I’ve got a double dose of Republican crazy today, starting with Lubbock County (Texas) Judge Tom Head, who warned this week that the nation could descend into civil war if President Barack Obama is re-elected.
Saying that as the county’s emergency management coordinator he has to “think about the very worst thing that can happen and prepare for that and hope and pray for the best,” Head told radio host Jeff Klotzman that he believes “in this political climate and financial climate, what is the very worst thing that could happen right now? Obama gets back in the White House. No. God forbid.”
Why are tax hikes politically radioactive?
Referring to unexplained “executive orders” and other documents that Obama and “his minions have filed,” Head said, “regardless of whether the Republicans take over the Senate, which I hope they do, he is going to make the United States Congress and he’s going to make the Constitution irrelevant. He’s got his czars in place that don’t answer to anybody.”
Obama, Head said, will “try to give the sovereignty of the United States away to the United Nations. What do you think the public’s going to do when that happens? We are talking civil unrest, civil disobedience, possibly, possibly civil war. … I’m not talking just talking riots here and there. I’m talking Lexington, Concord, take up arms, get rid of the dictator. OK, what do you think he is going to do when that happens? He is going to call in the U.N. troops, personnel carriers, tanks and whatever.”
Head vowed to personally stand “in front of their personnel carriers and say, ‘You’re not coming in here.’ And I’ve asked the sheriff. I said, ‘Are you going to back me on this?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, I’m going to back you.’ Well, I don’t want a bunch of rookies back there who have no training and little equipment. I want seasoned veteran people who are trained that have got equipment. And even then, you know we may have two or three hundred deputies facing maybe a thousand U.N. troops. We may have to call out the militia.”
And then we have the story of Frank Szabo, the Republican candidate for Hillsborough County (NH) Sheriff, who told a local TV station he would be willing to use deadly force to prevent a woman from terminating her pregnancy.
I would respond specifically by saying that if someone is under threat, a full-grown human being, if they’re under threat, what should the sheriff do? Everything in their power to prevent them from being harmed.
Asked later in the interview what he’d do if he learned that a doctor was about to perform an elective abortion, Szabo replied he would do what it took to prevent that from happening.
Absolutely, well, I would hope that it wouldn’t come to that, as with any situation where someone is in danger, but again, specifically talking about elective abortions and late-term abortions, that is an act that needs to be stopped.
Three things.
1. If we/you/us keep highlighting these sorts of statements by Republicans nationwide, it will NOT help ANY Democrat get elected. We can only help “our” candidates by pointing out their strengths. All this negative stuff gets to overload very quickly, and certainly doesn’t change any minds. The Undecided are the Target 5-10% here.
2. These people hold these beliefs because they can now do so openly on the watch of a black man as president. If, as some Democrats claim, the Federal government is more intrusive and authoritarian on the Obama stint than the Dubya term, the only factor that makes these “outrages” speakable, even though they are mostly the continuation of Bush era policies, is the president’s race. The South just cannot handle a black president.
3. I have long felt that a new civil war is coming. There will be three factions, not two, however. One will want the restoration of the current system. Another will want direct, not representative democracy, ala the French revolution. The third will want a federal government that reflects these biblical values of capital punishment, free market everything, complete abandonment of all domestic assistance and regulation, etc.
We are coming to the point in our civilization where the two-party system has created more dissatisfaction than solidarity. We need four parties. Christian Democrats, who are social conservatives, but fiscal liberals, Social Democrats, who are social and fiscal liberals. Also, we need a Christian Conservative faction, which would be both socially and fiscally conservative, and a Moderate Conservative party, which would be socially progressive but fiscally conservative.
Unfortunately, the House and Senate are not designed for coalition governance. If this obstacle could be dealt with, we could have more voter satisfaction and higher turnouts, with better bi-partisan legislating.
I hope to live to see the day when our rhetoric either cools down from the molten level, or Americans put their feet on the street where their mouths are, and see what it would feel like to actually have the greatest economic and social engine in history get torn apart, again.
We would all lose something in such a war or similar situation, and sometimes, losing things is the only way humans can appreciate what is was they had.
So, let’s keep this kind of talk on the level of crazy…’
MBB
I say, keep the info. coming. Conservative extremism needs to be known. Conservatives will force a second Civil War and they will reduce the government to a Conservative controlled junta. If Ryan’s plan is enacted 90% of the government’s current functions will be dismantled – that’s CBO’s analysis; mine – easy pickings for privateers. Good luck with individual liberty under the purview of privateers – the private sector doesn’t have to ensure liberty now and it won’t when government is leveled to a decayed stump.
The bulk of the Ryan plan will be spent on “defense.” So then we have a weakened government – really no government to speak of – and a massive military state. A military government – hmm. Looks like a junta to me. If Conservative rank and file who so want to shrink government are so vitally concerned about government tyranny and coercion perhaps they should ponder that idea.
No moment of Conservative extremism should go unnoticed and unexamined. Take this egregious little number from just this week – Authoritarian Right Wing Extremism is now shutting down free speech and the arts in Wisconsin:
http://www.progressive.org/rightwing-evangelical-gets-play-banned-in-wisconsin-state-park
Ignorance and Intolerance are taking hold and they won’t be letting go.
Need we be reminded that following the English Civil War in 1642 which led to a Puritan take-over of government, the Puritanical Parliament closed all theatrical venues in London. Shut all the public playhouses down for nearly 20 years and persecuted actors and playwrights in the process. 370 years later actors, playwrights, and theater companies are persecuted in Wisconsin by a Cromwell surrogate with an entourage of Wisconsin Roundheads (i.e. Mark Belling and Right Wing Radio).
Exposing Conservative extremism isn’t about elections, Michael BB. It’s about recognizing the tyranny of Right Wing Authoritarianism that dominates every sphere of life.
Excise the christian part.
Just a little tidbit to consider when pondering the Right Wing’s propagandist detestation of the U.N. so obviously on display here…. anybody recall who were among the first to bandy about the idea of a United Nations – of a cooperative union of nations?
Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine.