Is There Such a Thing as Going Too Far?

See what you think about these turns of events.

From John L. Perry's article on the conservative site NewsMax:

There is a remote, although gaining, possibility America's military will intervene as a last resort to resolve the "Obama problem." Don't dismiss it as unrealistic.

America isn't the Third World. If a military coup does occur here it will be civilized. That it has never happened doesn't mean it won't. Describing what may be afoot is not to advocate it. So, view the following through military eyes:

• Officers swear to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic." Unlike enlisted personnel, they do not swear to "obey the orders of the president of the United States."
  
• Top military officers can see the Constitution they are sworn to defend being trampled as American institutions and enterprises are nationalized.
  
• They can see that Americans are increasingly alarmed that this nation, under President Barack Obama, may not even be recognizable as America by the 2012 election, in which he will surely seek continuation in office.
  
• They can see that the economy, ravaged by deficits, taxes, unemployment, and impending inflation, is financially reliant on foreign lender governments.
  
• They can see this president waging undeclared war on the intelligence community, without whose rigorous and independent functions the armed services are rendered blind in an ever-more hostile world overseas and at home.
  
• They can see the dismantling of defenses against missiles targeted at this nation by avowed enemies, even as America's troop strength is allowed to sag.
  
• They can see the horror of major warfare erupting simultaneously in two, and possibly three, far-flung theaters before America can react in time.
  
• They can see the nation's safety and their own military establishments and honor placed in jeopardy as never before.

So, if you are one of those observant military professionals, what do you do?
...
John L. Perry, a prize-winning newspaper editor and writer who served on White House staffs of two presidents, is a regular columnist for Newsmax.com... Obama Risks a Domestic Military "Intervention"

[ Late note: AmericaBlog points out two things. First, NewsMax is sponsored by the Republican Party, so this was no rogue lunatic, this was the Party line. Second, NewsMax has taken this particular article off the Internet. I don't think they intended for it to get attention outside their base. ]

There were some characters in the text that my browser could not interpret, apparently commas, quotation marks, etc., and I took my best guess at them.

The USA has, in general, a two-party political system, and at any point in time one party has the Presidency, one has a majority in the Senate, one has the House -- they may all be the same party, as currently or during the previous administration, or they can be split up. What can you say? When one party has both houses of Congress and the Presidency, things look grim for the other party. It's frustrating. You have to campaign extra hard in the next election.

Or if you are, at heart, one of those antipatriots who hates the American way of life and the law as it is inscribed in the Constitution, you might recommend a military coup or armed insurrection by citizens.

There was a big conference last weekend called the "How To Take Back America Conference," co-chaired by the Eagle Forum's Phyllis Schlafly, a supporter of our county's Citizens for Responsible Whatever. Speakers included Governor Mike Huckabee, "Joe the Plumber," U.S. Reps. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., Trent Franks, R-Ariz., Steve King, R-Iowa, Tom McClintock, R-Calif., Dr. Tom Price, R-Ga., and Three-Star General Jerry Boykin.

One speaker at the conference was Eagle Forum's Kitty Werthmann, leading a workshop called “How to recognize living under Nazis & Communists.” She said:

Now, if we had had dictatorship, dictatorship overnight, and had we had our guns, we would have fought a bloody battle to the last person. So, keep your guns, and buy more guns, and buy ammunition. [audience applauds] Take back America. Don’t let them take the country into Socialism. And I refer again, Hitler’s party was National Socialism. [...] And that’s what we are having here right now, which is bordering on Marxism. Conservative Activist Explains How To Recognize Living Under Nazism

I think there will always be extremists, I can remember the John Birchers back in the day, they never actually went away. In a free country they are granted the right to speak out, and I suppose these kinds of people express the sentiments of a constant but small proportion of the population. They distrust government -- well, hey, I distrust government! But I distrust anarchy more. And I cannot think of a better system than the one we have, where the people elect representatives every few years and let them work it out. When the majority rules, by definition the really exceptionally best (and worst) opinions will be ignored, everything will tend toward mediocrity, toward the middle, that's just the way it works. Extremism from both ends of any continuum typically gets washed out. It's not pretty, but it's the best system the human race has come up with so far, and for the last couple hundred years it's worked pretty well.

It's possible that the Republican Party, by whipping up the frustration of working white people who feel they are losing control of the country, can win the next election. That's a plan, maybe that's what's going on here. But when you're telling people to arm themselves, when you're talking about the military rebelling against the elected government, you're in some scary rhetorical territory, it seems to me. Nancy Pelosi's words sounds very reasonable:

"I wish that we would all, again, curb our enthusiasm in some of the statements that are made, understanding that -- that some of the people -- the ears it is falling on are not as balanced as the person making the statement might assume."