Republican Insurrection

We keep hearing from people on the right that the Obama administration is sending us into a socialist/communist/islamofascist/atheist state with a cherry on top. It's really only a matter of time. The concentration camps are already open and waiting. When pressed, these concerned people - exhibiting a tenuous grip on the very nature of time - then refer to nationalized banks, TARP, the rapid rise in the national debt, and so on, all of which were well underway before President Obama was even elected.

Last night, Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina compared Obama's America to Hitler's Germany:

Part of what we're trying to do in Saving Freedom is just show that where we are, we're about where Germany was before World War II where they became a social democracy. You still had votes but the votes were just power grabs like you see in Iran, and other places in South America, like Chavez is running down in Venezuela. People become more dependent on the government so that they're easy to manipulate. And they keep voting for more government because that's where their security is. When our immigrants get here, they're worried, because they see it happening here.

Why don't we call them on this?

One important way to characterize a belief is something that we're prepared to act on. I can say to you that I can run right through that reinforced concrete wall, but it's not a belief I'm prepared to act on and thus not something I genuinely believe. I am, however, prepared to make a swan dive off the diving board if I truly believe the pool is filled with water. I may be wrong, of course, but a genuine belief is one that I'm prepared to act on.

If DeMint and some of his cohorts in the Republican party and media truly believe that we are entering a new Nazi Era, then they really ought to do something, to act on that belief, shouldn't they? If a new Hitler or other authoritarian, fascist figure truly is taking over the country, shouldn't these people openly - rather than insinuatingly - call for and lead an armed insurrection?

Or are DeMint and cohorts appeasers because they don't revolt? Surely, they're failing their responsibility to rise up against the fascist monster. Or are they cowards? In the face of the fascist/socialist menace there really are only a few options: appeaser, coward, demagogue, liar.