's my entire point. Conservatives, never, ever set the ground rules. They always let the Left do it...which, of course, rigs the entire game hopelessly against them and leaves them always starting in the down position, like a turtle on its back. What the Tea Party should have said was something like this:

"Fifty-five percent of this country believes that our current president is a socialist, which is the point the billboard is making. Obama isn't exterminating his enemies...but his policies are exterminating millions of American jobs. The billboard stays."

Then let the Left revile. Let them gnash their teeth and tear at their robes. And leave the billboard up. Don't address it publicly again. Don't defend it because there's no need to. No matter how many times the media baits you, don't address it. Let it stand. You have more supporters than you will ever know.

This great nation of ours will never be conquered by an outside military force. Japanese Naval Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto said after World War II, "You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass." (This is the main reason for the never-ending assault on our Second Amendment right to bear arms, but that's a discussion for another day.)

But this country CAN crumble from within - and that's what the Left is working on furiously this very day, this very moment. The North Iowa Tea Party knew this, and compared our sitting president to two other dictators who successfully turned the trick. Their billboard wasn't racist. It wasn't offensive. And it wasn't "too far." It was pretty accurate.

Every time the Left starts squealing en masse like stuck pigs, we're getting close to the truth.

We must start to set, and play, by our own rules rather than theirs...and keep sticking them. It's going to take courage to win this 2nd civil war, and bowing to the Left like Obama does to every foreign leader isn't going to get it done.

--Todd Stevens