I don’t even know what to say about this level of crazy. If these groups didn’t have so much control over the debate taking place in Washington on subjects ranging from the debt ceiling to incandescent light bulbs I’d say “big whoop,” but these are the people that have dominated the conversation in our country since the town hall craziness of the summer of ‘09.

The craziness is unbearable. When you see what these people believe, and when you see the way that the Republican Party has to pander to them, it becomes scarier and scarier. How did the Tea Party hijack the discourse in our country?

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Everybody knows what the tea party members oppose. High taxes. Big government. Obama’s health care plan. High-speed rail.

Now, for at least some local tea party members, there’s one more to add: manatee protection.

A Citrus County tea party group has announced that it’s fighting new restrictions on boating and other human activities in Kings Bay that have been proposed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

“We cannot elevate nature above people,” explained Edna Mattos, 63, leader of the Citrus County Tea Party Patriots, in an interview. “That’s against the Bible and the Bill of Rights.”

…

Barbara Bartlett, who identified herself as a tea party member, told the Hernando County Commission that the federal wildlife agency had no business sticking its nose into Citrus County. But parts of Kings Bay have been a federal wildlife refuge since 1980.

But here’s the best part: Manatee sanctuaries are all part of the UN’s secret plot to take over the world. That’s right, it’s Agenda 21:

Current regulations have helped boost the manatee population from 100 to 500, so clearly they’re sufficient, Mattos said. In fact, in her view, the manatee rules tie in to global development issues.

“We believe that (federal regulators’) aim is to control the fish and wildlife, in addition to the use of the land that surrounds this area, and the people that live here and visit. … As most of us know, this all ties in to the United Nations’ Agenda 21 and Sustainability.”

Agenda 21 is a program, adopted by the U.N. in 1992, to encourage countries around the world to promote only development that does not harm nature. Pundit Glenn Beck and other conservatives have attacked it as an attempt to impose world government’s rules on every aspect of American lives. The Citrus County tea party group’s website says Agenda 21 is “designed to make humans into livestock.”

Mattos said she enjoys showing off the manatees to her grandchildren, but she had little use for the Save the Manatee Club, explaining, “If some of these environmental movements had been around in the days of the dinosaurs, we’d be living in Jurassic Park now.”