Supervisor Bill Connelly, Agenda 21 and Tea Party Armed Revolution...

It is wildflower time in the Foothills. Warm temperatures and wildflowers make for wonderful walks with dogs and spouses. It reminds me why we live out here in the country. Rural America does seem to be getting a bit weird though.

Agenda 21. It just keeps coming up from the paranoids around here who are willing to blame almost everything on the United Nations. The Chico ER had a letter writer doing it again today, this time stating that Democrats and Tea Partiers are united against Agenda 21.

And then my county supervisor, Bill Connelly, sent out an inflammatory e-mail against the "fire tax". California spends vast amounts of money on Calfire, which is essentially the fire department for rural counties. The state government spends millions on fire protection for wildland areas, so last year the Democrats in the state government imposed a rural fee on properties that are in the wildfire zone. It costs about $100 a year. I think it is a reasonable fee given that we have built a whole lot of homes in wildfire areas where they probably shouldn't have been built in the first place.

Well, this fee doesn't sit well with many rural residents. And they are outraged about it. Rural residents are outraged about many things, including the feared loss of Second Amendment rights. The Paradise Tea Party on Tuesday got their town council to vote in favor of the Second Amendment (whatever that means). Rural people are worried. They hate the new fire tax and they are worried about the big bad Government stepping in and taking their firearms away.

Bill Connelly, combines both outrage at the fire tax with a spooky veiled reference to firearms, in an e-mail he sent to his constituents today. It reads:

Senator Jim Nielsen will be hosting the Paradise Ridge Fire Tax Town Hall April 30, 2013 at the DeSabla Fire Hall located at 15264 Skyway Magalia, California from 6:00 - 8:00 P.M. This is a call to arms. Please attend and voice your opinion.

 

Frankly, I think stirring up this sort of anti-tax frenzy with a "call to arms" (the bold type was in the original) is a dangerous thing to do amongst many of these unhinged people.

 

Let us also remember a letter to the editor in the Paradise paper two weeks ago, written by a former mayor of Paradise and the chair of the Paradise Tea Party, that contemplated using arms against our government. You can read that treasonous and psychotic letter here. These Tea Party people are getting a bit spooky.