A Plague of Locusts

My city was overrun today.

A swarm of self-absorbed suburbanites and racist rednecks (many of whom had probably never set foot downtown before) gathered at the capitol to whine about having to pay taxes. "What's mine is mine," they all seemed to be saying, "and the rest of you can go to hell."


To be fair, they weren't all paranoid nutjobs, I'm sure, but there were enough of them in the crowd of 10,000 or so, using the occasion to trot out their Obama-bashing delusions, to proclaim their love of God and their hatred of those who would use "their" money to help other people (they wouldn't have liked Jesus, I guess), and to publicly proclaim their adoration for Ayn Rand (Is she a Republican icon?), that after a while it made my skin crawl, especially when combined with the undercurrent of violence in most of their rhetoric (they seem to love Revolutionary War symbolism - Tea Party, Don't Tread on Me, Unite or Die).


They kept going on about how the democrats are trying to shred the constitution and take away their rights. Their rights to be secretly wiretapped, I guess? To be held without trial? To be waterboarded? Nobody but me seemed to appreciate the irony of this crap coming out of the mouths of some of the most ardent Bush supporters imaginable. I still don't understand exactly what rights they're so worried about losing - they never actually said. Their right to hoard all their money in a mattress while the rest of us pay all the bills, I guess.


There were chants, and speeches, and ridiculous signs - Google is apparently a part of the "Liberal Media" now, as well as AOL.

My favorite sign: "No to Dictatorship Run by the Proletariat!"

What does that even mean? Sounds suspiciously like "Government by the People" to me - is that a bad thing now? I guess if you're the losers, this democracy thing doesn't seem like such a good idea anymore.



For all the sign-carriers, and Mr. You Are Not Entitled, in particular, I have some questions:


As the mob broke up, and you went your smiling way toward the SUV that would carry you - over the roads my taxes helped fund - home to your gated fortress in the suburbs, did you hold your head up high?

As you walked the darkened streets of Atlanta, past the homeless sleeping in the doorways and the benches, did you hold that sign out proudly?

As those "deadbeats" - the ones curled up under blankets within earshot of your "party" - faded into the distance, did you feel good about yourself?

Or did you even notice them?