Teabagger Coup: First Blood?

The FBI is investigating the death of census worker Bill Sparkman, who was found hanging from a tree in Kentucky with the word "fed" scrawled across his chest. The presence of an anti-government slur is already sparking a debate over whether right-wing conspiracy-theorizing is becoming irresponsible. Paranoia about the census had been spread by a handful of conservative leaders, including Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who suggested she would not be completing the census because it could be used to establish internment camps like those constructed for Japanese-Americans during World War II.

(From "Dead Census Worker Sparks Debate Over Conspiracy Theories" by Max Fisher at The Atlantic)

There's not much that scares me on the news. Even though our infotainment news media tries hard to ruin my day, every day, exaggerating the perils of terrorism, swine flu, economic catastrophe, blah blah, I usually manage to keep a clear head. But the whole teabagging thing makes me worry - especially in light of Pelosi's recent comments and how they seem presciently to foreshadow the recent "Fed" lynching in Kentucky.

I live in Texas and, trust me, the place swarms with racists, secessionist 'libertarians' and religious 'conservatives' who all seem just one polite 'howdy' away from lynching a 'Fed' or pulling a McVeigh. A lot of the good folks round here could be labeled as politicized Rednecks. At face, they're regular folks. But talk to any of them and you'll get the picture that the news channels won't talk about: they hate the federal government, they think black folks should know their place and they are all mad as hell that a black guy is running our 'white Christian' country. (So God knows how bad it is in Kentucky and the other armpit states of the South that make Texas look like France.)

Those 'thinkers' responsible for firing up the teabaggers - the Bachman/Becks/Hannitys/Limbaughs/et al. - clearly need putting in check because they are dangerous and represent a far greater threat to American democracy than foreign nutjobs like al Qaeda. They may rant about 'small government', but the logical end to all this teabagger BS, if successful, would be an American fascist government. They don't want 'small government' they want a coup d'etat that would put them in power so they can set about reversing civil rights, closing the borders and turning the country into one big corporate circle jerk with evangelical Christian mania as a distraction.

'Teabaggers' know they ain't smart and really do treat intelligence with suspicion. So their dream is a homogeneous, authoritarian state that validates their own 'beliefs' and makes all the folks who disagree with them go away. Literally.

Just as Anarchism paved the way for authoritarian Communism in the early 20th century, so Libertarianism seems to be greasing the wheels of American Fascism today. Sure, Ron Paul says some good stuff and I can dig the whole 'hate the government thing' (I used to read Bakunin, Proudhon and Kropotkin when I was younger), but there's nothing 'libertarian' about these people. They're straight-up, common or garden fascists and every self-respecting resident of the southern states, every lover of democracy in America should be denouncing them loudly and unequivocally.