Throwing down the gauntlet

A few Facebook friends posted a Newsweek story today, and I followed suit, because I thought it raised some excellent points and some pointed questions: "Are Tea Partiers Racist?"

Before you flip out, no, I'm not calling all teabaggers racists, and neither did the article. I know of people who shared some of the same concerns (albeit inchoate concerns) who I would swear in a court of law are not racists. But I will say this: I think the majority of them are.

For every person who is legitimately concerned about our government spending, and not-so-legitimately concerned (in my opinion) about the size and scope of our government programs, you'll find four like Tom Fitzhugh of Tampa (reminds me of Tom Tuttle from Tacoma, Washington), who was quoted in the article:

"It really makes me mad. They [the media] have tried to portray us as a bunch of radical extremists." He considers Obama an abomination—possibly "the most radical-voting senator that ever was" and someone likely to "take us down the path of destruction." He believes the administration is intent on taking away his guns, trampling on states' rights, and opening the borders with Canada and Mexico. He has serious doubts that Obama was born in the U.S. and suspects that the president is a closet Muslim. (There's no evidence to support any of these accusations.) But his anger has nothing to do with race, he says. The real issue is that Obama is "taking down the Constitution and the way it's governed us for [hundreds of] years."

Mr. Fitzhugh can deny charges of racism and radical extremism all he wants. The fact is that his concerns are completely unwarranted. The least of is them is probably that Obama was the "most radical-voting Senator that ever was." That is simply not true; Obama is one of the more moderate Democrats you'll find. Mr. Fitzhugh parrots news he gets from ClusterFox and GOP talking points about "taking down the Constitution." Bullshit. For all their braying about how we have to adhere to the Constitution, I sure as hell wish they'd pay attention to the First Amendment. You know, that one about our government not establishing a religion? They seem to keep forgetting that part.

My point is that Mr. Fitzhugh and others of his ilk seem angry about things that have been established to be completely false. The continued belief that Obama wasn't born in the U.S., or that he's a Muslim, or that he wants to take away our guns. When I think about why someone like him would continue to use these lame excuses and outright lies as reasons why they don't like our President, it leads me to only one conclusion: it is because they feel he is "different." He is a different color, he has a different heritage, with a Kenyan father and an atheist mother, he is a black man with a Harvard education, he doesn't talk or act like the black people Mr. Fitzhugh knows.

He can continue to claim that he is not a racist, but I know people like Mr. Fitzhugh, and yes, sir, you are a racist. When it was shown that John McCain was born in Panama, where was your hue and cry about how he wasn't qualified to be President? Those of us on the opposite side didn't worry about that, because we found out quickly that since he was born on a U.S. military base, he was indeed a U.S. citizen. Why are you unable to accept that Barack Obama is a U.S. citizen and was born in Hawaii, despite the release of his birth certificate, the certification by Hawaiian officials, the birth notices in Hawaiian papers, and the assertion by Hawaii's Republican governor that Obama is, indeed, a U.S. citizen? The only logical conclusion I can draw is that you do not like his color or his background. You see him as a threat to your way of life. Thus the constant assertions from teabaggers that they want their country back. Their country? It belongs to all of us, Mr. Fitzhugh, not just white, Christian, Republican males like you. Your era of dominance is past. We are not going back to days when blacks and women knew their places, when no one challenged your supreme authority, and no woman and no fag and certainly no nigger would ever beat you out of a job because they were smarter than your cracker ass.

One more thing. The teabaggers’ mantra is that the Obama administration is spending us into record debts and expanding the government at an unacceptable rate. I've got a question for all you good little teabaggers out there. Where was your little "movement" when George W. Bush was squandering a budget surplus by getting us into two wars and cutting taxes on the richest among us? Where were the marches on Washington asking why the Bush administration was usurping our personal freedoms with wiretaps on average citizens, or allowing the holding of prisoners without charging them of any crime, or ignoring the Geneva Convention treaty and authorizing torture? Why weren't you angry then, why weren't you mobilized, why weren't you calling for his impeachment? If you tell me that you were writing letters and marching on Washington and pissed off about Bush's activities, I'll accept your continued anger at President Obama, and the addition to our national debt (although I believe that was necessary to begin to mop up after Bush left our country looking like a frat house on a Sunday morning).

If you weren't this angry during the Bush years, if your righteous indignation didn't begin until Barack HUSSEIN Obama took office...well, I know what you are, then. We all know what you are.