(Article changed on October 12, 2013 at 16:22)
If I could start a country with a
bunch of people, they'd be the folks who were standing with us the last
few days. Let's hope we don't have to do that! Let's beat that other
side to a pulp! Let's take them out. Let's chase them down. There's
going to be a reckoning!
-- GOP Rep. Steve King at a 2010 Tea Party Rally opposing the Affordable Healthcare Act in front of Congress
Our job is to reclaim America for
Christ, whatever the cost. As the vice regents of God, we are to
exercise godly dominion " over our neighborhoods, our schools, our
governments, our literature and arts, our sports arenas, our
entertainment media, our news media, our scientific endeavors -- in
short, over every aspect and institution of human society.
-- D. James Kennedy, Coral Ridge Ministries Pastor, at a "Reclaiming America for Christ" conference in February 2005
We will not try to reform the existing institutions. We only intend to weaken them, and eventually destroy them.
-- A Manifesto from Paul Weyrich's Free Congress Foundation
The current government shutdown is a foretaste of the radical right's deadly serious agenda to take sole power, irrespective of their increasing unpopularity and irrespective of the supposedly sacrosanct rules, principles, laws, and customary ways of doing things in this country. Their targets for overthrow include the Constitution's separation of church and state as well as all of the institutions and arenas of society. This is their attitude, about which they are entirely sincere: "We want it all and we are not going to stop until we get it, because God's on our side and anyone who stands in the way will be beaten to a pulp because we are the lambs of Jesus."
Scroll back four years. On August 11, 2009 I wrote an article, the first of a series of articles about the fury unleashed at Town Halls over Obamacare. It was entitled "Town Hall Fracases and the Fascist Movement." It began this way:
"By now we have nearly all heard about the raucous town hall meetings over health care. In today's Washington Post (August 11, 2009), for example, Sen. Arlen Specter, meeting with the public in a Lebanon, Pennsylvania town hall meeting, reproducing a similar scene that greeted him in Philadelphia last week, we have this revealing excerpt:
"'You have awakened a sleeping giant,' said Katy Abram, 35, a stay-at-home mother from Lebanon. "I don't want this country turning into Russia, turning into a socialized country.'
"'Specter fielded 13 questions before someone voiced support for the health-care reform efforts. Questioner No. 14, Marilyn Boogaard, said she was nervous to stand up and say something positive about Democrats' health plan for fear of being booed.
"'I almost didn't want to ask my question because it's so intimidating,' said Boogaard, 58, a nurse practitioner from Lebanon."
"At the town hall that Obama was going to attend, MSNBC reported:
"'Outside the event where President Obama will conduct his town hall, there is an anti-Obama protestor with a gun -- a pistol strapped to his lower leg.
"'The local police chief said it's legal for the man to have a registered handgun -- as long as it is not concealed. What's more, he is on private property, a church yard, which has given him permission to be there.'"
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