Theodore Nugent Endorses Mitt Romney for POTUS

So guitarist Ted Nugent went down to an NRA convention in Atlanta a couple of days ago and he said a few things. First, he was endorsing Mitt Romney for President of the United States of America (though he may have "officially" done this prior to the NRA appearance). Second, he referred to the Obama Administration as "evil", and branded Obama, Attorney General Holder and Mrs. Clinton "criminals" (I think it was due to the fact that they fail to uphold the Constitution, but it could have been something else that I missed). He then indicated that four of the current Supreme Court justices (the so-called "liberal" bloc, I'm guessing) don't follow the Constitution, either. Which leads me to this - Justice Anthony Kennedy is sometimes referred to as a "swing vote" between the "liberal" and "conservative" blocs on the Court. When Kennedy votes with the "liberal" block, would he then, too, be failing to uphold the Constitution, only to magically get his Constitutional marbles back when he votes with Roberts, Scalia, et al? I don't believe the Nuge addressed this, but I'd be curious to hear what he had to say on the topic.

In any event, as interesting as all these items are, I am more interested in a couple of his other statements, namely (and I will paraphrase) -

• "We need to rise up in November and cut their heads off."
• "If Obama gets re-elected, a year from now I'll be either dead or in jail."

So, of course, there were many responses to this. A Romney campaign spokeswoman said that all discourse in the election cycle should be "civil" (you KNOW we dig Civility here at IBL), but I don't think she mentioned Nugent by name (personally, I think it would have been nice if Romney had said something - if he did and I missed it please let me know). Democrats will attempt to link Ted to Romney and try and raise money off these statements. The Secret Service will pay a courtesy call to Nugent because, you know, what exactly did he mean by that? (The Man himself issued a statement saying he supports the Secret Service and realizes they have a job to do and will gladly meet with them.)

With regard to his first quote, the imagery is certainly violent, no doubt, but I have to believe it was more "metaphorical" than anything else - come out in November and vote against Obama. That's just my take on it. The second one is a little more troubling and here's where I want to briefly digress - during the last election cycle, Ted got on stage one evening (or perhaps more than one evening, I don't know), and made violent statements against Obama, Mrs. Clinton, and Mrs. Pelosi. In the case of Obama, the quote was along the lines of "Hey Obama, suck on my machine gun." And Ted is, in fact, brandishing something that LOOKS like a gun as he says this, and I have no reason to think it's NOT a gun (and I'm not going to link to this video but it's easy enough to track down on YouTube should you need to see it).

"Hey Obama, suck on my machine gun."

"If Obama gets re-elected, a year from now I'll be either dead or in jail." (Presumably this does not mean a) suicide because of the depression or b) imprisonment for civil disobedience - neither really fits into his so-called "world view".)

The political discourse of Ted Nugent, someone so important that certain candidates for political office would seek out his endorsement. In fact, Ted says that, in March, Romney did just this; the Romney camp says they didn't. But it hardly matters if they asked for it or not. These quotes are a high drive to deep left field beyond "being civil". I mean, you know, being civil is not calling somebody "stupid" or "fat". This is violent, hateful speech pure and simple, and has no place in our democratic process. I mean, Good God - there are liberals who think Bush and Cheney are war criminals. There are liberals who think the OTHER four justices (and sometimes Kennedy) are ignoring the Constitution (and this typically translates into fundraising pitches along the lines of "If you don't want Romney appointing Supreme Court justices, send us money today.") In other words, Ted (and all the hateful speakers of any political stripe) -

RIGHT, GOT IT. A BUNCH OF US DISAGREE ON A BUNCH OF SHIT.

But I would like to believe that we, as Americans, all Americans, could agree on a few things - that it's important to look at issues as other people might (yes, including those utterly and completely different than us), it provides perspective and, potentially, understanding (though we still might wind up in disagreement at the end of the day, sure); that it's important to be informed, and not by just once source: there are all kinds of informational outlets available to us and, really, no excuse to be passing along information as gospel when a) we just don't know for sure that it is and b) it can be easily disproved in two mouse clicks or with an encyclopedia; that we need to first recognize that we are doing it and, then, get over ourselves when we start to think we know what is right for anybody/everybody else.

And, of course, to avoid hateful, violent speech against our fellow citizens - Jesus, against just about anybody, I should think (hypocritically/humanly leaving myself some wiggle room with that "just about", yes). For those of us who care about this country, and try to engage with others in a thoughtful, compassionate manner (admittedly not always getting it right), this kind of thing is beyond sad, and so very unhelpful.

Everybody in, nobody out.

IBL:mm