The watering the Tree of Liberty talk you keep hearing from the Glenn Beck, Michele Bachmann fanboys is getting out of hand. Way, way out of hand. These people are not simply simple minded crazy members of the lunatic fringe — their delusions about Obama’s Marxist-Socialist takeover of America are setting the stage for more killings and even political assassinations, mark my words:
“We’ve got someone who is an out-and-out Marxist, a total socialist, who is trying to put everything under government control,” Mr Parshall told me.
“There’s a lot of people that are rising up,” he says.
He and other self-described “free-thinkers” make much of Thomas Jefferson’s statement: “The Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
I asked him whether, given the taking over of America by a socialist, violence against Mr Obama would be legitimate.
“If they don’t start conforming to our constitution, we may have to rise up in arms and take our country back,” Mr Parshall replied, though he says that would be a last resort if elections did not do the job first.
Mr. Parshall is a pawnbroker who deals in guns. Loves guns in fact. And we know he is not alone. The same quote from Jefferson of which he is so fond has been on the lips of hundreds of right wing protesters at Town Hall meetings this last month, and no doubt will be prominently on display today at Glenn Beck’s much hyped 912 project events. But one thing we should remember. The worst domestic terrorist act on American soil was committed by Timothy McVeigh. Guess what slogan he had on his T-shirt that day?
