Down the Rabbit Hole

I just downloaded the newsletter of the Republican Party of Greene County, Virginia, and after reading it, I feel like Alice who has followed the rabbit into some subterranean hall of mirrors. The editor of the newsletter calls for armed revolution if Barack Obama is re-elected in the fall (h/t Think Progress):

We have before us a challenge to remove an ideologue unlike any thing world history has ever witnessed or recognized. [really???].... The ultimate task for the people is to remain vigilant and aware ~ that the government, their government is out of control, and this moment, this opportunity, must not be forsaken, must not escape us, for we shall not have any coarse (sic) but armed revolution should we fail with the power of the vote in November.

The newsletter also includes a page titled "Is Barack Hussein Obama America's Most Biblically Hostile President?" that's a conspiracy theorist's dream. It's based on writings of David Barton, a pseudo-historian from Texas who has founded a Christian nationalist organization called "Wallbuilders." Warning bells of skepticism would immediately go off in the head of a rational person reading that list drawn from Barton's writing.

But we're moved by emotion, not reason, right? And fear is the most motivating emotion of all.

 If I listened and read this stuff all the time and heard it on the feedback loop one finds today on talk radio and in some churches, I might be a crazy conspiracy theorist, too.

Thank God I've got a garden to tend.

 Pushback against David Barton's scurrilous claims here: "More Zombie Lies from David Barton," posted March 12, 2012, on TFN Insider, of the Texas Freedom Network.