I've often wondered if conservative media figures buy their own hype (fueled by blatant misinformation) about the horrors of the health care reform bill that just passed in the House last night. For some, it's unclear if they actually think the bill is “slavery” that will bring about “the end of America as we know it,” or if they are just worried about what will happen to the GOP's electoral prospects if the Democrats score a major domestic policy victory. It's pretty clear that Confederate Yankee, aka Bob Owens, falls into the former group.

As we noted last night, Owens said that “jackasses” who call health care a “right,” deserve to be “drawn and quartered.” Rather than backpeddle, Owens "proudly" stood by his words this morning:

I stand by my comment that the Democrats who crammed this unwarranted bill down the throats of the American people who clearly and overwhelmingly opposed it deserve to be drawn and quartered.

As Wikipedia notes, having someone “laboring against that person's will to benefit another, under some form of coercion” is the very definition of involuntary servitude... slavery. We are Americans, and will be slaves to no man, no Congress, and no President.

As Wikipedia also notes, describing what it means to be “drawn and quartered,”:

Until reformed under the Treason Act 1814,^[1] the full punishment for the crime of treason was to be hanged, drawn and quartered in that the condemned prisoner would be:

1. Dragged on a hurdle (a wooden frame) to the place of execution. This is one possible meaning of drawn.^[2]

2. Hanged by the neck for a short time or until almost dead (hanged).

3. Disembowelled and emasculated and the genitalia and entrails burned before the condemned's eyes (this is another meaning of drawn--see the reference to the Oxford English Dictionary below)^[3][4]

4. The body beheaded, then divided into four parts (quartered).

Owens is openly calling for the torture and execution of Members of Congress who think it should be a right for all people in this country to have access to health care. In case you were thinking he may be speaking metaphorically, he clears up any confusion with his latest post.

Owens is essentially calling for armed revolution. I wish I were exaggerating:

Some are calling for the armed revolt against this encroaching tyranny. It was for this specific reason, after all, that our Founders made sure Americans would not be denied the use of arms.

Some misguided souls seem to already be responding to this affront to liberty with violence. I fail to find the usefulness or utility of such symbolic and largely impotent acts. This sort of petty vandalism is not what the Founders sought to protect.

They sought to protect our right to replace--yes, overthow--would-be tyrants and rouges that history has taught us always eventually arrive to usurp power and run roughshod over the rights of the people.

As we have been told countless times by philosophers and statesmen, tyranny is always seeking power and it comes in many guises. Sometimes sunlight is enough to dissuade those who would enslave others. In other instances, the mechanisms of justice can undo such wrongs. Thankfully, the final mechanism our founders instill to protect us from tyranny has not had to be used since an isolated event 64 years ago.

We live in a nation full of freshly-experienced combat veterans and graying patriots alike that still remember their oaths to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. The taste of liberty is much sweeter for them, having been to parts of the world where such things cannot be taken for granted. Pray that we are not required to call upon their service in a struggle against our own countrymen. God protect us all if we are forced to such extremes by a power-mad clique intent on transforming citizens into dependent subjects.

I have some hope that the courts will respond favorably to the many states suing to eradicate this unconstitutional scheme, or that November's elections will destroy the Democratic majority and lay the ground for a full repeal of a bad law designed purely for one party's political gain.

The thought of the morally-required alternative is almost too much to bear.

To recap: Owens has “some hope” that the bill will be ruled unconstitutional or that Dems will be voted out of office, or else Owens and “freshly-experienced combat veterans” may be forced to resort to the “morally-required alternative.”

Owens doesn't want to have to kill us, but he may be forced to. Nice blogosphere you have there, conservatives.