Is treason the new conservatism?

The billboard above was placed next to I-70 in Lafayette County, Missouri (part of the Kansas City metropolitan region). It’s an example of the increasingly aggressive and violent rhetoric of America’s far right—which includes far too many people within the Republican Party.

The billboard reads: “A citizens [sic] guide to REVOLUTION of a corrupt government.” Shouldn’t that be against? Anyway, it goes on, “ 1. Starve the beast, keep your money.” The irony of the billboard standing next to Interstate 70—built and maintained with tax money—is just too wonderful not to point out. “2. Vote out incumbents.” All incumbents, or just Democrats? “3. If steps 1 & 2 fail?” The kicker: “PREPARE FOR WAR – LIVE FREE OR DIE”.

This billboard is, at the very least, seditious: “conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state” (refusing to pay taxes and armed revolt). However, a simple, easy-to-understand definition of treason is advocating the violent overthrow of the government, which this billboard also does.

The billboard may have been placed by “a businessman” who earlier placed an anti-Obama message on the same billboard (why is it that folks advocating treason are so often afraid to reveal themselves?), but it was endorsed by the Lafayette County Republican Party. Their blog site was filled with outraged comments, but also from plenty of other folks who endorsed it, along with some from the seriously unhinged far, far right.

This billboard is just the latest example of the growing aggression among the far right. They portray the government as “corrupt” because they lost the last democratic elections and they can’t stand that. And, if we’re honest, the thing they hate most about the US government is that the president is an African American.

Some on the far right are openly calling for the president’s death through what they call “imprecatory prayer”. Basically, those are Judeo-Christian curses in which they pray that their god wreaks vengeance against someone—in this case, that it strikes down the president.

The rightwingers are using Psalm 109:8 which begins, “Let his days be few; and let another take his office” and goes on “Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.” The language is so violent that neither the Roman Catholics nor mainstream Protestants use it in their liturgies.

There are two problems with all this rhetoric, beyond the sedition and violence they espouse. First, and most obviously, they will encourage the legendary “lone wolves” to commit acts of actual, real violence (there’s really no such thing as a “lone wolf” actually, because the violent right is interconnected through the Internet, even if individuals act alone).

The second thing wrong with this is that the supposed “mainstream” of the Republican Party doesn’t condemn this utterly and without equivocation. They demand that liberals apologise for every loony thing that some leftist ever said, but they flat-out refuse to disavow the increasingly violent rhetoric of the right wing—folks who in most cases are members or voters of their party.

The rhetoric of the far right is increasingly becoming a clear and present danger. The Republican Party has a duty to disavow it in the strongest possible terms now, and not feign remorse after something terrible happens because of that rhetoric.

Update 7:25PM (Auckland Time): I just checked and found that the Lafayette County Republicans have removed their blog post promoting the billboard and its message. They should've disavowed it and apologised instead of just pretending they never promoted it. Still, I thought they might do this, so at left is a screen cap of the post (click to embiggen).

Hat Tip for the sign story to StopBeck, even though the linked post is now gone.