TAKING UP ARMS IN SUPPORT OF WATER POLLUTION…. There’s usually little point in scrutinizing far-right blog posts, but given the recent right-wing talk about “revolution,” “Tea Parties,” “going Galt,” and the GOP emulating the Taliban, I found this item from RedState’s Erick Erickson pretty interesting. The headline reads, “At What Point Do People Revolt?”
At what point do the people tell the politicians to go to hell? At what point do they get off the couch, march down to their state legislator’s house, pull him outside, and beat him to a bloody pulp for being an idiot?
At some point soon, it will happen. It’ll be over an innocuous issue. But the rage is building. […]
Were I in Washington State, I’d be cleaning my gun right about now waiting to protect my property from the coming riots or the government apparatchiks coming to enforce nonsensical legislation.
That’s quite a bit of talk about literal violence, including violence against elected government officials.
And what was it that prompted Erickson to write about beating state lawmakers, rage, coming riots, and gun preparation?
Adam Serwer explained, “In the interest of reducing water pollution, Washington state, among other states, has instituted a ban on phosphates, making dishes much harder to clean if you clean your dishes in a dishwasher. While phosphates were banned from laundry detergent years ago — similar complaints followed then — states have only recently begun banning them from dishwasher detergent.”
Yes, Erick Erickson is recommending residents of Washington state prepare for mob violence in the streets because state lawmakers are prohibiting dishwasher detergents that contribute to water pollution.
Let’s also not forget that Erickson is not a fringe, obscure right-wing blogger, but a prominent conservative voice and a writer popular in the Bush White House.
It seems like a long time ago, but in 2004, the Bush-Cheney campaign ran television ads encouraging people to vote Republicans because Democrats had given into excessive anger. One ad accused John Kerry of having the support of a “Coalition of the Wild-Eyed,” and concluded, “This is not a time for pessimism and rage.” Another ad, called, “Angry Democrats,” featured denunciations of Bush from Howard Dean, Dick Gephardt, and others. It asked the viewer, “Tired of pessimism and angry protest? Tired of negative attacks? You have a choice.”
Just two months into Obama’s presidency, prominent conservative voices and elected Republican officials have become the kind of “coalition of the wild-eyed” that most Democrats never even dreamed of.
