I've seen this collection of whines on Facebook a number of times, and decided it was about time to offer what I believe to be a reasoned, more educated response, regardless of the flames it might elicit among the members of the fringe right who can see my timeline.
- Deriding everything a mixed-race president says, does, or tries to do might not make someone a racist, but it sure acts like one.
- Threatening bodily harm against someone who doesn't share your ideology - particularly threatening "2nd Amendment solutions" - does constitute terrorism.
- Understanding the Constitution rather than bending it to match one's politics is an essential element in defending it. Teabaggers don't even know or acknowledge the agendas of those who fund and orchestrate the movement.
- When "speaking your mind" becomes an attempt to silence others and abandon basic American values such as "innocent until proven guilty," it constitutes a national security threat greater than that which jihadists present.
- One who rejects clear and well-proven answers to questions, simply because they don't conform to their own preconceptions is a troublemaker, operating from a place of cognitive dissonance at best, and willful ignorance at worst.
- One is a birther when... well, just read the item immediately preceding this one.
- Nobody has claimed that exposing corruption on "the other side's" part while condoning, denying, characterizing, or ignoring corruption on "your side" constitutes treason. Lying (or blindly accepting lies) accusing political enemies of corruption in an effort to undermine the orderly, legal fulfillment of governance can rise to the level of treason (or sedition under Logan Act definitions). Ignoring corruption on one's own side at the same time isn't treason; merely hypocrisy.
- Conspiracy theorists rely solely upon "facts" that support their preconceptions. See cognitive dissonance / willful ignorance, above.
- The Teabaggers are the primary group that claims a failure to toe the (TEA) party line constitutes un-American behavior.
- Those who support rushing into wars for economic reasons, yet fail to support measures to support and provide care for troops who are damaged or killed in those endeavors are worse than war-mongers. One who lies to justify a war is clearly a war-monger.
- Anyone who demands the benefit of all the perks of a developed society, but refuses responsibility for contributing to the development and maintenance of those perks IS a greedy capitalist. Or a spoiled child.
