One of the most important things for a successful democracy is civilian control of the military. The power of a standing army to take over a nominally democratic society can be seen in the multiple coups and handovers of power in Turkey and the more recent reign of Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan. Those are the best case scenarios, where the power that was seized by the military was returned to the civilian governments, that is not always the case. Burma being an example of when the military takes over and does not relinquish power.

“Originally posted at Squarestate.net“

All this makes the recent establishment of the Armed Forces Tea Party Patriots is so troubling. Talking Points Memo is reporting that active duty marine Gary Stein has formed the group at his Camp Pendleton base.

By doing so Sgt. Stein is breaking long standing policies about active duty military members and partisan activity. Here are a couple of quotes by Sgt. Stein from the TMP article

“People in the military need to be heard,” the group’s prime organizer, Gary Stein — a Marine Corps sergeant stationed at Camp Pendleton in southern California — told TPMmuckraker in an interview. “Our opinions do count.”
Many people in the military “feel like they can’t speak out against Obama or Congress,” said Stein. “The armed forces should have a little bit more say than we think we do,” he said.

Pespective on “Political Violence.”

I have few absolutes in my life. This is by design, the fewer things that you have no bending on the greater the chance that you can find common ground and get progress on issues or even have a happy life. The two I’ll talk about today are torture and political violence.

We have seen a disturbing trend in the last few months of violence based on political views. The man who flew his plane into the IRS, the assassination of Dr. Tiller for performing legal reproductive services, the killing of police officers for the supposed plan by the Obama administration to seize the guns of private citizens, the brick throwing at Democratic political offices and the cutting of gas lines at the family home of the brother of a U.S Representative whose address was posted on the internet by mistake.

Let’s be clear, if a member of Congress or one of their staff is seriously assaulted, the blame will squarely lie with the Republican Party and its leadership in particular. I say seriously assaulted because Rep. Cleaver was spat upon on Sunday and that constitutes assault. But it will not be a legal culpability that the Republicans will have to bear it is the moral responsibility that they as people elected to represent and lead this nation.

We have seen some back peddling from a few Republicans, softly decrying the actions of their supporters as “nuts” or a “ few isolated incidents”. This, of course, completely ignores the years of ever growing rhetoric which paints their political opponents as traitors or baby killers or Socialists or Nazi’s.

This is the problem with maximalist rhetoric. When your opponent and or their policy is compared, without caveat, without any nuance to the worst of the worst of humanity, it takes the social limiters that a civil society depends on off line. If one group of people is really trying to destroy America, then why isn’t it okay to take up arms against them? If one political party is actually voting to kill your grandmother, isn’t that an imminent danger that demands an extreme response?

“Originally posted at Squarestate.net

Indeed, enough was enough when right wing miscreants charged Democrats with setting up death panels to knock off our grandmothers so expenses would be lowered, and of raising costs that they were actually lowering, and a multitude of other totally baseless accusations. It was enough when the right wing representatives appealed to their base with appeals for personal freedoms that would be denied if health care were provided them through the ‘government takeover’ that now supplies their own health care needs.

Being a census worker has been declared a hazardous occupation and may be grounds for termination of your health insurance policy. Have a nice day!

The town hall protesters are a symptom of something very dangerous of a long tradition of extreme right wing American militancy that, should it be allowed to once again flourish unchecked, will make the misdeeds of Timothy McVeigh pale into insignificance

There is a very real danger of political violence given the Rights tactics about Health Care Reform. Today we have seen the first death threat. It is unlikely to be the last.