Another Hero in the Army of Davids

I’m adding another fellow to my hero list.  You may have run into this video, in which a Wall Street Occupier explains how great things are in North Korea.  I thought it had gone more viral, but it’s only at 38-thousand-and-change as of today.

Thanks to Judge Napolitano, we learn that the videographer is Vladimir Jaffe:  Russian-born American, small businessman, and Tea Partier.  The combination of a Russian accent with the swift exposure of his subjects’ ignorance gives Jaffe’s videos an amusing Borat vibe.

Mr. Jaffe has been steadily uploading new clips for several months, and I have enjoyed following him on his journey to educate the lost leftists of New York City.  Some clips are on the long side, so I’ve culled and annotated a few of my favorites for your expedited viewing pleasure.

Skip right to 2:00 in the next video.  Two young leftists inform Mr. Jaffe that Cuba has the highest standard of living for all the nations in the Caribbean.  “That I’ve heard,” the young lady adds as a bit of an escape clause.

Then, at 3:00, the young lady declares with a straight face that a doctor should not necessarily be paid more than a street sweeper if that doctor’s education was free (I have to assume she means free to him–somebody has to pay for that education).  A person’s hard work, time, dedication, brains and talent mean nothing, apparently.

At about 9:20, the young lady says well, I don’t defend the system that existed in the USSR, so Jaffe asks, then why is the hammer and sickle on this table then?

On to the next clip.  Start about :50, when an old commie guy defends Trotsky.  Then at 2:05 he claims that Lenin’s revolution was bloodless.  (Note to all you Occupiers out there:  don’t try to school a Russian on Russian history, it makes you look really dumb.)

He tries to blame first Stalin, and then the isolation of Russia for the failings of that particular glorious revolution.  Then, at 4:25 he is forced to fold:  “Alright, well, you are welcome to read through the books that we have . . . .”  Just leave me alone, you horrible man with your facts and your logic.

Mr. Jaffe presses:  “You are promoting all of this.  It’s my country you want to change.”  At 5:34, he asks Old Commie Guy for an example of a successful socialist country.

Cuba.

Old Commie admits that he couldn’t set up a table and promote capitalism if he were in Cuba.  Yet, he refuses to back down.  Having revealed his totalitarian core, he walks away.  What more is there to say?

A pattern emerges in these video clips:  through language or imagery the subjects associate themselves with the likes of Stalin, Lenin, Che, Castro, until they are called out by an actual victim of one such regime.  Then, they distance themselves.  They claim that “wasn’t really communism/socialism.”  They insist that they are in the vanguard of a new system.

I have to applaud Mr. Jaffe for his patience.  Unlike Borat, he never descends into simple mockery.  He is actually reaching out to these maddeningly misinformed malcontents.  The folks above remain unmoved, undeterred.  In other clips, however, he may actually be making a lasting impression.  Watch as this poor fellow runs out of talking points.  Skip to 4:00 for the best part:

The awkwardness is palpable as the interviewed fellow admits “he doesn’t know which companies we invest in.”  Mr. Jaffe points out, well, since you are sitting at this table as a representative, I assume you are familiar.  He presses the young man on the question of what is so wrong with coal, and the man folds completely.  He lamely refers Mr. Jaffe to the “research department” in a brochure and gives up on the conversation.

The next video clip is the longest, because the subject interviewed is actually willing to listen.  Skip to 7:50, where the young man makes an outlandish claim about Israel.  Mr. Jaffe then leads him by the proverbial hand down a path of logic and history.  Watching his discomfort as he tries to wiggle off this path is both comical and gratifying.  Because he can’t.  He can’t escape the logic.

“I think there’s a lot of sh** behind that, that we have no idea about,” he mutters lamely at 12:09, but Mr. Jaffe rolls his eyes.  “Why are you rolling your eyes at me?” he says reproachfully.  Look, Mr. Jaffe says, these are simple facts.  If you don’t believe the facts, then I don’t know what to else to say.

The last clip is short and sweet.  A representative of the Freedom Socialist Party dives into a helpful explanation of socialism, until Mr. Jaffe asks her whether Che was a socialist.

Immediately uncomfortable, she refuses to answer.  At 1:50 he asks, how are you going to make socialism different now?  “Russia and the movements in the past also lacked international support,” she offers.  Jaffe runs through a long list of countries with which Russia had relations, both the friendly and the forced, and asked her to help him understand why socialism didn’t work in those places, but will work here.

“I’m sorry, are you filming this? I would prefer that you didn’t.”

Yep.

Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed these videos.  Aside from the amusement factor, they serve as an important lesson for me:  go ahead.  Call them out.  It feels like a waste of time, but it isn’t.

What would happen if we all got out and pressed the loudest propagators of Leftist Lunacy?  As Mr. Jaffe demonstrates, they quickly run out of words.   If leftists were confronted by an Army of Jaffes and Breitbarts and other assorted Davids every time they stood up to bleat something stupid, how many of them would finally, and at long last, shut up?

Hmm.  I think I’m off to Facebook to see if I can pick a fight.

UPDATE:  Cross-posted at Disrupt The Narrative.

Top 25 Political Moms Contest–UPDATED

The Lonely Conservative has just taken the lead!

Thanks everyone for pitching in!  Mrs. LC herself has the rundown:

Our Army of Davids has been joining in to help us out, including: iOTW, The Other McCain, Blazing Cat Fur, The Camp of the Saints, DBKP, Conservative Hideout, The Pirate’s Cove, Ex-Con’s View, Maggie’s Notebook, and Moonbattery. Zilla, who is still trying to overcome her illness, has also written about the importance of this contest. (She’s moved up to 4th place.) But none of that does any good if all of you don’t take just a few minutes to click this link and vote for us. You don’t need to sign up. You don’t need to register. All you have to do is click the “vote” button next to each conservative blogging mom, or whichever is your favorite.

Plus some additions which Karen has updated:

Update: King Shamus has joined our quest [self-censorship here]

Update: Thanks to the First Street Journal for joining in! I love conservative bloggers, and all of our readers, too!

I think Karen is absolutely right:  it’s not about competition for competition’s sake.  The goal is to demonstrate that conservatives are the majority, and we are no longer silent.  We are no longer content with letting the political landscape lean further and further left, until “Very, very leftist” defines the typical Democrat.

“Very, very leftist” does not define the typical Democrat.

“Racist and fascist” does not define Pamela Geller, nor any of the rest of us conservative mommies.

We may not convert any of those self-proclaimed “Commie Mommies“ to our cause, but we can remind all other internet users that The Left does not have mainstream views.  We can remind Americans from all points on our political spectrum one simple fact:  “commie” is not a label to wear proudly.

Go vote for as many of us as you fancy!  Every 24 hours for the next three days!  See if you can get Edge of the Sandbox in the top 25.  Oh, yeah, and me too.

UPDATE:  Thanks for your help, Looking Spoon and Three Beers Later!

UPDATE #2:  As of 10:13 pm Central time, Sunday evening, Monologues of Dissent has retaken the lead.  Please do spread the word and we’ll hope for the best out of this neck-and-neck race.

UPDATE #3:  As of Tuesday afternoon, The Lonely Conservative once again has the lead.  Thanks for your help with this fun competition, Jen Kuznicki.  I’ve been voting for you, too, even though you are kicking my butt out of the top 25.  Ha ha!

FINAL UPDATE:  The link to Lonely Conservative’s quotes above is no longer available.  Perhaps the best thing to do is a bit of self-censorship, and a disclaimer, in an effort to avoid mandated censorship.

DISCLAIMER:  The above-quoted label “commie mommy” was found at the links embedded within.  At those links, as well as others, this label was used by the potentially offended persons to describe themselves.  This blogger makes no accusation as to whether these persons’ political beliefs are empirically leftist enough to be labelled as communist.  This blogger merely questions the wisdom of choosing this label to describe oneself.

Meet the .45%

A common theme heard in the No One household, as you can imagine, is how unbelievably, mind-bogglingly and stupendously spoiled some of “The 99%” sound when compared to the 1% who serve in the military.

Via my hubs, via his FB friend, via a random and completely adorable West Point cadet comes the must-buy fashion for the season:

The 0.45% T-Shirt.

The folks at that website, www.rangerup.com, included an anonymous essay that will knock your socks off.  I hope they don’t mind if I paste a large chunk here:

“I remember the day I found out I got into West Point.

My mom actually showed up in the hallway of my high school and waited for me to get out of class. She was bawling her eyes out and apologizing that she had opened up my admission letter. She wasn’t crying because it had been her dream for me to go there. She was crying because she knew how hard I’d worked to get in, how much I wanted to attend, and how much I wanted to be an infantry officer. I was going to get that opportunity.

That same day two of my teachers took me aside and essentially told me the following: ‘Nick, you’re a smart guy. You don’t have to join the military. You should go to college, instead.’

I could easily write a tome defending West Pont and the military as I did that day, explaining that USMA is an elite institution, that separate from that it is actually statistically much harder to enlist in the military than it is to get admitted to college, that serving the nation is a challenge that all able-bodied men should at least consider for a host of reasons, but I won’t.

What I will say is that when a 16 year-old kid is being told that attending West Point is going to be bad for his future then there is a dangerous disconnect in America, and entirely too many Americans have no idea what kind of burdens our military is bearing.”

The essay continues at length, so go read it.  And buy a shirt!  Looks like your ol’ blog bud Linda has just figured out half your Christmas shopping for you.

You’re welcome.

Oh, and read about the three guys behind Ranger Up–pretty awesome.  Internet searches did not reveal a prior source for the .45% essay.  Perhaps one of the three guys is the ‘Nick’ featured in it.

Oh, the internet searches did reveal that at least three other bloggers beat me to the punch, and they deserve a visit too, if’n you’ve got the time:

A Soldier’s Perspective, where blogger CJ speaks truth to power:  “You know, I get fed up with the Occupy Wall Street idiots. I’ve been going around and around with some of them on Twitter and am convinced that this has nothing to do with corporate greed and everything to do with individual greed.”

CJ is kindly and patiently suffering a fool in the comment section.  Anybody up for a game of whack-a-troll?

Eric at Threedonia will be proudly annoying liberal coworkers with this t-shirt on casual Fridays.  Ha.

And newish blog The World through the Eyes of a SheepDog scooped me too, dadgummit.  Good thing I like dogs now.

 Have a great weekend, everybody!

UPDATE:  They have it in women’s sizes too.

News from the Rabbit Hole

Because we are in it, folks.

1.  Congress needs to worry about government jobs more than private-sector jobs.  This is why Senate Democrats are pushing a bill aimed at shoring up teachers and first-responders.  Hey, don’t look at me like that.  Vice-President Biden says so.

2.  Perhaps someone should tell Biden that government spending is already 41% of our entire Gross Domestic Product.  Forty-one percent!

3.  A mayor in the grip of the Obama administration’s regulatory stranglehold cries, “uncle!”  Oh, and she’s a Democrat.

4.  Organizing for America is running an art contest.  Submit your Agitprop for Obama Government, and you may be a winner!  Really, it’s not just satire.  It’s a real contest.

5.  Some writer over at the Business Insider thinks it’s hard to tell the difference between her selection of Tea Party v. Occupy Wall Street signs.  (Psst.  Each sign is dead easy to judge, if one is actually familiar with the Tea Party Movement.  Here’s a couple hints for the uninitiated:  American flags in the background=Tea Party!  Sign makes little or no sense=OWS!)

Have a great rest of the week.  If you find a way out of this rabbit hole, do let me know.

So About These Occupiers . . .

What’s the best way to deal with them?

“Feh” is my initial gut instinct–who cares?  Let them beclown themselves.  I commented in this vein over at Conservatives on Fire.  Yeah, there are Soros and other Big Money connections–who cares?  All the better if these substantively empty protests drain the left’s coffers.

Then I got around to reading a post over at FilmLadd. (Drat.  I can’t remember who led me to FilmLadd, so I can’t do the via link.)  In that post, Mr. Ehlinger makes an unsettling point:

“My hunch is that these protests aren’t about accomplishing anything right now except to flex their muscles, test out the police, and see which supporters “they” (the White House) can count on.

In short: #OccupyWallStreet is a dry run for November 2012.”

Hmm.  That sounds bad . . . and yet plausible.

What do you think?

Some Remedial Instruction UPDATED

For us unwashed masses, since weer sew dum.

First, Condescension 101:

“Let me distinguish between professional politicians and the public at large. You know, the public is not paying close attention to the ins and outs of how a Treasury auction goes. They shouldn’t. They’re worrying about their family, they’re worrying about their jobs. They’re worrying about their neighborhood. They have got a lot of other things on their plate. We’re paid to worry about it.”

Aw, ain’t that thoughtful of our leader?  He’s protecting us from worrying our purty wittle heads about Boring Stuff That’s Hard.

Ugh.  News flash, Sir Professor Snooty-old Smarty-pants.  You, your wild-spending, no-budget-passing Dem buddies and complicit RINOs are the reason we have to worry our purty heads about the Boring Old Debt Limit.

Also, being patronized is my #1 pet peeve.  Well, maybe #2, right beneath disrespectful feral children in the neighborhood, whose parents get angry if you yell at their precious angel who actually needs scolding more often.

Ahem.  Anyhow, on to the next class, Microeconomics 101.  It’s not just any microeconomics class, though, because that would just be more Boring Stuff That’s Hard.  (We’ve got paid experts to worry about that stuff, you know.  Obama says so!)

This particular microeconomics class is A Very Special Edition For True Believers:

“A provision in President Barack Obama’s health-care law that requires small businesses to begin buying health insurance for their workers when they hire their 50th employee–or otherwise pay a penalty to the federal government–’will actually be a great incentive’ for businesses to grow, stated Sebelius.”

From CNS news, via The Lonely Conservative.

Did–did you catch that?  When businesses who do not insure their employees are faced with a penalty for hiring the 50th employee, they have incentive to grow?

Oh, oh dear. 

I’m going to have to cut our tutoring session short today, everyone.  Terribly sorry, but I think my brain has finally exploded.  I can’t see much, just a lot of red.  Disorderly thoughts intruding . . . the chickens got loose from the pen.  And wait ’til you see all them bats . . .

UPDATE:  I’m feeling better, thanks to Planet Moron’s Advanced Moonbattery Course.

UPDATE #2:  James Taranto says it better:

“What got our attention about this exchange as reported by Cantor is the president’s threat to take his case ‘to the American people.’ Would those be the same American people who aren’t paying attention and don’t understand all this complicated stuff?”

At the same link, Mr. Taranto provides extra nuance from a WSJ reader email:

“The correct quote is: ‘The public is not paying close attention to the ins and outs of how a Treasury option goes. They shouldn’t. They’re worryin’ about their family; they’re worryin’ about their jobs; they’re worryin’ about their neighborhood. They’ve got a lot of other things on their plate. We’re paid to worry about it.’

It may seem insignificant, but it should be noted that every single time the president mentions the great unwashed masses ‘out there’ he instantly drops his precise pronunciation of ‘-ing’ endings, and launches into what he imagines all those ‘folks out there’ talk like. We’re jes’ workin’ and hopin’ and waitin’ for him to help us out, y’know? He does it midsentence. It is quite jarring when you listen for it. It is also very telling and very insulting.”

 

 

China

The People’s Republic of China.  I don’t give ’em much thought.  But China keeps popping up lately, so I’m gonna share this stuff in a really shoddy, stream-of-consciousness-style post.

China Item #1:  My older is building a model of The Great Wall for Multicultural Day at school.  Someone Who Shall Remain Nameless had this to say:  “Well, who’s making the model of the forced labor camps?”

Yeah, yeah, I know.  But I mean, you know.  The Great Wall is one of the wonders of the world, so there’s no harm in learning about it.  Actually, more’s the harm in the way a school will micromanage your time by dictating that your child accomplish time-intensive, yet mostly-useless projects which cannot be completed without serious parental intervention.

I could write a book on the harm in that.

Turns out that The Great Wall was mostly accomplished through forced labor anyway, so . . . our son is making the model of a forced labor camp.

China Item #2:  Via Pileus comes news that the Chinese government recently restricted the use of time travel on TV shows.  I guess they won’t be showing Back to the Future on Chinese TV anytime soon . . .

Although this type of “guideline” might have prevented some of the worst Star Trek plots from surfacing, you gotta wonder what the Orwellian Chinese State Administration for Radio, Film & Television was thinking on this one.

Obviously, they were thinking about how much they hate that weird time loop thing that inevitably occurs in a time travel plot–you know, the past ends up as contingent on the future as the future is on the past, and your linear-minded brain just has to deal with it.

China Item #3:  Via Insty comes news that the Chinese real estate bubble may be popping.  After watching this video at By Design’s place a couple of weeks ago, I am hardly surprised:

The experts and the central planners will sort out an economy quite nicely, will they not?

The Only Coffee Guaranteed To Help You Sleep

I’ll admit it:  my fascination with the Coffee Party is a little aberrant. 

Maybe it’s petty, too.  Picking on them is fun. 

Hopefully, my indulgent behavior also provides a public service.  Plenty folks out there don’t know MoveOn.org from PajamasMedia.com, nor Tea Party from Coffee Party from The Rent Is Too Damn High Party.  Perhaps a few of those folks will stumble onto my blog after googling for Coffee Party information.

(By the way.  You totally have to follow the Rent Party link for the theme song that automatically plays.)

Ah, the Coffee Party.  Bless ‘em.  It’s in my nature to give people the benefit of the doubt.  So, most Coffee Party folks are probably sincere about what they peddle:  transpartisanship, common ground, independence from party politics, positive solutions and all the other kumbaya nonsense in their Mission Statement.

This thick gloss of “nonpartisanship” will inevitably appeal to some of the voters who label themselves independents.  These voters may in reality be centrist, even right-centrist, but if they are a product of modern public brainwashing schooling, they may not notice the hard left, typical Marxist, class-hating rhetoric beneath the gloss.  Plus, the Coffee Party crew has that whole civility vibe working for ‘em.  They are so civil that they had a Civility Pledge before Jared Loughner’s awful shooting spree.  Of course, there is some indication that the Coffee Party is (gasp!) not really so inclusive after all, but let’s not get into that.

Then why bring them up again?  Duh.  Because picking on them is fun. 

All that bipartisanship, civility and inclusiveness sounds sweet, but it’s really just boring.  Yawn city.  No matter how hard Annabel Park and the gang work, this endeavor will fail for the simple reason that they put their potential audience to sleep. 

Case in point:  their Vol. 1, No. 7 newsletter.  The whole thing is dozy, but the ”Inaugural Report from the Coffee Party 2.0 Transition Team” really takes the cake, assuming that cake was made with crushed Ambien mixed in the batter.

Ready for some sleep, dear reader?

”Coffee Party USA Board of Directors – Annabel Park (president), Chris Rigopulos (treasurer) and Bruce Hoffman – charged the newly-formed Coffee Party 2.0 Transition Team (TT) with the task of establishing the following: set up a process to select a permanent Board of Directors; set up internal committees and processes to manage ongoing business; hire management and administration personnel to perform member services duties; provide process for organizer training; and design a process to communicate effectively with, and integrate the input of, members at large at various levels. The timeline is set for the Transition Team is to achieve its tasks by July 1, 2011, the beginning of our next fiscal year. The goal is to disband by July 31, 2011, once the permanent Board of Directors is put into place and given proper orientation. The deadline is not a legal mandate but rather self-imposed so that the team can deliberate and come to conclusions in an expeditious manner.”

Whew.  That’s a lot of establishing and processing and managing and integrating and administering.  Dilbert’s pointy-headed boss would be proud.  And that’s just the first paragraph.  Read the whole thing if you have insomnia at bedtime.

This newsletter is their best effort at promoting a supposedly vibrant, grassroots organization, and the contents are so dry and devoid of all grassrooty-ness that it’s comical.  The best visual in the whole thing is a picture of a talking elevator.  Cuz, you know, nothin’ says GOTV like a . . . talking elevator . . . .

A recent WORM post comes to mind, about Talkers v. Doers.  The Coffee Party is a perfect example of When Talkers Think They Are Doers.  The WORM laments the fact that “the Doers let the Talkers take over the Doings,” and posits that “this is the thing that actually brings down Western Civilization.”

Well, yeah.

But sod the doom and gloom.  I choose to laugh at the Dilberts.  If I don’t laugh, then I’ll cry.

Rage Is Back!

Grrrr.

Breathing deeply.  Counting backwards from ten.  I love my country.  I love my fellow Americans.  Even the ones that elected this clown-in-chief.  That’s right.  I’m violating my own rule about name-calling.

Via Instapundit comes a remarkable enough tidbit from an AP report:  “Obama needled one questioner who asked about gas prices, now averaging close to $3.70 a gallon nationwide, and suggested that the gentleman consider getting rid of his gas-guzzling vehicle.”

Does anyone out there really believe this is man feels our pain?  He is more interested in deciding what kind of car you should drive, than improving your standard of living, or, you know, actually preserving that pesky old burden of liberty that we bear.  It’s such a burden, liberty.  We don’t know what’s best for us.  Those big, bad, evil corporations are tricking us into destroying our one and only planet by allowing us to choose which of their vehicles we want to buy.

Breathing deeply.  Focusing.

The story then got a little more remarkable, because the AP article from which that quote originated was scrubbed of it.  Apparently, AP has done a substantial rewrite.  See the Prof for the full story and the screen cap.

But that’s not why I’m posting.

In addition to the screen cap, Prof. Reynolds linked to video proof of the President’s gas-guzzle statement.

And I watched it.

Now I know exactly what it takes to sweep apathy from my brain like a tidal wave sweeping the beach:  four minutes of President Obama channeling his inner Seinfeld.

Yep.  President Obama, doing his best stand-up routine.  I recommend that you do not press play:

Really.  You don’t have to watch it.  I have selflessly spared you from trauma, by meticulously transcribing the most pertinent portions (play, pause, write, repeat).

You’re welcome.

The video is from the President’s appearance at a wind turbine manufacturer on April 6th.  Two minutes in, the President starts off with a reasonable enough statement:

“What we can do is increase oil production here in the United States.  But here’s the thing about oil.  We have about 2, maybe 3% of the world’s proven oil reserves.”

Okay, fine.  I also do not like the fact that we do not produce enough oil in the States to satisfy demands.  Instead, we have to rely on countries that are most unreliable.

Next comes the Marxist tendencies.  You know, those redistributionist, mistrusting of all things corporation-y, sounds-like-its-from-the-Communist-Manifesto-type tendencies that we Tea Party folks are crazy to even point out:

“We use 25% of the world’s oil.  So . . . even if we doubled the amount of oil that we produce, we’d still be short by a factor of five.  So, we can’t just drill our way out of the problem, and that’s why the second thing we can do is increase efficiency on cars and trucks, which is where most of our oil is used.”

Do you see the logic here?  Our oil problem will be resolved only by consuming less, and nothing else.  Note how he brings up how much of the world’s oil we so hoggishly hog?  The implication here is that consuming more oil than other countries, relative to population, is a wrong in and of itself.  Unfair.

Anyway, here is the best worst bit:

“Now, I noticed some folks clapped, but I know some of these big guys, they’re still driving their big SUVs, you know, they’ve got their big monster truck and everything.  [Catches eye of person in audience.]  You are one of ‘em?  Well, now, here’s my point.  You know, if you’re complaining about the price of gas and you’re only getting 8 miles a gallon, you know . . . [chuckles] . . . well.  I, you may have a big family, but it’s probably not that big . . . [chuckles].  So, how many you have?  Ten kids you say?  Ten kids?  [Long pause with humorously shocked look on his face.]  Well, you definitely need a hybrid van then.

Grrr.  We Amurikuns R so dumb that Obama has to explain the basic economics of miles per gallon to us.  How do you like your President lecturing you in a mocking, 5th rate stand-up routine?  Feel patronized yet?

Well, I do have one bit of consolation:  Obama using a random audience member to make his point about owning bigger cars than you need?  FAIL.

UPDATE:  Ed Morrissey puts it well:  “Obama fills the role of clueless aristocrat by telling a man who explains that he can’t afford to fill his gas tank at current prices that he should instead buy a new car.”

Abandon Ship?

Is it time to start a third party?

That question comes up on a regular basis.  For good reason, of course:  the GOP sucks, generally speaking.  That suckage notwithstanding, my gut reaction to this question is always:  no.  It is not time to start a third party.

Why?

I pondered that question on one of my runs, or dog walks, or school trips, or summat.  Can’t remember which.  Anyhow, in a typically annoying fashion, I shall answer the question with a question of my own:

Has the left made its progress through the ascendency of a third party?

No.

Sure, there are leftist “third parties” out there:  the Green Party, the Socialist Party, the Communist Party, the Labor Party, the Socialist Labor Party, the Workers Party, to the Working Families Party, just to name a few from this Wikipedia list.

But.  Did these ”third parties” actually create the major leftist mile (mill) stones of today, from the Great Society to Obamacare?

No.  It’s all Dem, baby.

Far-left groups have influenced Democrat thinking, no question.  But did they do so by being an electorally viable party?

No.

In the same way, the Libertarian Party and the Tea Party do not need to be electorally viable in order to influence Republican thinking.

We do not need a third party.  We need to be working overtime to infiltrate and influence the GOP.  Just as the left did the Dems.  For us, the November 2010 election was only the beginning.  If the advance made so far is inadequate, that is our bad.  We should have been infiltrating and influencing well before Obama was elected.

Our bad.

Let’s just hope our bad hasn’t cost us the whole of our liberty.