Lubbock County Still Going on About the U.N. and Armed Insurrection

Here is the thing about tax increases: they are bad! No matter what! PERIOD END OF STORY. Except, of course, if they fund a paramilitary to create an insurrection and rebellion in the United States, in which case they are GOOD. An armed insurrection might come in handy down in Lubbock, Texas, if Obama reelected. Yes, in case you are wondering, certain people, and by certain people we mean these people from Lubbock and now these other people from a town in California, are still talking about this armed insurrection thing, including the part where the U.N. will be involved, because why wouldn't the U.S. need help from the U.N. to put down an uprising in Lubbock, Texas?

A hearing on a proposed tax increase had just started at the county courthouse here Monday when Grace Rogers, a retired teacher, addressed local leaders. Ms. Rogers said she supported the idea of increasing the property tax to 34.6 cents per $100 valuation from 32.9 cents to finance the hiring of additional sheriff’s deputies — with one reservation.

It was that, she said, “it does not fund a paramilitary to create an insurrection and rebellion against the United States.”

This is a totally understandable concern. We're not sure, but we think it's in the Grover Norquist anti-tax thingy that all new taxes must fund paramilitaries, or else they will interfere with job creation.

A few days before, the county’s top elected official, County Judge Tom Head, made an appearance on a local television station to generate support for the tax increase. He said he was expecting civil unrest if President Obama is re-elected, and that the president would send United Nations forces into Lubbock, population 233,740, to stop any uprising.

...If the president did send in United Nations troops, Mr. Head continued, “I don’t want ’em in Lubbock County. O.K. So I’m going to stand in front of their armored personnel carriers and say, ‘You’re not coming in here.’ And the sheriff, I’ve already asked him. I said, ‘You gonna back me?’ He said, ‘Yeah, I’ll back you.’

“Well, I don’t want a bunch of rookies back there,” Mr. Head said. “I want trained, equipped, seasoned veteran officers to back me.”

This will shock you, but Mr. Head is a Republican. He is also the head of the county's emergency management, and from what we can tell, he seems to be doing a heckuva job.

Mr. Head, a Republican who serves as the county’s emergency management director and presides over the commissioner’s court, made international headlines. He has not apologized, though he said that his statements were taken out of context and that he was using civil unrest only as an example of how he must prepare for worst-case scenarios.

On Monday, Mr. Head sat straight-faced and calm at the hearing as more than two dozen residents sounded off on the tax increase and his statements. In an interview, Sheriff Kelly Rowe said he never had any discussions with Mr. Head involving any Obama-related uprisings or invasions, but he declined to say what he thought of Mr. Head’s remarks.

...Kenny Ketner, the chairman of the Lubbock County Democratic Party, has called for Mr. Head to resign, as did the local newspaper, The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, which wrote in an editorial that Mr. Head “threw civility out the window and went in a bizarre direction that not only embarrassed himself but all county and West Texas residents.” Gilberto Hinojosa, the chairman of the Texas Democratic Party, publicly questioned Mr. Head’s “mental competency to hold elected office.”

Oh and you Californians? Don't get too smug.

As the hearing on Monday made clear, Mr. Head and his statements have received a small but vocal chorus of support in a place that the Bay Area Center for Voting Research, based in California, once called the second-most conservative city in the country (behind Provo, Utah) among those with more than 100,000 people. A handful of residents said that Mr. Head was right in preparing for the worst.

“I believe that we need a sheriff’s militia to protect Lubbock County, and get all the sheriffs in Texas to start a militia to protect Texas,” Kim Wade Gatewood, 48, told the commissioners and Mr. Head.

This is a solid plan from Kim Wade Gatewood, 48. As we pointed out the last time we visited with Mr. Head, there is probably no better argument for a) raising taxes in Texas and b) voting for Obama than the possibility of an armed insurrection against the U.S. which will be put down by Obama and Ban Ki Moon.

 [New York Times]