The screed you'll find below was published yesterday on a web site called The New Boston Tea Party, an organ of a group with the same name that's been around since 2009, and that's carved out quite a niche for itself.
The thrust: Peter Lewis, who the people who publish this site say is owner of Progressive Insurance, is -- wait for it -- a progressive. And since he's contributed to the ACLU and Moveon.Org, and also sells insurance to conservatives, they say he must be boycotted -- and, I assume, driven out of business.
I don't know Mr. Lewis. For me, car insurance is something I pay to keep my Jeep on the road. But the last I heard, people in this country are allowed to support political causes they agree with. I hear it's even a right, enshrined in something called the Constitution.
You remember the Constitution? That document the Tea Party is always claiming they're devoted to? Except, apparently, when it gets in the way -- at least, in the way of these people.
This is the lowest thing I've seen since Amy Myers, the 16-year-old girl who challenged Michele Bachmann to a debate, was threatened with beatings and gang rape for her trouble.
When something like this comes along, I remind myself that, certainly with the Tea Party, there are the people on the bus, the people driving the bus, and the people who own the bus.
You don't get mad at passengers, and the people on the Tea Party bus -- the rank-and-file, that is -- are in my experience, decent, patriotic Americans who know something's wrong in this country, but have found the wrong leaders.
Those leaders -- people like those behind this site -- routinely lie to their followers in a fundamental betrayal of their trust. You couldn't find better evidence of that claim than the content you'll find on the site.
How anybody could believe what you'll find there is beyond me. I myself just look at it once in awhile for entertainment, and to keep an eye on what some of the madder hatters of the Tea Party are saying. I've never taken it seriously; it's just too bizarre.
But some people might, and while the people behind this site have the right to publish anything they like, they'll never escape being judged for it. And they've earned some responsibility for anything their followers might do, based on what they publish. And why shouldn't they? Aren't conservatives all about personal responsibility?
To my mind, any fair-minded American would find the sort of attacks routinely published on The New Boston Tea Party inexcusable -- the lowest sort of thing since Andrew Jackson's enemies called his mother a prostitute. They're allowed to publish these things, but there's just no room for it in today's overheated political climate. It's simply not constructive. In my own opinion, responsible leaders of the Tea Party should repudiate it, and them. Otherwise they're endorsing this sort of thing.
What the rest of America should do about this sort of gutter politics, and the people who practice it, is up to them. I know what people like the proprietors of The New Boston Tea Party would do:
"PROGRESSIVE INSURANCE OWNED BY PROGRESSIVE
PROGRESSIVE INSURANCE is owned by Peter Lewis: Who is he? Read this...
VERY IMPORTANT INFO TO PASS TO EVERYONE CONCERNED ABOUT THEIR COUNTRY..
Youve seen and smiled at the Progressive Insurance TV commercials.Well, you're about to learn the rest of the story:
You know their TV commercials, the ones featuring the ditsy actress all dressed in white. What you might not know is that the Chairman of Progressive is Peter Lewis, one of the major funders of leftist causes in America .
Between 2001 and 2003, Lewis funneled $15 million to the ACLU, the group most responsible for destroying what's left of Americas Judeo-Christian heritage.
Lewis also gave $12.5 million to MoveOn.org and American Coming Together, two key propaganda arms of the socialist left.
His funding for these groups was conditional on matching contributions from George Soros, the America-hating socialist who is the chief financier of the Obama political machine.
Lewis made a fortune as a result of capitalism, but now finances a progressive movement that threatens to destroy the American free enterprise system that is targeting television shows on Fox News.
Peter Lewis is making a fortune off of conservative Americans (who buy his auto insurance) that he applies to dismantle the very system that made him wealthy. He's banking on no one finding out who he is, so, STOP buying Progressive Insurance and pass this information on to all your friends."