Thursday, August 23, 2012

Remember When the Posse Comitatus Was a Fringe Group?

How are we as a nation supposed to have civil discussion about our political disagreements when elected conservatives are nothing short of fucking nuts?

It's not just idiots like Congressman Todd Akin, who thinks that his only mistake in describing how a woman's hormones will protect her against pregnancy during a "legitimate rape" was using the word "legitimate" when he meant "forcible."

There's Tom Head (pictured at right), who has been a county judge in Lubbock, Texas, since 1999. He was being interviewed on the local Fox affiliate on Monday, and defended a proposed 1.7-cent  tax increase to fund the sheriff's department and courts because Barack Obama's reelection will result in civil war -- and Judge Head wants to be in the front lines of the armed insurrection:
"He's going to try to hand over the sovereignty of the United States to the [United Nations], and what is going to happen when that happens? I'm thinking the worst. Civil unrest, civil disobedience, civil war maybe. We're talking Lexington - Concord - take up arms and get rid of the guy. Okay?
"Now what's going to happen if we do that? He's going to send in U.N. troops. I don't want 'em in Lubbock County, okay? So I'm going to stand in front of their armored personnel carrier and say 'You're not coming in here'. The sheriff, I've already asked him, I said, 'Are you gonna back me?' He said, 'I'll back you.'
"I don't want rookies. I want trained, equipped and seasoned veteran officers to back me."
So now we know what it takes to get one of these Red State Republicans to support a tax increase. *

If this longhorn moron were the only Republican talking about armed insurrection, that would be one thing. But here's something from the Greene County (Virginia) Republican Committee newsletter, written by its editor, Ponch McPhee:
”[W]e shall not have any coarse [sic] but armed revolution should we fail with the power of the vote in November.  This Republic cannot survive for 4 more years underneath this political socialist ideologue.”
This editor could use a copy editor.

Passage of the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare") was greeted with death threats against Democrats in Congress and vandalism to their home district offices, including that of Arizona Democrat Gabrielle Giffords -- who would be shot in the head by a deranged assassin a few months later.

Over a year after those shots were fired in Tuscon, the Supreme Court upheld the ACA this past June. Matt Davis, formerly a spokesman for Michigan's Republican Party, sent out an email with the somewhat less radical view of Gee, I Hope It Doesn't Come To That:

"If the Supreme Court's decision Thursday paves the way for unprecedented intrusion into personal decisions, then has the Republic all but ceased to exist? If so, then is armed rebellion today justified? God willing, this oppression will be lifted and America free again before the first shot is fired."
How about an elected Republican that you've actually heard of?
“I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back,” --Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN)
And who can forget Nevada senatorial candidate Sharon Angle proposing "Second Amendment Remedies" to change Congress in 2010?

So much of the vandalism, death threats, and plans for armed insurrection came in response to health care reform -- people willing to take up arms to defend their right to have private health insurance companies price them out of the health insurance as they have kids, grow old, file claims, and become less profitable to the corporate bottom line.

Contrast that to the uproar over state governments' crackdown on union workers these past two years. As vitriolic as the confrontations in Wisconsin and other states were, I don't remember any elected or party officials calling for "Concord - Lexington - take up arms" "Second Amendment remedies."

The most violent reaction? Some jerk poured beer on Wisconsin State Representative Robin Vos (R-Burlington) in a bar.
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* UPDATE: I had wondered whether antitax crusader Grover Norquist would approve of Judge Head's little tax hike. Apparently not.

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