If one listens carefully to conservative devotees, especially those on the far right (the entirety of the movement), a perpetual refrain is their staunch belief in liberty, the U.S. Constitution, revolution-era America, the Founding Fathers, and religious freedom. What one never hears a Republican, teabagger, or their religious extremist brethren say they believe in, champion, or swear to defend is democracy. It might seem curious how one can be a so-called ardent defender of the Constitution and claim loyalty to America and yet despise what is really the basic foundation of this country, democracy, but when one considers why they hate the democratic process, it is painfully obvious they hate the Constitution and America.
It is irrefutable that since January 2009, Republicans revealed they hate democracy by meeting in secret and plotting to subvert any and every attempt by the newly-elected President to lift America out of the Republican-caused economic disaster or govern in any way. It is true their racial bias informed their obstructionism, but their goal was to teach the American people that if they did participate in the democratic process and elected the wrong candidate, Republicans would make them pay and bring governance to a halt; something they have continued unabated throughout President Obama’s tenure in the White House.
A great many conservatives have expressed their hatred of democracy by threatening a civil war, government overthrow, and armed rebellion against the federal government because they cannot comport the democratic process that elected an African American man as President. It is no exaggeration to reason that if they were able, Republicans and their teabagger cohort deeply desire to nullify the past two elections to erase the people’s choice for President from the historical record. Now, Republicans and teabaggers lust to remove the people’s choice for President through the impeachment process; anything to nullify the result of Americans participating in democracy that resulted in the Presidency of Barack Obama.
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In 2012, a Virginia Republican Committee newsletter openly called for armed rebellion if President Obama was re-elected to a second term, and as obscene a display of disdain for democracy as that was, and it was obscene, another Republican stated last week that if Republicans failed to impeach and remove President Obama from office, conservative’s only recourse was preparing for armed rebellion. The Republican is former congressman Tom Tancredo who again called on House Republicans to impeach the President and warned that if “Republicans are afraid to challenge presumptuous dictatorial behavior, then the war is already lost and we should stock up our ammunition shelves and join a militia.”
There can be no mistaking Tancredo’s reiteration of rebellion against the government is solely because Americans elected an African American man as President. There is no reason to claim “the war is already lost” or that “we should stock up our ammunition shelves and join a militia” unless the only recourse to nullifying the people’s vote is violence against the government. That is the overriding mission of a very substantial number of “official” and unofficial state militias listed here and here, and they are not even the white supremacist anti-government extremist groups that exploded after President Obama was elected to his first term.
However, an overriding theme in the great majority of “official” state militias is their willingness to violently oppose U.S. government tyranny due to their belief it is imposing a “socialist” agenda and robbing them of their freedoms; a recurring theme of conservative militants yearning for a “second revolutionary war” and rebellion against the government with an African American President. There were no calls for violent rebellion against the government when George W. Bush was president and there have been no socialist policies put in place during Obama’s Presidency. Republicans and their conservative cabal just cannot tolerate the democratic process when the people elect the “wrong” leader, so decrying tyranny and socialism is a clarion call to prepare for war against the government as “legitimate Constitutional militias” Tom Tancredo claims are necessary if Republicans do not impeach President Obama.
To be fair, some of the official-type militias do tout their organization’s intent to assist citizens in time of disaster, but they are in the minority and still champion their militia as defense against “domestic enemies” in government. A sampling of a few “state militias” reveals that they are preparing for violence against government such as one California militia that states, “We have read the writing on the wall and said “Hell no!” “Hell no, I’m not giving up my country, not to the socialists, and not without a fight!” A Georgia militia claims, “As you all know times are getting worse, but we as patriots don’t have a choice but to stand and fight. It is up to us to defend what others won’t!!”
A Kentucky militia claims its purpose is “to salvage and defend our rights as guaranteed to us by our founding fathers,” because they are “disappointed in the current state of our great country because our personal freedoms and way of life are rapidly vanishing.” The list goes on and on, but one thing vacant from the various militia statements is how their personal freedoms and way of life have been abridged, or how socialism has been manifest as an imposition on their constitutional freedoms; because they have not. All the claims of loss of liberty, freedoms, and socialism are recurring themes of conservatives that began appearing within days of Barack Obama’s inauguration.
After five-and-a-half years, most Americans get it; conservatives are furious that the democratic process produced an African American President and that they are willing to use any means to nullify his election whether it is impeachment, a Republican House lawsuit, or joining a militia to fight a war against the legally elected federal government. That is one of the main differences between conservatives and liberals; accepting the results of democracy and going forward for the good of the nation and well-being of the people.
Despite George W. Bush’s administration blatantly lying to take the country to war, outing an active CIA field agent, and committing war crimes, there were no calls from the left to “stock up our ammunition shelves and join a militia,” or the Democrat Party calling for armed rebellion if Bush was re-elected. But then again liberals do not hate democracy like Republicans and it calls into question the various militias, Republican, and un-American malcontents’ devotion to America because if they hate democracy, then they truly hate the Founding Fathers’ Constitution as much as they do the people’s choice of President.
h/t @TRUTH_TWEETERS
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.
