Anti-Government Resistance Now The Beating Heart Of GOP

[babylonsister]

http://www.nationalmemo.com/anti-government-resistance-now-the-beating-heart-of-gop/?utm_source=Sailthru


Anti-Government Resistance Now The Beating Heart Of GOP
May 11, 2015 6:00 am / 6 Comments / Featured Post, Memo Pad
Leonard Pitts Jr.

snip//

“Twenty years ago,” I wrote, “the idea of anti-government resistance seemed confined to a lunatic fringe operating in the shadows beyond the mainstream. Twenty years later, it is the mainstream, the beating heart of the Republican Party. And while certainly no responsible figure on the right advocates or condones what he did, it is just as certain that McVeigh’s violent antipathy toward Washington, his conviction that America’s government is America’s enemy, has bound itself to the very DNA of modern conservatism.”

That’s the argument conservatives found “hateful” “sickening,” and “dishonest.”

So it is, depending upon your religious outlook, a fortuitous coincidence or superfluous evidence of God’s puckish sense of humor that a few days later comes news of conservatives accusing the federal government of trying to take over the state of Texas. It seems the four branches of the U.S. military are gearing up for Operation Jade Helm 15, an eight-week training exercise across seven states. Right-wing conspiracy theorists online and on radio are claiming the exercise is actually a pretext for a federal takeover of the Lone Star State, with — get this — abandoned Walmarts to be used for the processing of prisoners!

snip//

Forgive me if I don’t spend a lot of space pointing out that this is stupid, though I can’t resist asking: If the Navy, Army, Marines, and Air Force were, indeed, planning to take over Texas, just what does Gov. Abbott think the state guard would be able to do about it?

There is, however, a more pressing observation to be made. After all, chances are good you’ve never heard about any of this — the story hasn’t garnered major headlines — and that, hearing of it now, you are not terribly surprised. That speaks pointedly of how inured we have become to the insane, paranoiac, anti-government prattle flowing like sewage from the political right. Duly elected leaders, putatively responsible people, give credence to the crazy idea that the federal government is about to attack its second most populous state and we shrug because it’s just another Tuesday in the lunatic asylum of American politics.

Look, I get it: No one wants to be compared to McVeigh. And I’ll repeat: No one in a position of responsibility embraces his prescription of terrorist violence. But it seems to me beyond argument that in the philosophical struggle for the soul of conservatism, he lost the battle and won the war. Much of what now passes for conservatism proceeds from extremes of government loathing that would have stunned Ronald Reagan himself.

Some of my readers used many colorful words to characterize that argument. Here’s the word I’d use:

Obvious.

[brewens]

1. Reminds me of te Delta Force snipers at Waco (is it always Texas?). Funny that the Delta Force

commander was never called to testify before the committee and explain just WTF he thought he was doing? LOL I suppose he would have tore them out a new one over that!

[leftofcool]

2. We tend to laugh off this type of rhetoric.

We just might be ignoring this at our own peril. Where there is one anti-government nut job there are 100 more who think the same. The rise in hate groups and militia folks over the last 30 years scares me more than ISIS. There are pockets of these people in every state. We are smart enough to realize that one state can not go up against its own national military but that does not mean many innocent people won't get hurt if they try.

[freshwest]

3. Does any faction on the left equate with, or opposes the anti-governmentalism of the right?

Last edited Mon May 11, 2015, 03:11 PM - Edit history (1)

I have a few ideas, but want to hear answers from others.