THE BATTLE OF SIT-ON-YOUR-ASS.
Ole Perfesser Instapundit's waving the stars and bars at USA Today under the title, "Americans rising up against government." The column is accompanied by a picture of someone poking a Gadsden flag out of a bunch of umbrellas -- maybe them folks under the umbrellas is all a-decked out like Ben Franklin and the Tea Party is back!
"America's ruling class has been experiencing more pushback than usual lately," the Perfesser commences. "It just might be a harbinger of things to come." How so, Perfesser? Three things:
"First, in response to widespread protests last week, the Department of Homeland Security canceled plans to build a nationwide license plate database." Funny, I don't remember any such protests -- oh, the Perfesser means widespread in the press and among "lawmakers and privacy advocates," not Ma and Pa Tricorn marching on Washington.
The FCC's Multi-Market Study of Critical Information Needs, which was going to question newsroom personnel, went down because "the blowback was sufficient to stop it for now." Again, this was not achieved by a popular uprising, but by the press, with its paranoid conservative wing and normal-people wing united in defense of its own interests.
"Meanwhile, in Connecticut a massive new gun-registration scheme is also facing civil disobedience." Ah, now we're getting somewhere! Tell us about it, Perfesser:
"As J.D. Tuccille reports: 'Three years ago, the Connecticut legislature estimated there were 372,000 rifles in the state of the sort that might be classified as 'assault weapons,' and 2 million plus high-capacity magazines. ... But by the close of registration at the end of 2013, state officials received around 50,000 applications for 'assault weapon' registrations, and 38,000 applications for magazines.' This is more 'Irish Democracy,' passive resistance to government overreach..."
Really? Sounds to me like a bunch of people sitting on their rear ends. In fact, none of this "uprising" involves... anyone doing anything.
And yet here's how the Perfesser characterizes it:
Though people have taken to the streets from Egypt, to Ukraine, to Venezuela to Thailand, many have wondered whether Americans would ever resist the increasing encroachments on their freedom. I think they've begun.
Us and the guys at Tahrir Square and Maidan Nezalezhnosti! We just have different styles: Furriners do uprising by putting their bodies on the line in lethal mass demonstrations, whereas American patriots sit on their asses and wait for the heroism commendations to roll in.
The timeline of conservative derangement is long and complicated, but I think I can trace this particular strain of gibberish back to Human Achievement Hour, in which conservatives portrayed Americans who did not change their normal everyday energy-use patters as implicit supporters of their anti-environmentalist cause, and the Battle of Chick-Fil-A, in which conservatives showed their hatred of homosexuals (or love of freedom, whatever) by gorging on fast food and deputizing everyone they saw at the mall as co-conspirators. It's the perfect form of activism for a movement largely composed of agitated geriatrics, shut-ins, and people who think they're entitled to everything, including revolutionary status, without raising a sweat for it.
UPDATE. From commenter Fats Durston:
The Revolution Will Be Sitting In Front Of The Television
You will be able to stay home, brother.
You will be able to plug in, turn on and cop out.
You will be able to lose yourself on Xanax and
skip out for beer during commercials, if you haven't DVR'd
Because the revolution will be sitting in front of the television.
The revolution will be sitting in front of the television
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