While in Asheville, North Carolina this past Monday I saw a free publication I couldn’t avoid. The Asheville Tribune is published by The Tribune Papers, an ultra-right-wing political publication dedicated to the fall of the United States. On its cover it showed a bus that has been travelling around, hosting John Locke Society speakers and explaining how President Obama and the Liberals will be coming to kill your grandparents – and not simply because their proposals will fail but because “They want to ration healthcare.”
The implication of an Orwellian plan to execute the old is left hanging in the air only long enough to be picked up again and smashed repeatedly onto the heads of the “hundreds of people” who have been coming to see this Magic Mystery Tour.
But this newspaper is even more special. It’s for Conservatives promoting the death of America. Now them’s some real patriots!
Dallas Woodhouse – director of Americans for Prosperity North Carolina – was “raspy already from two days of screaming”, which sums up the tenor and content of the article, and, I can only imagine, the bus tour. This is entirely in line with the shouting, screaming, ranting and pitching of wild accusations that has come to typify the vocal opposition to health care reform we have all come to be embarrassed on behalf of.
The speakers at the bus tour set out a circular litany of presupposed points to argue against – none of which are part of the proposals being discussed in the House or Senate – and proudly knock them down. “Clearly demonstrating” points by making assertions, railing against the “nationalized healthcare” that the Democrats are pushing, stating (and thereby, I suppose, proving) that this socialist system will run out of money, thereby requiring rationing. Mark Hopp, physical therapist and former accountant, spoke for the Learned: “Like most, Hopp suspected that the elderly would be the first to be denied treatment.”
Of course they would. You said so, so it must be true.
But as I mentioned in the opening, this newspaper doesn’t stop at opposing health care reform, or the President, or Democrats or even liberals in general. Like all good End Times Militia supporters, the Asheville Tribune supports and advocates the end of the United States of America. An article on the Tribune website – The Conservative Republican Myth, by Asheville lawyer Steve Kropelnicki – spells out the agenda of the publication and calls conservatives to abandon America and keep their powder dry for the rapidly-approaching aftermath among the ruins:
And so conservatives must abandon the Republican party. Far more important, we must abandon loyalty to the federal government. That government is our enemy. It is corrupt beyond hope of redemption, bloated, powerless to accomplish good. It is a malignancy which first destroyed the constitution and soon will destroy itself.
Not content with standing idly by and watching our nation fail, Mr. Kropelnicki suggests that conservatives need to actively work to bring about the destruction of America – non-violently, or course – by undermining the institutions of government and promoting secessionist movements:
We must organize and support a third party, not to win elections to federal office, but to drain off support from the traditional parties…
A handful of state legislators have given us state sovereignty resolutions and other acts of defiance which can be the start of real resistance to Washington. We must add fuel to these fires.
Amid protests of patriotism, this paragon of American Conservatism plays taps for the nation and proudly marches into the future looking to own the leadership position in the New Empire,
As much as we have loved her, the America of our forefathers is dead.
With patriots like these, who needs enemies?
Washington will fail. Conservatives must revoke their allegiance, before the deluge. Then we can form the organization, provide the leadership, and garner the support which will be required to draw in the remnant and build a new constitutional republic.
Tell you what, Mr. Kropelnicki, I’ll be here working for the country you claim to support while you are looking to stab it in the heart and we’ll let time and public opinion weigh in on which is patriotic and which isn’t.
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