A fantasy is a situation imagined by an individual or group which does not correspond with reality, but expresses certain desires or aims of its creator(s). Fantasy is not unlike little kiddies playing make believe where they pretend or imagine things are different than they really are and imitate something that is real; such as when small children pretending they are grown-up army men with an enemy to kill. Since Americans elected an African American man as President, a group of childish men fantasized they are either living in 1776 fighting the government to preserve their freedom, or mobilizing to wage war against a foreign army invading America’s borders.
The children pretending they are revolutionary war heroes protecting the U.S. Constitution have been amassing their imaginary army on the Southern border to battle the influx of refugee children fleeing violence in Central America. These make-believe warriors have the express consent and blessing of Texas Republicans who love the idea of armed vigilantes wanting to “point their guns dead at children, right between the eyes, and say get back across the border or you will be shot.” The seriousness of the issue is the make-believe army men are not children, they are heavily armed, and not only do they want to shoot child refugees, they want to wage war against the government.
Two Texas Republicans, gubernatorial candidate Gregg Abbott and state Representative Doug Miller claimed that the armed militias “have a right to be there to help ranchers and owners keep illegals coming onto their property.” A couple of weeks ago after a dozen Texas Democrats sickened by the armed threats against child refugees penned a letter to Abbott imploring him to “denounce the actions of these militia groups and clarify the jurisdiction these militia groups have to patrol alongside local law enforcement and Border Patrol agents,” Abbott did what one expects from a Texas Republican; claimed the Democrats’ letter was a “partisan political stunt” because Abbott has absolutely no problem with heavily armed vigilantes threatening refugee children.
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The armed militias Abbott will not denounce and Miller claims have every right to play army are a dangerous combination of so-called Oathkeepers and members of the “Three Percenters Club.” Besides being make-believe border guards, both groups are “paranoid anti-government conspiracy freaks” and proven “potentially violent gun activists” who think supporting and defending the United States Constitution is threatening the government and confronting children at the border. However, like most children living in a fantasy, neither group can elucidate how amassing at the border heavily-armed or threatening the government is “defending and supporting the Constitution.”
The Oathkeepers claim they, like every public school teacher, swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic; “and meant it.” The Oathkeepers warn of government officials planning to “disarm the American people, confiscate the property of the American people, including food and other essential supplies, and blockade American cities thus turning them into giant concentration camps.” There is no truth to their claims, but that is precisely why they live in a fantasy world; their claims are imaginary. What Oathkeepers cannot say, is where in the Constitution it tells them to lock and load to confront brown children at the border, commit seditious conspiracy against a United States agency (Bureau of Land Management), or aim their guns at federal officials executing a court order to “start the second revolutionary war.”
The Three Percenter Club’s imagination is as vivid as the Oathkeepers, and claims its make-believe army is made up of members who have been given “the capabilities and resources necessary to execute Military Strategies to defend against foreign and domestic enemies;” like child refugees and the United States government. Apparently, the Three Percenter club devised its name from “the 3% of colonist (sic) who refused orders by the British Crown to surrender their firearms in the American Revolution.” Apparently, Three Percenters are too childish to understand that no-one has asked any American to “surrender their firearms.” That is a major problem with people that are convinced they live in revolution-era America; they lust to wage war on the United States government as part of their defense of the Constitution they likely never read. The Three Percenter Club’s founder, Mike Vanderboegh, claims the “movement’s core belief is a willingness to offer violent resistance to the United States government,” something definitely NOT in the U.S. Constitution they support.
According to Vanderboegh, “We intend to maintain our God-given natural rights to liberty and property, and that means most especially the right to keep and bear arms. We are committed to the restoration of the Founders’ Republic, and are willing to fight, die and, if forced by any would-be oppressor, kill in the defense of ourselves and the Constitution that we all took an oath to uphold against enemies foreign and domestic. The collectivists (Charles Koch’s name for non-conservatives) who now control the government should leave us alone if they wish to continue unfettered oxygen consumption. Attempt to further oppress us at your peril and WATCH WHAT HAPPENS.”
The Three Percenters, like the Oathkeepers, are part of the mindset that joined Cliven Bundy to start the second revolutionary war against the United States because they support and defend the Constitution. The Constitution, by the way, that gave two federal courts power to order federal officials to prevent Bundy from trespassing on federal land. Like the situation in Texas where Republicans support armed vigilantism at the border, Republicans supported Bundy and his play soldiers praising them as patriots who had “a right to be there ‘helping’ a rancher keep ‘illegals’ (federal officers) from coming onto” the U.S. government’s land.
These so-called Constitution supporters’ fantasy that it is their job to take on the role of border patrol agents, or threaten violence against the United States government, although childish, is dangerous and every bit as much the fault of Republicans as the traitors arming up against the government and children. Republicans sounded a clarion call to defend the border from “ebola infested” children with terrorist ties invading America because there is a midterm election looming, and spent the past five-and-a-half years warning of an overreaching government seizing their guns and subverting their freedom; even though there have been no gun safety laws passed since 1995, and ebola is unique to the African continent, not Central America. Republicans have perpetuated the fantasy that America is facing an existential threat since 2009, and it informs the real reason so-called defenders of the Constitution are taking up arms against the government is because they hate democracy that allowed the people to elect an African American man to occupy the White House. Those two elections drove their fantasy that they are in revolutionary war against America and child immigrants.
Everything about the armed militias plaguing America is borne of their fantasy belief that they have been assaulted because the people elected a Black man as President. They cannot possibly support and defend the Constitution because the fantasy document they support is not remotely related to the real Constitution any more than arming up against child refugees and the federal government is being a patriot. A child’s imagination, fantasies, and make believe is a wonder to behold, but when grown men that should be holding down a real job instead of fantasizing they are in a revolutionary war against the United States government and use firearms to confront refugee children, their fantasy makes the traitors against America and cowards for laying in wait for child refugees fleeing violence in Central America.
Audio engineer and instructor for SAE. Writes op/ed commentary supporting Secular Humanist causes, and exposing suppression of women, the poor, and minorities. An advocate for freedom of religion and particularly, freedom of NO religion.
Born in the South, raised in the Mid-West and California for a well-rounded view of America; it doesn’t look good.
Former minister, lifelong musician, Mahayana Zen-Buddhist.
