THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD
(apologies to Keith Olbermann)
Judson Phillips
In his initial response to the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, Tea Party Nation president Judson Phillips emailed members an article about the massacre which sharply criticized teachers and urged government to cripple teachers’ unions and place guards like George Zimmerman at every school. Today, Phillips emailed out a piece arguing that it should “be required that all teachers and other staff be armed and in trained in SWAT” because Americans should worry about “the bloodbath you may well see if Iranian and Hamas agents go en masse into the schools of this nation.” (emphasis mine…as if you could possibly miss the silliness)
Come with me on a journey back into time- summer, 2010, to be exact- when the Tea Party ragefest was in full flower. Remember when the media actually took these loons seriously, and presented them as the legitimate and growing examples of a generalized dissatisfaction with government? Yeah, well, that was SO 2010, eh? Little did any of the Serious People realize just how difficult it is to maintain The Crazy.
Judson Phillips might have had something positive to add to the debate about guns in America…until he went off on his rant about “Iranian and Hamas agents” invading our schools…and visiting God only knows what sins upon our precious snowflakes. It makes me wonder how any lucid observer could have even considered taking Judson and his fellow Tea Party zealots seriously. What did they ever have to offer except rage and opposition to…well, everything? The Tea Party offers nothing constructive, and their entire platform and raison d’etre seemed to be about destruction, opposition, and rage. They demanded “small government” when it came to their pet agenda, but seemingly had no problem with the idea of using the power of government when it served their purpose.
You’d have to wonder how (and why) any movement led by an intellectual and moral lightweight like Phillips would be worthy of any recognition at all. Except for the sheer entertainment value, of course.
What if, instead of more useless gun ban laws, it were to be required that all teachers and other staff be armed and trained in SWAT, so they could immediately lock their children in a classroom and then go work as a team to clear their school of any threat(s), until the police arrived?
Yeah, that’ll work. Let’s turn our schools into armed camps and place even more responsibility and expectations on the shoulders of our teachers. These would be the same teachers who Phillips and his unhinged supplicants blame for everything they see as being wrong with our public schools. Then again, arming teachers would certainly enliven the collective bargaining process, eh?
I’d ruminate over Phillips’ duplicity and hypocrisy…or at least I might have in 2010…but there’s nothing serious or worthy of discussion in Phillips’ rant. Anyone who seriously believes that our schools are on the verge of being invaded by “Iranian and Hamas agents” is worthy only of being heavily medicated and roundly ridiculed. Phillips is an embarrassment to himself and to the movement he clearly hoped to turn into a legitimate political force. Where once the mainstream media may have taken him seriously, now Phillips is reduced to providing material for the likes of Bill Maher, Jon Stewart, and Steven Colbert.
Pro tip: It’s difficult to have a serious debate when your adversaries can’t stop laughing at you. Try taking off your tinfoil hat.
