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Skeptimedia

The phonies on the fringe

April 19, 2010. What do you call a guy who leads a demonstration in a national park to protest "totalitarian socialism that tramples individual rights," while he openly carries a loaded pistol, a rifle, and a bandoleer of magazines containing ammunition over his shoulder? He calls himself a patriot. I call him a phony. The law permits him to carry a loaded gun in a national park, and he calls the one who signed that law, Barack Obama, a totalitarian who is taking away his gun rights. He's either a phony or a dolt, and he doesn't sound like a dolt. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that our liberties are better protected by the rule of law than by armed zealots with their own agendas.

Daniel Almond, an Atlanta area real estate agent and three-tour veteran of Iraq, will be joined by dozens of other phonies at a phony rally called "Restore the Constitution" rally. They must think that somewhere in the Constitution is the embedded message that you have the right to threaten or kill the president or anyone who votes for something you don't like. We've always had sore losers, but the whining pseudo-patriots roaming the land in front of TV cameras and YouTube videographers have raised the phoniness to a new level.

The phonies gathering at Ft. Hunt National Park  on the Potomac in northern Virginia chose today to rally because it is the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing by Timothy McVeigh. Is McVeigh their hero? The American terrorist killed 168 people on April 19, 1995, allegedly to get revenge for the Waco Siege by federal agents in which 76 people were killed on April 19, 1993. Will one of the phonies shout out the battle cry of another phony? "Don't Retreat, Instead Reload!"

Why call these phonies phonies? Because their rhetoric is infinitely out of touch with reality. They know they are as free today as they were when George Bush ruled the world. Their liberties have not been diminished. In fact, very little has changed since Obama and the Democrats have come into power, except that we now have a black family in the White House and the Republicans can't dictate what happens in the Congress. We still have military forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. We haven't arrested anyone engaged in promoting torture by American agents. We still have hundreds of faith-based programs funded by federal funds. We still have an enormous national debt. We still have bankers sucking at the public teat. The economy is weak, but recovering, we're told. Taxes haven't been increased. We still have loud-mouthed phonies on the radio and television who are free to spout whatever nonsense they feel like making up about "liberals," "leftists," and "socialists." Hardly anything has changed, yet the whiners refuse to accept defeat and act as the loyal opposition. Instead, they insist that the Constitution has been shredded and liberty has been taken away. How phony is that? To claim that since you lost, the American people lost their liberties and the protection of the Constitution?

How much phony outrage can this country take? Isn't it bad enough that we have to listen to phony generalizations by right-wing politicians and alleged journalists about "liberals," "leftists," and "socialists"? We have to listen to phonies rewriting history because they don't like reality. Now we have to listen to a bunch of phonies express their phony outrage at how unfree they are while they wave loaded guns in sight of the White House. If these phonies think it is tyranny when a democratically elected Congress passes legislation they don't like, it should be obvious what they mean when they say their liberty has been taken away. When the phonies call for voting everybody out of office, their concern is not liberty or democracy. Their only concern is power. To these phonies the Constitution is just a piece of paper they would use to justify how they want to run the nation. Liberty to them is being able to totally control the government and the people. These phonies may fool some of the people some of the time, but they can't fool most of the people any of the time. They are totalitarians who call themselves patriots. They wear their phoniness on their sleeves, which is why they can't succeed unless we've become a nation of whiners. Today they may be just a few howling voices seemingly on the edge of darkness. Tomorrow, we may all may be reading about the next Timothy McVeigh. Many of these phonies will be smiling. Teetotalers and other sober folk will weep.