Call it what it is

The newest phenomenon in our public "discourse" seems to be the need for some to show up armed. It started out as one guy, and has since escalated both in number of people and the firepower they are carrying. What is the message? Is there any doubt that a guy showing up with a gun and a sign declaring "It's time to water the tree of liberty" is not just demonstrating a right to carry a gun? Isn't it pretty clear what he's quite plainly calling for?

We've been hearing of late that the guns are just symbology for rights, and that the healthcare reform opponents (the only people showing up armed) are merely using the display of one right to call for protection of others.

This is, quite simply, bullshit. They know it, we know it, and we know that they know that we know it. This has nothing to do with rights. If that were the case, utilizing the right of free speech (including odious, hateful signs) certainly gets the message across. You don't see these people showing up with guns at rallies protesting every other legislative action they feel reduces their freedoms. Besides, you don't show up with a beer at a rally protesting abortion, because one's got nothing to do with each other. The symbology is all wrong.

Let's call it what it is. These people are showing up for one reason and one reason only, and it's quite telling that they are only bringing their guns to meeting hosted by the (black) president, not the ones by the people who must actually pass the legislation. This is intimidation, pure and simple. Just as hanging a person in effigy is symbolic lynching, this is a symbolic assassination. Nothing more, nothing less.

Far from being brave patriots who stand for freedom, these are instead cowards who choose to display their impotence and rage through an act of pseudo-macho aggression and threat. How long before one of them actually gets the guts to try to do what they are all pantomiming?