Ooooh, I'm skeered!

[Joanne98]

It's the next American Revolution. I'd have posted on this silliness earlier, but I've been swamped all day, and it's just as well, because I found all sorts of related nuttery to add in. Michelle Malkin has been "organizing" these protests against the stimulus package and calling them "tea parties," and not in the Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back sense of the term.

As I pointed out in the comments Rick's place, Malkin and her acolytes have the history wrong. The battle cry during the American Revolution was "no taxation without representation." Malkin et al have representation--they just lost the election. After the last eight years of being told that I needed to just deal with the fact that the Republicans had won, I think I'm justified in saying that Malkin and her crew need to put on their big girl and big boy undies and deal.

But no, they're not doing that. No, they're talking revolution, and they're hanging the stupid out there for everyone to get a whiff of.
Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress, who are so anxious to raise income taxes on the "rich," will be in for a rude surprise. There is nothing Obama can do about people who would rather not work than have the fruits of their labors confiscated, or who structure their lives to avoid taxation.

In addition to protest, supporters of the Tea Party would do well to change their economic behavior to deprive Obama of what he wants most, your tax dollars. Invest in municipal bonds, carefully manage your investments to minimize taxable income, do everything possible and legal to insulate yourself from creating taxable income. In so doing, you will doom Obama's plans because the inability to raise tax revenues will cause Obama to move to more confiscatory tactics, and then the political revolt really will begin, as it has throughout history. Can you say 1994?
I'll give Jacobsen this much--he's right that there's nothing President Obama could do about people who would rather not work. I mean, I'm presuming that said people wouldn't apply for welfare and would be turned down for unemployment benefits--don't want to be sucking off the government teat, after all.

But it's a poster (pseudo)named Florida (of course) in the comments who really goes all in.
If this minority began restructuring their incomes to avoid being taxed ... the government would merely change the laws to tax this group via an alternative route. Do you think the government is merely going to stand for your insolence?

No, they're not going to stand still for it.

Look at California. Republican Governor. Pledged not to raise taxes when he was running. Today ... is raising taxes.

So, you can't avoid this even if you vote Republican. Deck is stacked my man, and you're out of cards.

There's only one way and it's the way of Paul Revere and all of our other forefathers ... be willing to spill tea.

And blood.
Again, to Jacobsen's credit, he says in the very next comment that the last two words are "a step too far," but read the comments that follow--Jacobsen is pretty much alone in that crowd. There's talk about how Florida is only talking about history and how gun and ammo sales are the only strong part of the economy right now and so on.

And this is only one site. Glenn Greenwald posted earlier today about a piece Glenn Beck (who else?) did on Fox News gaming out the next Civil War.
In the segment below, he convened a panel that includes former CIA officer Michael Scheuer and Ret. U.S. Army Sgt. Major Tim Strong. They discuss a coming "civil war" led by American "Bubba" militias -- Beck says he "believes we're on this road" -- and they contemplate whether the U.S. military would follow the President's orders to subdue civil unrest or would instead join with "the people" in defense of their Constitutional rights against the Government (they agree that the U.S. military would be with "the people")
Fortunately, Glenn Beck is the epitome of anti-accurate. Even Bill Kristol can tell you the correct time three times out of five. Okay, two. But ask Beck what time it is and he's liable to say "anal cysts! Guadalcanal! the glebe cow!"

Which is why I'm not sweating all this huff and puff, and am instead treating it with utter contempt and disdain. The military isn't going to defect en masse to overthrow a President a sizable number of them voted for, and the kinds of guys who make up your average militia are more likely to shoot themselves in the feet than take over a town.

And if they wait a couple of years to try, then maybe they can get their wounds treated under a universal health care system.

http://incertus.blogspot.com/2009/02/ooooh-im-skeered.html

[YOY]

1. I've known a few of those militia types.

They woudnn't shoot themselves in the foot. Those guys live and breathe guns to the point of unhealthy obsession. They know their guns and pseudosurvivalism...but that's about all they really know well.

They however, couldn't lead shit. Their little group is made up of them and their kids. Everyone else thinks their crazy. Even the law inforcement. It would take a lot more to make the public revolt than their crazy (and known racist/violent asshole) neighbor shoving his least favorite rifle in their hands.

[8 track mind]

2. It's the "Turner Diaries" mindset

I read that book and it's what these militias use for a basic blueprint. They think that a single act of violence of high magnatude will start the whole revolution via public revolt. I agree with your statement about these guys not being able to lead shit.

[YOY]

3. Where I grew up there was a group of them living in a foresty area by the highway.

Every year, they put up a political sign by the highway. Alway pro-Republican or pro-NRA.

One of their kids (apparently kind of a rebel for them) would come to local parties. I think they were home schooled there but I am not sure. He was not a friendly dude but wasn't violent and would just drink everyone else's beer and leer at people. Any and all conversations would always go back to guns. I honestly think that's all he (raised that way no doubt) thought about. He would say things like "the government wants to take away our guns on several occasions."

I don't hate the 2nd Amendment. I just hate the people who think it's the only thing in the constitution and/or forgot the part in the preamble that the Amendments are not listed in order of importance.