The reasons given for the desire to form militias are already taken care of by organizations like the national guard. The only real, true goal of these people is domestic terrorism, or using intimidation and threats of domestic terrorism to get their way politically.
So we went from Palin being the most extreme face of the GOP, to politicians openly supporting efforts at domestic terrorism in 1.5 years. The Overton window moves fast.
There is no real reason for them to do this unless they want to commit violence, or at least threaten violence.
These people never gave a shit about federal intrusions when Bush was in office. No Child Left Behind, Medicare part D, PATRIOT ACT, wiretaps, detention of US citizens, etc and not a peep. But let a black guy get elected president and pass a bill fining them if they don’t buy health insurance and all of a sudden they care about the constitution. How convenient.
As a liberal, I don’t know if this is good or bad. It is good because it might wake a lot of people up to what the contemporary GOP has become (the tea party is a very strong force in the GOP). And the fact that after only 1 year they are trying to form groups with the sole agenda of committing or threatening domestic terrorism should really say something. But who knows.
Either way, there is no valid reason for them to form militias unless it is to threaten or create violence. All the other reasons they give are already taken care of by other organizations.
I don’t know if Brogdon is a mainstream GOP candidate for governor in Oklahoma. But still. You really have to wonder what 2-3 more years of this kind of ratcheting extremism is going to lead to.
It does have the advantage that it forces moderate conservatives to actually confront the issue of conservative extremist craziness, rather than reaping the benefits of their support while ostensibly disregarding them. From your link:
When Oklahoma Republican officials are advising “concern and caution” about a conservative movement, that’s a sign that the monsters are about to start eating their own.
I don’t have a problem with people organizing their own militias, honestly. As long as they don’t ever intend to use them (in anything except communal defense), and submit them mto lawful authority, and possibly most importantly, don’t form them for political reasons or use them as political leverage.
He’s not really. I mean, he’s mainstream in that he’s a state senator and not just some kook running the campaign out of his basement, but the Republican front runner, the current “establishment Republican” candidate, is Mary Fallin, who’s currently a US congresswoman from Oklahoma, and was Lieutenant Governor when the Republicans controlled the statehouse. Brogdon’s not particularly well known, pretty far to the right, even for Oklahoma, and is most famous for his sponsorship of the “Tenth Amendment Bill”, which says that Oklahoma won’t obey any federal law they think is unconstitutional (the bill passed the legislature and got vetoed by the Governor). I really don’t think he’s going to be the Republican candidate.
My guess; just like Clinton was in office, you’ll see them get crazier and crazier until some of them flame out in violent spectacles like Timothy McVeigh, at which point they’ll die down in embarrassment for a few years.
If they would confine themselves to eating their fellow Republicans, I wouldn’t care, but they seem determined to take bystanders with them. They clearly plan on using this militia to defy federal laws and taxes. They want to take up arms against their own country - and they want their own country to pass legislation saying it’s acceptable. Unbelievable.
To be fair, you’re not in their heads, nor do you know for sure why and under what nuances they’re doing this. Honestly, each militia is probably different, and lumping them all together may not be fair. That said, almost all of this will probably come to nothing. Anyone who’s giving press conferences about their militia is probably harmless.
And there’s nothing wrong with deciding that in the event of a breakdown in civil order, the National Guard will be insufficient. That’s a choice that’s quite individualized, and given the reaction* to Katrina, not entirely crazy. As long as these people don’t act until the federal government actually starts rounding people up into death camps, I’ve got no objection. Let 'em blow their income on guns and ammo they’ll never use except in target shooting.
That said, here’s a clip of Tea Partiers cheering at being called “Tim McVeigh wanna-bes.” Scary stuff. Some of these people are crazy, and I’m glad the government is willing and able to intervene when necessary, like what they did with those Hutaree nutcases.
That is my view. If you are into military hardware and want to form a militia to embrace those views, then have at it. But the jist I got from this article is that fundamentally the real motive behind this is to either (eventually) engage in violence or at least use threats of violence against the federal government.
These people don’t seem to respect democracy or the concept that in a democracy you don’t always get your way.
Yeah, it’s not like anyone’s going to blow anything up in Oklahoma City or anything.
appleciders: Loath though I am to defend Hannity and the teabaggers, I believe that the greater context for that remark reveals that the reference to “Tim McVeigh wannabees” has to do with how the Democrats (allegedly) refer to them and not how they think of themselves.
The difference, which you and many others fail to see, is that one directly effects people right in the wallet while the others are generally passive and do not have a direct effect. Have any of your friends or family members been taken away? Have you been placed under investigation? But you have been levied with a bill, tax, penalty, whatever you want to call it, and you always notice that.
But of course it’s because Obama’s black. It’s the new terrorism: if you disagree you must be a racist.
Isn’t there enough rancor without perpetuating this? Seriously.
And what direct effect will the health care law have on their wallets? Do they all not have health insurance and the law will not force them to buy some? Or is it something else?
Personally I’d rather lose my wallet than my freedom, and I’m not even one of the guys waving guns around in public and starting militias. The argument still stands: if you (not you personally, AD, just generically “you”) were okay with the US PATRIOT Act but are suddenly deeply concerned about the loss of “freedom” now that a Democrat is in office, you are a disingenuous twat.
While I agree that the charges of “racism” are flung far too freely, you can’t deny that it is a factor with many of these groups even if the racial difference only serves to emphasize the “otherness” of Obama.
Clinton may have been a Democrat but he was also a white Southern good ol’ boy and so it was harder to get the blue-collar contingent riled over how he was destroying the country or the presidency or whatever it was he was supposedly destroying. Obama doesn’t have that mitigating factor; he’s an Ivy League-educated lawyer who is - yes - black. Do you really think it’s just his policies that are causing people to react differently now?
Well I know a fair number of people who claim to be all about the Constitution when they complain about the current goings on. But I agree with you in a sense. I think they are actually being hypocritical because they’re not really interested in protecting the basis of our laws and government - the vibe I get is that they just want to protect their own self-interest.
The last bunch of Tea Partiers I saw in public was holding signs protesting the Deficit–caused by all that foolish Federal spending. Where were they when Bushie was starting the unnecessary, expensive war in Iraq? (Expensive in blood, too. Including American blood.)
Yes, quite a bit of it is about racism. Some of those who disagree aren’t racists–they are just in denial (or filled with shame) about the motives of their political allies.
Ooh–they’re getting guns but I mustn’t perpetuate the rancor! The fat fools will probably just end up shooting each other by accident–but some of those bullets might go astray.
So they’re looking to have this militia somehow officially recognized or sanctioned by the state; what will that involve, exactly? Are they going to be supplied by the government of Oklahoma, provided with arms, uniforms, maybe just patches? Will there be a public installation where they can conduct their training, or someone to set and oversee performance requirements? Even if it’s just having some sort of contact or liason within the governor’s office, there’s got to be some overhead involved. Just another step in the ongoing conservative campaign for smaller government.
If I lived in Oklahoma, I’d be rather put out if they used my tax dollars to fund this.
That’s especially true of the pundits who egg them on. Do you honestly believe Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and their ilk are losing any sleep at night worrying about a Socialist takeover of the U.S.? Please. The only reason they may be losing sleep is because they’re too busy counting the money they’ve made off people like the rubes in the Oklahoma Constitutional Alliance.
The biggest difference (and why I disagree with you) is that for someone with limited political vision, it’s not a case of “losing wallet” vs. “losing freedom”–there is a class of people (ironically, the ones who distrust “government” the most) who nonetheless trust the military and such implicitly–for them, Bush’s policies led to us beating the hell out of some terrorists and making it easier to catch 'em, and now this new guy is taking away money from me.
If you are the type of unconcerned person who doesn’t see the PATRIOT act as a threat to your freedom, then the Tea Party movement and its timing makes perfect sense. And nothing gets Joe Average Bluecollar suddenly concerned in politics like a potential threat to his bottom line–threats to some ambiguous “terrorists” somewhere, not so much–he’s never done anything wrong, so them government boys wouldn’t wiretap him.