BigDaddyCool

EX-TER-MIN-ATE, EX-TER-NIM-ATE, EX-TER-MIN-ATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There is so much that I want to get off my chest in this post that I don’t even know where to start, so I guess I will start at where it all began. 

It all began on February 19, 2009 when Rick Santelli went on the floor of the Chicago Merchantile Exchange and issued his infamous rant about how homes and assets should be taken away from those that he deemed “losers” and given to those “who had a chance to succeed.” In other words, he endorsed Socialism for the Rich. Within hours of Santelli insulting every unemployed, underemployed and underutilized person in the country there were websites up and running trying to organize “Tea Party Tax protests” for April 15. Even though it was not their first protest it was by far the biggest. 

They had previously protested the bail-outs of the Wall Street banks that have continued to screw us ever since. They protested the Stimulus Package that has begun to create jobs and get people back to work. Now they were going to be led by the nose by Rich-wing Republicans to protest the taxes that keep our water clean, our children educated, our police forces operating and our fire houses open. In other words their attitude for the rest of us was “let them eat cake”. So in response I suggested that everyone out there who was unemployed should have a “Let them eat cake” rally to counter the Teabaggers. It didn’t make as big a splash as I would have wanted, but I think I got my point across. 

Then the Health Care Reform debate got started and all hell broke loose. 

We all know what happened next – the yelling and screaming at Town Hall meetings, the threats of violence that were issued against anyone who dared speak out in opposition to the Teabaggers, they told those people who had health care horror stories to shut up and that they had better die quickly and decrease the surplus population, mocking their conditions the entire time. I mean we all read the accounts and saw the video tapes of what went on. 

Then came the vote on the Health Care Reform bill and the Teabaggers showed us all just how far they would go. Death threats were issued against Congress, bricks were thrown through windows, and a bullet was fired through the window of Eric Cantor’s Offices in his home district. Now true, Cantor was opposed to the bill and voted against it, but this was the equivalent of finding the severed horse’s head in his bed – you know, the price you pay for failure. 

Now we have Teabaggers showing up at protests wearing sidearms whining that the ATF is going to break down their doors any day now to take their guns away from them and take them and their families away in chains. So what follows is my open letter to the Tea Party movement and to everyone out there who considers themselves to be a part of it: 

Dear Tea Partiers, Teabaggers, or whatever the hell you want to be known as: 

You scare the living crap out of me. 

I have been watching you ever since you first started protesting the Bank Bailouts, and I have watched you grow from a movement expressing your righteous anger, to what appears to be a bunch of terrorist thugs who will resort to bullying tactics to ensure that yours is the only voice heard and the only will enforced. 

By the tone of this letter it is going to be painfully obvious that I have no respect for you right now, as any respect I might have had was killed by you a long time ago. But I feel that I have to explain to you why I do not respect you, and in doing so I have to tell you exactly how I see you and what events caused me to have this opinion of you. 

You protested President Obama’s Stimulus Package and did not want it to go through. The Stimulus Package was designed to help businesses that were hurt by the Stock Market crash to stabilize themselves and to create jobs for those of us who were unemployed. Hopefully this would be able to save some of us from poverty or having to go on welfare because we would have been able to support our families without having to ask for handouts. However you took exception to this and protested the bill saying that you did not want this passed. From this unemployed person’s perspective, you not only did not want those jobs to be created, but you did not want me or others like me to be able to return to work so that we could support our families. As a result I considered you to be Anti-Job. 

You then organized and protested on April 15th – Tax day – against what you called “wasteful spending on a socialist agenda.” In other words you were protesting against anything that didn’t fit into what appeared to be your anti-stimulus, anti-government, anti-socialist agenda. Well we already have Socialist programs going on in this country, many programs which you yourselves take advantage of. We have socialized education, socialized fire protection and socialized police forces in this country, and it is your tax dollars that go towards keeping those programs in operation. So as a result I now consider you to be Anti-Job, Anti-Education, Anti-Teacher, Anti-Fire Fighter and Anti-Cop. 

Then you began invading Town Hall meetings during the Health Care Reform debate and you began engaging in tactics that I hadn’t seen since my days at St Pancratius Parochial School in Lakewood, CA. You transformed yourselves from the parents who raised us and doting Grandparents to our children into schoolyard bullies who threatened violence if you did not get your way. You said that you didn’t want Socialized Medicine, yet you forgot that most of you are already on Medicare – which is Socialized Medicine. You said that socialist programs were evil and that they should be stamped out, just as long as your own Social Security checks kept coming. The message that we got from this was that Socialism was evil when other people took advantage of it, but when you took advantage of it – it was an entitlement that you had every right to but one that the rest of us did not. You looked like you wanted Health Care only for yourselves and that you did not want even your Grandchildren to be able to see a doctor if they got sick or injured. 

So as a result I now consider you to be Anti-Job, Anti-Education, Anti-Teacher, Anti-Fire Fighter, Anti-Cop, and a selfish bully who wants Health Care only for themselves and nothing for anyone else. 

Then once the Health Care bill was signed into law you started phoning in death threats into your local Congress-person’s office as well as throwing bricks through their windows and actually shooting bullets through them. This reminded me of the terrorist tactics that the anti-Abortion movement has used which included killing doctors and harassing their families and children. You’ve already tried to kill the brother-in-law of one congressman along with his family by severing a gas line outside of his house, what would you be willing to do to someone who does not share your views? If someone does not agree with you would you threaten to hurt them or their family? Would you threaten them with death? Would you follow them home and then throw a brick through their window or shoot a bullet into their living room? If the answer is yes, then what makes you different then any gang member who uses the same tactics to intimidate people in their neighborhoods? Would you encourage your children to attack their children? If so, then how far would you tell them to go? Would you tell them that they have your permission to kill their children or grandchildren “if they put up a fight”? 

What’s next? Are you going to start phoning in bomb threats against Congress? Are you going to leave pipe bombs outside of the homes of people who do not agree with you? You’ve also started to attend rallies to assert your right to carry guns openly. If you encounter someone who does not agree with your politics, are you going to shoot them on the spot because you see them as “un-American”? We have already seen signs at Tea-Party rallies that read that you would be willing to enforce your own will at the point of a gun, are you ready to follow through on that threat and pull the trigger on someone who does not believe as you do? 

So to re-cap: as a result of your past actions and rhetoric I now consider you to be Anti-Job, Anti-Education, Anti-Teacher, Anti-Fire Fighter, Anti-Cop, a selfish bully who wants Health Care only for themselves and nothing for anyone else who would be willing to enforce their belief system on anyone who does not believe as they do at the point of a gun up to and including killing those in opposition to them. 

Do you see why you scare the hell out of me? 

I know that right now most, if not all of you are afraid that the Government is going to break down your doors any day now and take away your guns. Honestly, I am not afraid of that. I am more afraid that a gang of Teabaggers is going to break down my door and kill my Wife and Father-in-Law in front of me before turning their weapons on me because I do not think like you do!!! You are probably reading this right now saying to yourself “that would never happen” and “you’re crazy for thinking that”. Well guess what? That is exactly what I think of your paranoid “losing our guns to Obama’s Government Stormtroopers” scenario!!! 

I am not afraid of my government…I am afraid of you!!!!!!! 

And I am pretty sure that I am not the only private citizen who feels this way. 

I am sure that you are reading this right now thinking that I am nothing more than just a paranoid whack-job who doesn’t have a grip on reality. Well, that is what I feel about you. Your past actions have poisoned me against your movement and whatever it is that you stand for. Your message has gotten lost in your rhetoric, and you now have a serious perception problem. With all of this vitriol that you are unleashing against our government – especially against our African-American President, you don’t look like Patriots to me. With all of the signs you are carrying at your rallies depicting President Obama looking like Hitler or The Joker you don’t look like Americans to me. 

When you do the things you do, say the things you do and carry the signs and guns that you do, to me you look like a bunch of Klansmen who finally had the balls to take their hoods off. And I have to tell you, as ugly as some of your mugs are I wish that you would put them back on. 

I get that you want to be taken seriously, I get that you want to be listened to and to be respected. But your past words and actions have done nothing to get me to take your seriously, take a good listen to what you are trying to say or even respect you and your movement right now. 

The bottom line is that you have made this way too personal. Instead of having a civil debate about the issues you have done what Dick Armey and his minions at Fox News have instructed you to do. You have vilified the opposition and de-humanized us those of us who do not share your beliefs to the point that a lot of us believe that you intend to do us physical harm. This is the reason why I do not want to see California’s Open-carry law overturned. It’s not because I wish to defend myself against a gang-banger coming to rob me, it’s because I want to defend myself against a gang of Teabaggers looking for a fight. And from what I’ve seen – that’s all you are interested in doing and that is all that you value – violence! 

There is a British Science Fiction TV series that has been around since 1963 called Doctor Who. The title character, known as “The Doctor” has one enemy above all others – The Daleks. Daleks are a mutant species who can only survive and communicate inside tank-like mechanical armour shells which look like “pepper pots”. Their creator removed all emotions from their DNA except for one – hate. This has led them to develop the Dalek Imperative – the purging of all non-Dalek lifeforms from the Universe. They are outfitted with an eyestalk on their armour, as well as a powerful weapon with which they use to “Exterminate” their foes. Daleks have no individual personalities, no emotions other than hate and anger, and a desire to be the dominant species in the Universe. 

That is how I see the members of the Tea Party movement, as a bunch of angry, aggressive, hateful Daleks crying out at the top of their lungs “EX-TER-MIN-ATE, EX-TER-MIN-ATE, EX-TER-MIN-ATE!!!!!” whenever they gather to protest or shout down people they don’t agree with. It is only a matter of time before you truly become like the Daleks and fully embrace that last part of the Dalek character – it is only a matter of time before you kill. 

And when that day comes, I can only hope that somewhere out there, there will be someone or something playing the part of “The Doctor” who will stop you. Because you have stepped up to that line but you have not crossed it – yet. I keep waiting for the day that you do, and I truly feel that it will happen. The reason being is that when you express a difference of opinion with someone you haven’t been attacking the viewpoint – you have attacked the person. You don’t hate the politics – you hate the people. You may say that you love America, and I have no doubt that you do – you just can’t stand Americans. 

Think about that the next time you deny a job to someone who is unemployed and then tell that person that they are a lazy deadbeat because they don’t have a job. 

Sincerely, 

BigDaddyCool. 

Until next time…