Various Tea Party organizers say they want a more respectable image for their movement. They better reiterate their wishes to their fellow TP's in New York and Oklahoma, because those folks haven't gotten the message. Carl Paladino, the Tea Party choice for New York governor has been caught once again being anything but respectable. The super-rich developer has previously been revealed as a diehard racist, and today, WNYmedia.net published several e-mails sent by Paladino to friends and associates. Read more details here, but in the meantime, heres a short list of Paladino's e-mails: A video titled Obama Inauguration Rehearsal," featuring an African tribesman dancing; under the subject line "Proof the Irish discovered Africa," a video of monkeys that appear to be doing a Riverdance-style jig; and, unbelievably, a video of a woman having sex with a horse.
Meanwhile in Oklahoma, Tea Partiers want to create a new volunteer militia, and are pressing state lawmakers to sanction the idea. They say they need the militia in order to defend their state against federal violations of state sovereignty. Coming from right-wingers in the state where the Alfred P. Murrah building was blown up because of an earlier paranoid, anti-government conspiracy theory, this new idea for a state militia isnt exactly comforting.
Tea Partiers, as you know, say theyre all about the Constitution, but their knowledge of the actual document is often lacking. For instance, Oklahoma state senator Randy Brogdon, who supports the idea for a volunteer militia in his state, says the Second Amendment is about the right of an individual to keep and bear arms to protect themselves (sic) from an overreaching federal government." Maybe in your dreams, Randy, but, no, not really. Whenever militias are mentioned in the Constitution, they are clearly to be organized (and well-regulated, as per the Second Amendment) to fight for the interests of the federal government, specifically against foreign invasion and domestic sedition as in, people who would want to arm themselves to fight the federal government. In fact, a closer reading of the Constitution would do the Oklahoma Tea Partiers some good. Namely, read Article I, in which Congress is given the power to organize, arm, discipline, and call up militias, while the states are only empowered to appoint militia officers and train the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress. Also, check out Article II, Section 2, in which the President is named commander in chief, not just of the army and navy, but also of the various states militias. Its doubtful that the Oklahoma militia types really want to take orders from Pres. Obama, but thats what theyll face if their goofball, get-a-real-life-for-Gods-sake militia idea is sanctioned by their states government.
Richard Nixon sent a chill through the radical left in 1971 when demonstrators planned to shut down Washington, D.C. through massive civil disobedience in what became known as the MayDay protests. Nixon simply said, "If that's how they want it, this country has dealt with sedition before, and it can do it again." It's getting damned close to the time when someone like, say, Joe Biden, needs to bring up the subject again.
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