Bigotry is a powerful motivator for people prone to hate, and it is undoubtedly why a specific segment of the population hates both President Obama and the United States government regardless their assertions their hate is founded on their love of religious liberty, freedom, and the U.S. Constitution. Racism is unquestionably why, since 2008 when Americans first elected an African American man as President, governance has ground to a halt and there is an increase in threats of rebellion against the United States government. It is likely true there has always been a seditious element in the population panting to wage war against the government, but they were likely outliers out of reach of mental health professionals’ ability to ensconce them safely in a padded cell.
The latest call to arms to overthrow the government and oust President Obama and several Democrats by military coup is being framed as a biblical David v. Goliath, colonists v. King George III, and Jedi v. Sith, and curiously all in the memory of victims of the Nazi Holocaust. The man still intent on escalating “what has now sadly become the Second American Revolution” is tiresome Larry Klayman who claimed his crusade to overthrow President Obama was “In the name of liberty and freedom.” However, Klayman did not stop at his regular “liberty and freedom” spiel and said, “We the People, sound our own battle cry by pledging our allegiance to ourselves and our loved ones with the memory of over 6 million Jews who were tortured, raped, gassed and burned alive in Adolf Hitler’s concentration camps. Never again will government power and evil officials get free reign to use the power of the state to destroy liberty and freedom and annihilate the people. As during biblical and American revolutionary times, David is destined to prevail over Goliath, with the help of our Lord and Savior.”
Klayman’s comparison between the government with an African American President and the Holocaust is beyond the pale even for him, and he did not cite one example of the state destroying liberty and freedom much less annihilating the people. He did, however, claim the sole reason the Constitution’s framers included the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights was to wage war against “Obama, Reid and their henchmen who undoubtedly are digging up dirt as we speak to give to government authorities like the FBI to smear and destroy the Bundys, their supporters and all of us who stand tall against their government tyranny. I say, Go to Hell.” It took Klayman a while to frame Bundy’s sedition and criminality as a battle cry to overthrow President Obama, but it was only a matter of time.
Klayman framed the racist Bundy and his band of seditious armed militias as battling the evil Sith from Star Wars and claimed “the Empire comprised of the likes of President Barack Hussein Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid” were guilty of “illegally using federal power, such as the FBI, to investigate those citizens who exercised their Second Amendment rights to successfully defend the Bundys, the nation and themselves from government tyranny. The Russian Putinesque behavior of these corrupt government officials is exactly what the framers of the Constitution intended the Second Amendment to be used for.” No doubt Klayman was delighted to use Bundy as a reason to ramp up his rhetoric in support of armed rebellion against the government.
His insane coupling of Star Wars, the Holocaust, King George III, and Bundy’s armed militias “defending themselves and the nation from government tyranny” aside, it is Klayman’s contention that the President, Eric Holder, and Harry Reid are guilty of “illegally using federal power such as the FBI” to investigate obvious acts of sedition that reeks of incitement to rebellion against the government. The FBI is required by law to investigate Bundy’s armed militias “If two or more persons conspire to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States,” and “resists, opposes, impedes, intimidates, or interferes with any person while engaged in or on account of the performance of official duties.” There were absolutely no illegal actions on the part of the Obama Administration or the FBI in investigating “acts of sedition” and Klayman knows it, but he is setting the stage for an armed confrontation that was averted over the weekend when a Utah Republican led Gadsden flag-waving “patriots” trespassing on federal land in Utah.
The so-called patriots rode ATVs and motorcycles on an off-limits trail in southern Utah on Saturday to protest what the group called the federal government’s overreaching control of public lands owned by the federal government. The Republican who organized the mass trespass was Utah San Juan County Commissioner Phil Lyman, who said he led the trespassers over the off-limits land to teach the federal government that that the federal agency (Bureau of Land Management) is not the “supreme authority,” and that “just because BLM owns the property, that doesn’t mean they own the right-of-way that exists.” The BLM closed access to the trails on land the federal government owns because it is home to dwellings, artifacts, and burials left behind by Ancestral Puebloans as many as 2,000 years ago before they mysteriously vanished.
San Juan Country Sheriff Rick Eldredge said the trespassers, many waving American and Gadsden flags and carrying weapons removed barricades and drove across protected sites before attending a protest rally at a nearby park. The illegal ride was a precursor to a concerted effort by Utah Republicans to seize federal land, and it is little surprise that some of Bundy’s children and militia supporters also took part in the illegal ride in Recapture Canyon. About 30 deputies and a handful of BLM law enforcement personnel watched the protesters drive past a closure sign and damage artifacts and dwellings that “tell the story of the first farmers in the Four Corners region” of Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado according to BLM Utah State Director Juan Palma. A Bundy supporter from Montana said the illegal ride was “a continuation of the Bundy affair,” and like the sedition in Nevada, BLM officials recorded and documented protesters who traveled into the closure area. In fact, BLM officials had warned riders all week to stay out, vowing prosecution against those who ignored a law put in place in 2007 after an illegal trail was found that cut through the ancestral ruins. The canyon is open to hikers and horseback riders.
The antigovernment attitudes in the West are closely related to Larry Klayman’s intent to provoke a rebellion against the legally elected government, and the threatening language against both the BLM and federal government is not about the Holocaust, Star Wars, biblical David and Goliath, dead King George III, or freedom. It is about forcing the federal government to cede its constitutional authority over the states; for Western states it is all about seizing federally-owned and managed land. Recently in Mormon-controlled Salt Lake City, more than 50 political leaders from nine states convened to plot how best to achieve their joint goal of wresting control of oil, timber, and mineral-rich lands away from the federal government. Six Western states are carefully studying how to take over federal land within their borders, and using threats of armed violence appears to be a viable option or Republicans would be decrying the seditious rhetoric of Klayman and Bundy’s supporters.
It is true there have always been anti-government sentiments among right wing extremists, but there were no overt calls for rebellion against the government until an African American man was elected President. The racial element cannot be overlooked because if the so-called patriot movement was so intent on toppling the federal government, they would have called for rebellion during eight years of the Bush assault on individual liberties. Men like Larry Klayman may be a mental case, and his appeal to overthrow President Obama in memory of Holocaust victims is an abomination, but his intent is no laughing matter and his defense of the welfare criminal Bundy was meant to marshal support from racists disguised as patriots whose only complaint against the federal government is there is an African American man in the Oval Office; a fact racist Republicans can only change with Second Amendment remedies because King George III is dead, light sabers are fake, and David and Goliath are a myth.
Born in the South, raised in the Mid-West and California for a well-rounded view of America; it doesn't look good.
Former minister, lifelong musician, Mahayana Zen-Buddhist.
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