Tea-baggers flirt with armed rebellion

Racist losers looking snappy in uniform

It was inevitable, of course, that all that spew that Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Sister Sarah vomit out onto the airwaves would lead to something like this:

One of the leaders of the Oklahoma tea-bag movement, Al Gerhart has proposed creating a state militia to "defend against what [he] believe[s] are improper federal infringements on state sovereignity." Catch that? He's advocating creating an armed force as a counter to the federal government!

Tea-bagger Al Gerhart:  Just like Jeff Davis, only dumber and less hairy

The purported "final straw" that caused Mr. Gerhart to propose this drastic step?  The passage of health care reform legislation by Congress last month.  You see, if health insurance companies are required to extend coverage to more Americans, if they are not free to renege on their commitments to those who pay premiums, if they are held to account for how they use the money that they extort from the American populace --well, then we are no longer "free."

Of course, one dim-witted tea-bagger justifying his fever-brained paranoid fantasies by reciting Fox News talking points is nothing new.  But here's the kicker:  Mr. Gerhart has apparently found a sympathetic ear or two in the Oklahoma State Legislature!

Said Oklahoma State Senator Randy Brogdon (a Republican), "[The founding fathers] were not referring to a turkey shoot or a quail hunt. They really weren't even talking about us having the ability to protect ourselves against each other.  The Second Amendment deals directly with the right of an individual to keep and bear arms to protect themselves from an overreaching federal government."

Oklahoma State Senator Randy Brogdon:  traitor?

Er... not exactly, Randy.  Here's what the Second Amendment of the Constitution actually says:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

See?  Nothing in there about an overreaching federal government.

I suppose it is possible that Senator Brogdon communicated directly with the Founding Fathers in some right-wing orgiastic seance.  Can't you just see it?  Senator Brogdon, Texas Governor Rick Perry, and Glenn Beck holding hands around a table, in a candle-lit room, chanting, weeping, beseeching their gods, when the spirit of Thomas Jefferson appears and exhorts them to raise an army to fight off the tyranny of people getting health care insurance?

Tea-baggers can dress it up any way they like:  Second Amendment Rights, defense of the Constitution, whatever. Let's refer once again to the Constitution of the United States to see what the "revered" Founding Fathers had to say about it.  Article III, Section 3, Clause 1 of that document states:  "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them..."

Isn't it ironic that the Republican party, birthed on a platform of abolition and the indivisibility of the United States, should today be co-opted by the descendants of the very people who chose to secede from the Union rather than accept its first Republican president?  Isn't it ironic that the Republican party is now the party of treason and sedition?

It will be interesting to see how high-profile Republicans react to this new development.  Will they denounce the rhetoric coming out of Oklahoma?

Well, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Tom Coburn, Eric Cantor?  How are you going to deal with this?

I have my own personal message for rascally tea-baggers.  Quoting the character Duncan Idaho from Frank Herbert's novel God Emperor of Dune:  "Draw that knife or take your hand off it!"