Stop being mean! All Americans respect democracy!
Republican congressional candidate Stephen Broden stunned his party Thursday, saying he would not rule out violent overthrow of the government if elections did not produce a change in leadership.
In a rambling exchange during a TV interview, Broden, a South Dallas pastor, said a violent uprising "is not the first option," but it is "on the table." [...]
In the interview, Brad Watson, political reporter for WFAA-TV (Channel 8), asked Broden about a tea party event last year in Fort Worth in which he described the nation's government as tyrannical.
"We have a constitutional remedy," Broden said then. "And the Framers say if that don't work, revolution."
Watson asked if his definition of revolution included violent overthrow of the government. In a prolonged back-and-forth, Broden at first declined to explicitly address insurrection, saying the first way to deal with a repressive government is to "alter it or abolish it."
"If the government is not producing the results or has become destructive to the ends of our liberties, we have a right to get rid of that government and to get rid of it by any means necessary," Broden said, adding the nation was founded on a violent revolt against Britain's King George III.
Watson asked if violence would be in option in 2010, under the current government.
"The option is on the table. I don't think that we should remove anything from the table as it relates to our liberties and our freedoms," Broden said, without elaborating. "However, it is not the first option."
Like Sharron Angle and her "Second Amendment remedies", the intent is clear -- if democracy doesn't give the teabaggers the result they want, then violence is on the table.
Of course, violence has always been on the table.
Last night’s Rachel Maddow Show reported that “wanted” posters targeting several abortion providers were distributed by anti-abortion extremists … just before those abortion providers were assassinated.
Posters created to describe the late doctors David Gunn, George Patterson and John Britton are terrifyingly specific, offering information such as physical appearance, addresses, license plate numbers and even children’s names and ages. All three doctors were murdered in the months after the posters were distributed. A similar “wanted” poster was created for Dr. George Tiller, who of course was gunned down by an anti-abortion extremist in 2009. (On Monday, during the Rachel Maddow Show’s usual time slot, MSNBC will air a new documentary called The Assassination of Dr. Tiller.)
Now, new posters are being distributed for three abortion providers in the Charlotte, North Carolina, region, effectively putting a bounty on those doctors’ heads.
Shut up! They're not America's version of the Taliban! Because even though they fetishize violence as a means to an end, and while they disrespect democracy, and hate women and gays and science and sex and Glee ... well, Ann Coulter hasn't beheaded anyone. And until she does, I'm just being mean.
But of course, they share the same values, and they want the same outcome -- an end of secular pluralism and the imposition of their rigid theology, by force if necessary.