The nutters are really losing it. Wrap your brain around this “logic.” Upset about a Homeland Security Report that suggests the nation needs to be aware of the threat of right-wing extremism and violence, the nutjob fringe at Red State posted this:
It is now officially time: burn the Obama brownshirt agenda to the ground. Sift the ashes. Grind the shards into powder.
Oh, and this:
They take territory, we fall back. They grow an obscenely large and intrusive government bit by bit, we accept it. They take the courts, we retreat and regroup. They turn public schools and universities into indoctrination camps. And still, we retreat. They blatantly steal Senate seats [Stevens and Coleman, this time around], publicly laugh about it, and we fall back.
Damn those voters for stealing elections from Republicans. Damn those courts for trying to protect civil liberties and the Constitution. Damn those schools for handing children books!
And they quote Patrick Henry:
There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable — and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come!
Yeah, no reason at all to be worried about these people. Ideological movements in their death throes are dangerous things.
Reading through the just-released torture memos from the Bush Administration, I find myself wondering where the champions of constitutional principles and the idea of liberty who wandered on to the streets yesterday have been for the past eight years. These men and womyn, who were “spontaneously” incensed by the idea of slight tax increases for the wealthiest Americans, never felt the need to protest when their government was authorizing torture of fellow human beings, abusive practices that the men who wrote the Constitution would have condemned.
Today’s released memos reveal a government that had no respect for American values that were so forcefully proclaimed by the Founders. They are a stain on the nation’s history.
What’s most troubling about the documents is the dispassionate defense of the indefensible that they offer, a lawyer’s bureaucratic search to justify inhuman behavior. The memos don’t concern themselves with the legality or morality of dehumanizing behavior, but discuss the appropriate temperature at which one can be stripped naked and humiliated, the need to check the skin condition of men who, deprived of sleep and privacy to evacuate their bowels, are forced to wear diapers while chained to a ceiling, and the length of time one can be made to feel like he is drowning.
Tea Party participants held no protests when a modern day would-be King George and his cronies violated the fundamental principles by which our nation was founded. They stood silent while respect for human dignity and the rule of law were cast out by a cabal of power-hungry, amoral tyrants who disguised their acts in bureaucratic legalese.
America can do better than to sink to the behavior of the worst of its enemies. Though the British mistreated American soldiers and civilians, George Washington insisted that his troops behave better: “Treat them with humanity, and let them have no reason to Complain of our Copying the brutal example of the British Army in their treatment of our unfortunate brethren…. Provide everything necessary for them on the road.” If during a war against the then-most powerful army in the world, George Washington could afford the decency to treat prisoners well, certainly President Bush should have done the same, while leading the world’s most powerful military.
Perhaps the conservative critics of the current government are right to say that the Founding Fathers would not recognize the government they created in today’s large, powerful federal government. That pales in comparison to the revulsion they would feel knowing that a President and his lawyers had invoked the nation’s founding principles in a defense of practices they would have abhorred.
On a day when literally a few dozen patriots braved almost freezing weather in Helena to protest…uh…something, it’s hard to describe the best moments. Here’s my favorite collection of links and quotes from today, a day which will live in the fevered imagination of pseudo-patriots forever.
Magical. The best Tea Party organizer in history ripped a hole in the universe with her awe-inspiring lack of self-awareness:
She said she retired on disability from M&T Bank three years ago after undergoing knee replacement and back surgeries. She lives on her Social Security and disability benefits. Last year, she petitioned the bankruptcy court for protection from creditors.
She said she did not have to pay federal income taxes last year because her income was too low.
“I don’t want to see this country turn into a welfare, nanny state, where we stand in line for groceries, and we’re in welfare lines, and in socialized medicine lines,” Wilder said.
The powerful logician weaved a spell with his words:
Wingnut: He’s a fascist.
Roesgen: Why do you say he’s a fascist? He’s the President of the United States. Do you realize how offensive that is?
Wingnut: I think he’s a fascist.
Roesgen: Why?
Wingnut: Because he is.
Government services and taxes are proven to be signs of creeping fascism as the police intervene:
A 68-year-old woman at the Sunbury Pennsylvania protest had to be rescued by police from the Susquehanna River when she inadvertently fell in while trying to dump tea bags in it.
Faux News was so excited they single-handedly tripled the crowd:
In yet another tea-bag day controversy, Fox anchor Neil Cavuto was captured on an open mic discussing the crowd numbers with an on-location producer, estimating the turnout at 5,000 people, but minutes later Cavuto told viewers that “They were expecting 5,000 here, it’s got to be easily double, if not triple that.”
Joe the Plumber revealed his intellectual leadership of the wingnut movement once more:
“I didn’t reinvent anything, I’m just regurgitating,” Mr. Wurzelbacher said, leaving the cheering crowd with one message.
Protestors engaged in polite, thoughtful dialogue about the Presidency:
Roger has some thoughts about Bill:
Yes, the Sun-Times is liberal, having recently endorsed our first Democrat for President since LBJ. We were founded by Marshall Field one week before Pearl Harbor to provide a liberal voice in Chicago to counter the Tribune, which opposed an American war against Hitler. I’m sure you would have sided with the Trib at the time.
Don’t worry– he’s still dishonest.
As you might recall, earlier in the week, Dennis Rehberg breathlessly told the Montana electorate that he had become a champion of open government:
And when it comes to spending tax dollars, sunlight is the best weapon against waste. That’s why I’m taking government transparency to a new level by posting on my website every documented request for funding received by my office.
What Rehberg failed to mention, when taking credit for his initiative, was that he had to:
In January 2009, Rep. David Obey, D-WI, and Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-HI – respectively, chairmen of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees – required members of Congress, for the first time, to publish all their requests for earmarks on their official Web sites.
Incidentally, when Rehberg continually bashes the ‘old way’ of doing business in Washington, am I to assume that he means the way the House ran under Republicans?
Stick to writing resolutions about the Carroll football team, Dennis.
