The Day the Government Opened - October 17, 2013

October 18, 2013

Watching the Rachel Maddow Show last night, I became terribly concerned by her opening comments and then by her discussion with Michael Bechloss, whom I love as I love Rachel. Both of them felt that yesterday was the First Day of some Bright New Future in which The Evil Forces of Tea Partyism had been put in their place.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The Tea Party's open warfare agains the federal government has just begun. They plan to shut down government AGAIN in January, to extort over the debt ceiling in February, and their goal remains the obliteration of the Affordable Care Act, which they truly believe brings the drowning wave of socialism to America. They don't seem to realize that people are buying insurance from for-profit private insurance companies. They speak of free insurance.

And their number one goal in destroying Obamacare remains what Jim Dimint said several years ago about stopping it being Obama's Waterloo. "It will break him," he said. THAT is the goal: To break Barack Obama, to destroy Barack Obama.

These people do not believe in the Rule of Law, Democracy, or the Constitution. Oh, they give lip service, and they will pull out their guns and shoot you it they think you don't believe in the Constitution. But they believe God's Law is higher and comes first in their allegiance. Read them. Listen to them. There are plenty of books and good quality articles out there and I don't mean crazy internet stuff. Even Joe Scarborough says they need to read the first three articles of the Constitution and call him in the morning. Many of these people, for example, Ted Cruz and Michele Bachmann, are Christian Dominionists. Texas is home to the New Apostolic Reformation, which wants to take over everything.

All of them are batshit crazy. And dangerous.

Rachel cannot help fight a deadly enemy until she recognized he is there, sneaking up in the night, waiting for his moment to strike and kill democracy.

Do not forget that more votes were cast for Democratic Congresspeople than Republicans in the last election, one million and a half more. But because of the absurdly gerrymandered Republican districts, made possible by the money that flows since the Citizens United decision, the Republicans actually won more seats. That is certainly not a democratically elected House of Representatives.

Yesterday was indeed the first day of something. It was the first day of our Second Civil War. No shots have been fired as yet, as far as I know, but war has been declared by the Neo-Confederates. We will see more Confederate flags. We will see more secessionist movements. And nullification is already everywhere.

I don't do this war talk everywhere. I try not to be an alarmist. I am trying to get through to Rachel. We who love this Union that Lincoln gave his life for need her fighting, not celebrating.

Let me stress that: Lincoln gave his life for this Union.