9/12: Do The Numbers Matter At This Point?

Today in the blogosphere much is being made of anything approaching a precise  count of the hundreds of thousands of, if not a million Americans who turned up in Washington, DC on Saturday, September 12th to send their government a message. Yet, it's clear from the coverage of as notable an event as the inauguration of America's first black president that no genuinely precise number can, or will ever be established, let alone agreed upon.

It's expected that bloggers, Left and Right, will argue over such things; it's what we do. But that is not what matters most to America today. What matters is that a significant and growing number of Americans now share serious and deep concerns over a Federal Government seemingly intent on spending America into bankruptcy, while also attempting to control, or regulate so many aspects of American life that it's becoming difficult to understand what constitutes genuine freedom in America anymore.

And that, in a country where freedom, above all else, has been almost sacrosanct throughout her hundreds of years of existence.

Something is beginning to change.

After the 1960's and in large part as a result of them, another change took place in America. A small town values seemed to fall out of vogue. Critics argued they no longer had a place in, or value to America as a whole. They were replaced by a larger alleged national consciousness often manifesting itself in greater central government control, even if it might not be what the people wanted. Perhaps common sense was replaced by a purported conventional wisdom that was mostly elitist in design.

The media culture and eventually the political establishment seemed to leave the people behind. The so-called little people of America, the ones who quietly worked their jobs, paid their bills, raised their families and didn't make much news or noise were told they were irrelevant, ... or worse, dumb.

Big Media's editorialists and journalists, who always think they know better, or are somehow better informed of what happens on every little mainstreet, had their day. They influenced thinking and even government to a degree they hadn't previously enjoyed in contemporary times. Government took off and left the people, convinced that they, too, knew better, or were somehow better informed to dictate and regulate just about anything they chose - from your job, your backyard woods, even to family life inside the home and what you ate. But a funny thing happened on the way to a would be government designed and engineered utopia.

The people eventually stood up in mass and yelled, "Stop!," just as a conservative editorialist had done some years before. He's gone now. But the American people and the American spirit still lives on. September 12th showed us that.

And whether they numbered half-a-million, a million, or even more, what September 12th, 2009 in Washington, DC clearly demonstrated was that they might just be getting ready to yell stop, again. And this time, they're even better prepared and far more informed and empowered than they ever were when the Reagan Revolution was born.

And it might not take decades to develop this time around, as so many things seem to happen almost overnight in this new Internet-driven, new information, New Media age.

Stay tuned.

Cross-posted at RightWingNews.

Comments

[Dick Bacon]

Thank you, and well-said.

[James]

What a bunch of losers the 9/12ers. Can't you see the venemous racism that spews from your pores? Yes the numbers matter. I saw you wackjobs on your Fox channel and there were about 1,500 of you, and that is generous. I have been to many marches, and I am being generous when I offer that number. Face it, your cause is only popular among a narrow minority of white Americans, most of us want healthcare reform. You will too at some point pinhead. We know what the message is, and it isn't "America back the way it was." It is "we want to preserve whiteness in America." The lot of you can't stand that folks of color are the ones that will benefit from the healthcare reform the most. Well, it is because of this white hegemonic system that has dominated for centuries keeping folks of color at the bottom tiers and denying them the right to such services as healthcare, this is why we need it. And, you are afraid you will have to pay, well pay. It is about time we raise taxes. And, one more thing, your white privilege affords you the opportunity to not have to discuss, imagine, and even merely think about it, so you may not have ever had to stop to think, "we are so much more alike, folks of color and whites, than we are different." It is your false consciousness that disallows you from imagining, much less accepting that fact. 1,500 loser.

[Gary Denton]

Somehow I knew the headline here would become the crowd size doesn't matter as the big million plus lie was exposed.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/09/size-matters-so-do-lies.html

[Gary Denton]

I could also point out the many fake pictures supposedly showing crowd size posted on conservative sites but other people are compiling them as I type.

[cindi]

Come on James, Taylor Swift won, fair and square.

[rk]

wow, looks like the trolls are getting some serious overtime tonight...hey guys, do you get time and a half, or are you up to triple time now????

[Dan Riehl]

Actually, the really fun part is watching liberals close their eyes, put their fingers in their ears and convince themselves, "It's all good"!! LMAO

NEW YORK (AP) - Despite sweeping Democratic successes in the past two national elections, continuing job losses and President Barack Obama's slipping support could lead to double-digit losses for the party in next year's congressional races and may even threaten their House control.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090913/D9AMHEH00.html

[Pinandpuller]

The Democrats were handing out Enzyte so the crowd would look bigger. It works for them.

[cindi]

Whatever the number, the spirit of America is alive and well. Of course many of our politicians will choose to ignore the large number. This will not be the last that's for sure.

LMAO,I suppose these doubters trying to prove fake pictures will be able to explain the live camera leads all over DC?

[mark l.]

read the 538 piece...

he doesn't know how many were there, either.

If i understand this exerice in logic:

right, who were there: this thing was huge.
left, who weren't there: you don't have any credible source for estimating the size. Therefore, based on your overestimates, there were x number of people there.

at best one could argue that the numbers were inflated...2 million, 1.5 million, 1 million...
but to proceed to offer the actual number, after attacking the overestimates for not having ANY clear cut source is silly.

one thing is very clear-
the crowd exceeded anything the left has mustered in DC in recent years, in regards to protests, even under bush.

the empirical number holds far less meaning, compared soley to the left's 'inability' to gather en masse in dc. If this crowd size is a 'failure', then the anti war protests of this millenium were 'epic failures'.

[David R. Graham]

Who calls those concerned about anti-American activity anti-Americans? Anti-Americans.

Who calls those concerned about terrorist activity terrorists? Terrorists.

Who calls those concerned about criminal activity racists? Racists.

What did the fly on the wall of the WH situation room hear today?

"Who the f didn't think to cordon the city and restrict ingress/egress to our people? What do I pay you for?!"

"How can we hit the Kill Internet Switch and make it look like white male WASP gun-toting right-wing fundamentalist Christian moron anti-abortion conservative nutcase loon racist retrograde retard anti-American clueless reactionary terrorists did it?"

"I want every one of their signs and ponies shoved up their backsides! Do you hear me! Backsides! Now!, dammit!"

"And anyone who lets this happen again is going to regret it! Know what I mean?!"

"And where the f was SEIU, ACORN and the other families. What of bunch of purple pansies! They should have been in their face, cracking skulls, driving them out! We'll never trust them again, they chickened, they went limp out at the crucial moment. Odds schmodds! This is a fight, so what if they have to charge uphill into withering fire?! They should do their duty or get out of our playbook. Lift it or shift it! Why in hell should we pay them if they chicken out of when the deal is down?! Tell them to put up or shut up and get out of our baggage."

"Damn you guys are weak! Pathetic idiots, why did you let this happen? Get in their faces and take them OUT! They're f-ing nobodies, for chrissake! I said OUT! Got that?! OUT!"

[crosspatch]

It doesn't really matter. The major media outlets believe they have the power to stick America's collective head in the sand and if they simply ignore a story, it will go away. Those days are gone. It is going to be an amazing wakeup call when a lot of their faithful viewers and readers learn that the world shifted under their feet and they got no inkling of it from their usual news sources. It will be played as a "shock" and a "surprise" and the media will instantly begin bashing the newly elected in order to undo the damage.

But they have become irrelevant.

[cindi]

Funny thing about this 9/12 march. We were not there asking for hand-outs. Now imagine the left doing that. What was the million man march about anyway? ;)

[Brett_McS]

The big contrast was how the place looked after the crowds had left on 9/12, compared to after the Obama inauguration. Pretty good illustration of the difference in attitude toward personal responsibility.

[xerocky]

James is such a typical minority bent libtard... he seems to stupid to be true.
You know what I’ve noticed about all of the people who “can’t get health care” James?
A good deal of them can get a lot of other things, like rims for their stupid tricked out cars,
Gold teeth, lots of jewelry, tattoos, turntables, amplifiers, guitars, drums, vacations, and many other pointless wastes of money and recourses.
And I’m not just talking about any one racial group here, I’m talking about all of the folks in the U.S.A. who fall into a group that supposedly “can’t afford healthcare”.
James, get a job, get a life. Go buy yourself healthcare.

[2Million]

To yield on the numbers is to let the Left perpetuate a lie that will diminish the perceived strength of the Tea Party movement. The number is approximately 2 million. That's the number. Not thousands. Not tens of thousands. Not hundreds of thousands. TWO MILLION.

That assertion has power within it to shake Washington. If we say the size of the crowd doesn't matter, then we also agree that the event was insignificant. Why should the pols listen to just a few thousand people in a nation of 300 million?

The number is TWO MILLION and we have the photos and the LBJ calculation to prove it.

[anon]

I have no idea how many people were at the march, but I do know that everyone who actually lives and works in DC politics is going to have a fairly good idea of how many people participated whether they admit it or not...so, if the march was "huge" then it will resonate with the inside the beltway crowd, whether they admit it or not, acknowledge it or not...

[mark l.]

"The number is TWO MILLION and we have the photos and the LBJ calculation to prove it."

the real number that conservatives need to focus on is 40 million-a very rough guestimate-but if they can draw that many to vote in the midterm, the gop regains the house.

[jodetoad]

It is what it is, and if leftists don't like it, that doesn't change it. For every person there, is another 10 or 100, including me, that wishes he could have gone. It will be even bigger next time.

The stupidity of alienating the 50% that pay 95% of the taxes is breath-taking. If the left succeeds, and regulates everything, and none of us makes $, who will pay for all these stupid programs? Not the Chinese, they are smart.

[Bob]

Myth:

"To yield on the numbers is to let the Left perpetuate a lie that will diminish the perceived strength of the Tea Party movement. The number is approximately 2 million. That's the number. Not thousands. Not tens of thousands. Not hundreds of thousands. TWO MILLION."

--2MillionMorons

Reality:

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2009/sep/14/tea-party-photo-shows-large-crowd-different-event/

"In the competitive world of Washington protests, crowd size is often a matter of dispute. Organizers usually boast of huge crowds, while police and the news media offer much smaller estimates.

So supporters of Saturday’s “tea party” protests against President Barack Obama were quick to highlight their big turnout. To bolster countless claims on blogs and Facebook, many posted a photograph that showed a gargantuan crowd sprawling from Capitol Hill down the National Mall to the Washington Monument.

But it turns out the photo is more than 10 years old, apparently taken during a 1997 Promise Keepers rally.

[...]

Pete Piringer, public affairs officer for the D.C. Fire and Emergency Department, said the local government no longer provides official crowd estimates because they can become politicized. But the day of the rally, Piringer unofficially told one reporter that he thought between 60,000 and 75,000 people had shown up."

Time after time, the right wing acts in bad faith. There's almost no factual detail that they won't distort or outright lie about to advance their political agenda.

[Chris]

I've NEVER been more proud of my country than I am at this moment. WE HAVE THE POWER!!!

I have realized the liberal fraud for what it is and the blatant attempt to transform this country into a radical left-wing dictatorship (think worse than socialism, think communism and ultimately, slavery.) The unaccountable private banking cartel called the Federal Reserve has EVERYTHING to do with this.

Watch The Obama Deception and see for yourself.

We have to hold these people accountable for the trillions of dollars they've been given by both the current and previous administrations! THIS IS OUR FUTURE AT STAKE!!!

Contact your representatives and tell them to support HR 1207 and S 604, which are the House and Senate versions of Ron Paul's bill to Audit The Federal Reserve. Then we can finally see whose private bank accounts our tax dollars are going to.

This site has links you can follow to contact your Congressperson and URGE THEM to support this bill.

Please contact them and SPREAD THIS INFORMATION NOW!!! RISE UP FOR TRUE JUSTICE!!!

This message brought to you by a Bush bashing Obama voting member of the mob who finally WOKE UP!