A Threat To Far

County Judge Tom Head, the top elected official in Lubbock, Texas, recently had this to say about the consequences of Obama’s reelection; “He is going to try to hand over the sovereignty of the United States to the U.N. OK, what’s going to happen when that happens? I’m thinking worst case scenario and civil unrest, civil disobedience, civil war, maybe. And we’re not talking just a few riots and demonstrations. We’re talking Lexington, Concord, take up arms and get rid of the guy.” (Italics mine)

Among other things his statement cries out for derisive humor, the allusion to Lexington and Concord being the juiciest part, and I’ve been kicking this approach around, but without much success. I thought about Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman competing for the part of Molly Pitcher, the invasion coming through Mexico with help from illegal aliens and the difficulty of saying “I surrender” in Bulgarian. On the whole I wasn’t living up to the subject’s potential.

Then I received a phone call from a friend who was planning to vote for Obama, but as a Second Amendment devotee was alarmed by his alleged plan to have our gun control laws dictated and enforced by that same bad old U.N. This was my “eureka” moment. Some nut cake from Texas has the U.N. invading the country. Cooler right wing heads prevail because this is too preposterous for anyone minimally rational, so they tone down the story to serve as material for NRA pep rallies.

All this was done in just a week and not by word of mouth. “One if by land, two if by sea” is so Eighteenth Century. It couldn’t have come from the mass media, being too far-fetched for even Fox “News” or the National Enquirer. The obvious source of this fiction is those “pass it on” emails that I’ve been ranting about lately.

What is particularly incongruous about these messages is that Barack Obama, who has now been president for nearly four years, is being accused of outlandish plans that are completely out of character. His opponent, at this point a relative stranger, is known to openly favor expanding the regressive tax cuts that have served our economy so well for the past ten years and a Medicare system that limits future beneficiaries to $6,000 a year. Whether it’s called a voucher system is beside the point.

What seriously concerns me is the last eight words, “take up arms and get rid of the guy.” Mr. Head is referring to the President of the United States. This is something that would normally attract FBI attention. Wherever the line restricting freedom of speech is this man has crossed it. I’ll finish with a rhetorical question. How would previous Justice Departments have responded?  OK, add an “if.” The question is still rhetorical.