Dawn of ‘Red America’: Extremists React to SCOTUS Ruling
Mike Vanderboegh, an antigovernment activist who in 2010 reacted to the imminent passage of the health care law by calling on Americans to break the windows of local Democratic Party offices around the country, predicted on his blog that the court’s ruling would result in violence.
“The health care law carries … the hard steel fist of government violence at the center,” Vanderboegh wrote, “If we refuse to obey, we will be fined. If we refuse to pay the fine, we will in time be jailed. If we refuse to report meekly to jail, we will be sent for by armed men. And if we refuse their violent invitation at the doorsteps of our own homes we will be killed - unless we kill them first.
“It is Nancy Pelosi who first plunked the threat of violence on the table like Goering reaching for his revolver. How should principled, free people react to such threats? I am on record as advocating the right of defensive violence against a tyrannical regime. The Founders would agree. If someone on the street threatens to break into my house and steal my property or kill me, and I tell them, ‘If you do this, you will be killed,’ am I the violent one? Or is it merely good manners to warn the miscreant of the probable outcome?”
Also invoking the specter of violence was former Michigan GOP spokesman Matt Davis, who wondered in an E-mail to fellow conservatives first reported by Michigan Capitol Confidential, “If the Supreme Court’s decision Thursday paves the way for unprecedented intrusion into personal decisions, than has the Republic all but ceased to exist? If so, then is armed rebellion today justified? God willing, this oppression will be lifted and America free again before the first shot is fired.”
Meanwhile, Michael Savage, a viciously anti-gay and anti-Semitic radio host, told listeners that Chief Justice John Roberts ruled in favor of the health care law because he (allegedly) takes anti-seizure medication.
“I’m going to tell you something that you’re not going to hear anywhere else, that you must pay attention to,” Savage said. “It’s well known that Roberts, unfortunately for him, has suffered from epileptic seizures. Therefore he has been on medication.” Savage claimed a neurologist told him the medication could affect Roberts’ cognition.
Savage brought onto his show” to “an unnamed neurologist allegedly told Savage
“[I]f you look at Roberts’ writings you can see the cognitive disassociation in what he is saying,” Savage said.
Savage also declared the ruling, “a tipping point” in the “dawning of red America.”