Far-left Robert Erickson dumps glitter on Newt Gingrich; teaparty, ALIPAC partly to blame (Nick Espinosa)

Yesterday, far-left gay rights activist Robert Erickson [1] dumped glitter confetti on Newt Gingrich as a protest. Video below; Associated Press story here; event location: Minneapolis, Minnesota.

This is obviously despicable behavior that's just one small step up from what the far-left usually engages in: pie throwing, pulling fire alarms, and the like. Whether openly trying to silence those they oppose or just dumping glitter on them, the far-left is incapable of debating their opponents.

So, how are the tea parties and ALIPAC partly to blame for the incident?

Because back in November 2009, Erickson "punked" a teaparty/ALIPAC event and those attending were incapable of preventing him from doing it. In fact, some of them even helped him. Read about the incident at that link. If even just one of the people attending that event had engaged Erickson in debate on video and had shown how he was wrong, he probably wouldn't feel so bold as to dump glitter on presidential candidates.

Instead of engaging Erickson and showing how he was wrong, the teapartiers/ALIPAC members at that event handed a very minor victory to ThinkProgress, Andrew Sullivan, Huffington Post, and others. And, no teaparty leaders are pushing their charges to intellectually engage their opponents (or help those who can).

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[1] It's not clear whether Robert Erickson is his real name or whether it's Nick Espinosa. In 2009 he used Erickson at the event and then later a source which I forget said his real name is Espinosa. However, Erickson is the name he uses for his stunts so that's the one I'll use.