The Associated Press reported that there is a nationwide bullet shortage. Remington Arms has added a fourth shift and ammunition is being produced 24-7. This has nothing to do with government contracts and ongoing wars; this is based purely on fear, not fear that someone will break into your home and steal your babies, but fear that President Obama will send a goon squad to break into your home and steal your stockpile of guns and bullets.
The FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System reported that gun sales between January to May increased nearly 26 percent. So far the only gun law that President Obama has signed into law is one that allows people to carry loaded weapons into national parks. But that doesn’t stop the hillbilly hysteria that Democrats are going to kill democracy.
It wasn’t that long ago that conservatives were all holier-than-thou when it came to patriotism and supporting the president. Back then the American flag bumper stickers couldn’t get big enough and you were a traitor for not going along with whatever whim President Bush might have had. Now that President Obama is in office, the Republican view is that everything he says is suspect and that liberty is being hijacked. God bless the Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Fox News hypocrisy. In their eyes, the people who protested the war in Iraq were a bunch of loons who were out of touch with the mainstream, but the tea bag folks who protest the government in fear of socialism are the real blue-blooded Americans protesting a corrupt system.
In a recent interview with Esquire magazine, Bill Clinton stated that the longer conservatives believed this nonsense, the better it would be for the Democratic Party. Democrats are thrilled at the prospect of Sarah Palin having more power within her party. They want people like Bobby Jindal, Eric Cantor and Michael Steele to have influence on the right. These people can’t rally their party and don’t have the capability of arguing real issues inside the box. That’s why they don’t immediately dispute the silly birther movement or detach themselves from the rationally challenged people who pulled their kids out of school when President Obama gave a speech addressed to the students. These are the same people who demonize Obama because he appoints the evil czars. (It’s stunning that a grown person in this country thinks that Obama is the first president to appoint an advisory czar.) They can’t make reasonable arguments about health care reform, job reform or international affairs so they stay in the area of the crazy argument.
The crazy arguments might be good for Democrats looking to stay in power, but it isn’t good for public discourse. Our nation is best served by having at least two rational viewpoints regarding any given topic, and Republicans aren’t supplying one. It’s no longer the party of Barry Goldwater or even John McCain. It’s a party of color-coded threat levels that doesn’t just want you to agree with it, but to fear the opposition so much that you’ll stockpile weapons and bring loaded ones to presidential rallies. Party members are hoping you’ll fear the government so much that come 2010, you’ll find it in your fearful heart to put them back in office.