Rep. Zach Wamp, a patriotic Tennessee conservative Republican competing in a three-way primary race for governor, is talking secession and threatening to not implement federal health care reform.
I hope that the American people will go to the ballot box in 2010 and 2012 so that states are not forced to consider separation from this government.
. . . He lauded Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX), who first floated the idea of secession in April ’09, for leading the push-back against health care reform, adding that he hopes the American people “will send people to Washington that will, in 2010 and 2012, strictly adhere” to the constitution’s defined role for the federal government.
“Patriots like Rick Perry have talked about these issues because the federal government is putting us in an untenable position at the state level,” said Wamp . . .”
Bet you didn’t know real patriots are OK with sedition. And, real conservative Republicans don’t put up with being outvoted in elections and on bills in Congress the way pantywaist progressives do. Real conservative Republicans have options.
Yes sir, the great state of Tennessee can’t stand by while big government steps up to see to it a whole lot of moderate- and low-income people actually get access to affordable health care! The Constitution clearly states . . . uh, well, it doesn’t specifically say the riff-raff get medical care.
After all, what in hell has affordable, accessible health care got to do with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?
Wamp, who serves on the House Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, and Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies, is funded primarily by food, engineering, construction, real estate, contract corrections and the corporation that operates the Energy Department’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Those interests and their PACs have funded Wamp’s congressional career with upwards of $8 million.
A supposedly principled conservative, Wamp left his real estate career to serve in Congress in 1994, as part of the wrecking crew led by Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey, infamous for their farcical “Contract With America.”
You may recall a key provision of that gimmick was voluntary term limits – principled conservative Wamp pledged to leave after six terms. Two terms after his sixth term ended he’s still in the House.
Hey, why should Wamp term-limit himself when so many of his fellow Contract With America signers didn’t?
See, Ma? All the other kids are doing it.
Besides, Washing, D.C., is such a small, closely knit world. In the 2006 cycle, one of Wamp’s principal contributors was something called PMA Group. We learned more about that Wamp backer at Wikipedia.
PMA Group, The PMA Group is a defunct lobbying firm based in Washington D.C. It was founded and owned by ex-House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense staffer Paul Magliocchetti. The firm’s annual lobbying income climbed steadily to its 2006 peak at $16,060,000.[2] In November 2008 the PMA Group’s offices were raided by the FBI. The subsequent investigation into illegal pay to play activities has led to the resignation of five of its senior lobbyists who started their own firm and brought clients with them. As a result, the firm ceased operations on March 31, 2009
Pay to play, huh? Did we mention Wamp serves on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies?
Note: Be sure to follow the first paragraph link to Hotlineoncall.com and scroll down to the comments for some pointed “back at you, Bozo” sentiments on the secession threat.
Not all of us TN folks think this idiot hung the moon. Hopefully he’ll fall flat on his face this time around – but anything can happen in this state and not all of it good.
The Republicans’ intolerance for the principles of democracy is very clear. That makes them fascist to the core. The South is begging for fascism and they won’t stop until they drag us all into the darkness.
L.P., I had a hunch you’re not a fan. One look at Sen. Croaker and Rep. Blockbrain underscores your point about anything can happen.
Dave, maybe fascism, certainly plutocracy. Either way, their disdain for traditional American democracy and limited loyalty give the lie to their constant posturing as superpatriots.
Let’s give em Texas. But if that Happens we put up a fence around them!
Funny I had talked to tnlib about moving to Tenn. I’m glad I listened to her. Of course I’m kidding, But I’ve had it with these nuts.
“…Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security.”
I realize that we do not live in a democracy but rather a representative republic. That being said, when our elected representatives continuously and repeatedly ignore the will of their constituents, as was the case with overwhelming public sentiment against health care as was passed into “law”, sooner or later we the people will not abide the authoritarianism from our government that erodes our freedoms and liberties.
But what do I and tens of mllions of other Americans that feel just the same way know?
Tim, as we’ve seen on Texas’ southern border, fences aren’t much of a solution, LOL. If worse comes to worst, I just want to be very sure Texas takes Karl Rove, Tom DeLay, Dick Armey, Louis Gomert, and the whole Bush clan with it, and keeps them.
Paine, you refer to “representative republic” as if it’s not a democracy. The accepted term is “our representative democracy.” The only time we’ve had pure democracy was for several pre-revolution decades, with the New England town hall meetings.
” . . . when our elected representatives continuously and repeatedly ignore the will of their constituents, as was the case with overwhelming public sentiment against health care . . .”
You sound like a drama queen desperately afraid of change and unclear about what democracy is and how it works. Conservative Republicans gave a majority of voters ample reason to reject them at the polls. You don’t like their replacements and what they’re doing. Such is life in a democracy.
As for that “overwhelming public sentiment,” one survey I saw showed about 40 percent of the dissatisfied felt that way because HCR didn’t go far enough.
You intimate that because you’re not getting your way, there’s no democracy. Take it from one who’s spent most of the last 30 years not getting his way, democracy doesn’t guarantee full satisfaction all the time or even most of the time.
Here’s a good definition of representative democracy, one worth thinking about:
People who believe in democracy have faith in it, even when things aren’t going their way. People who react to losing elections and votes on issues by threatening to take their dollies and leave come off as too immature and selfish to be small-”d” democrats.
Wamp, Perry and others who go on about secession need remedial courses in American democracy. I doubt there’s a remedy for their immaturity.
All other comments aside, I do agree with and like your definition given of a representative “democracy”, sir. I would respectfully dispute the fact that this is what we have in America. I will stand by my statement, as supported throughout American history, that we were indeed intended to be governed as a representative republic though.
We have govenment that represents Big Money. That is neither democracy nor republic. Sure we have the facade of a republic in corporatocracy and a facade of democracy in elections for corporate candidates.
SW, it is Plutocracy. I thought for minute that I was being too harsh calling Republicans fascists. Surely the ALL can’t be. But then I think about how many Republicans reject the fascim of Beck and Limbaugh…None. When Republican leadership takes our country closer to fascism than ever before, I wonder.
The only other time I heard about Zach Wamp was a few years ago. I don’t know if he’s Native American or not (with a name like that, who knows?) but I think he’s very sympathetic to Native American causes. And that was all I knew about him until this story came out.
Politicians who talk about seceding and politicians who talk about self-imposed term limits have one thing in common: In both cases it’s all talk and zero action.
Paine, we do have a republic with a representative form of government, so if that term suits you better I won’t say you’re wrong.
Dave, our democracy is in greater peril than at any time in my lifetime. Politicians’ excessive need for money and money’s excessive influence on them is the reason. It’s why I added the Brandeis quote to the far-right sidebar on this page.
During Bush’s reign of error we had full-blown plutocracy and arguably were well down the road to fascism. Plutocracy was so complete that Republicans sometimes didn’t bother to write legislation for their corporate masters. The prescription drug bill was written by pharmaceutical industry lobbyists – a practice that should be outlawed.
Tom, whatever his ethnicity, Wamp is a lockstep-marching Bush loyalist. He’s a fine example of congressional Republicans who voted again and again for Bush’s borrow-and-spend, tax-cut-and-spend idiocy, and now, when a Democrat is trying to clean up the mess he and others like him left, Wamp cries to the skies about how huge and horrible the deficit is.
What I’m surprised about is our Virginia resident village idiot Cucchinelli, state AG, hasn’t actually mentioned secession too. He’s helped spearhead that boneheaded lawsuit against healthcare reform, but he hasn’t actually mentioned secession. Yet. I’m sure it’s coming, and how fitting would that be, the state where the first civil war ended and began.
So, unless the NRA mobilizes its 4million + members, they can’t secede, because they’d have to go to war again to do it. Funny how you don’t hear Minnesota crying about secession.
Virginia seceding would be really awkward, considering all the people who commute to D.C. every day, LOL. Cucchinelli strikes me as the type who would call for anyway. My, what would we do without these people?