The Washington Post interviewed James Vanderboegh, the self-styled “patriot” who called for people to vandalize the offices of Democratic lawmakers.
“So, if you wish to send a message that Pelosi and her party [that they] cannot fail to hear, break their windows,” Vanderboegh wrote on the blog, Sipsey Street Irregulars. “Break them NOW. Break them and run to break again. Break them under cover of night. Break them in broad daylight. Break them and await arrest in willful, principled civil disobedience. Break them with rocks. Break them with slingshots. Break them with baseball bats. But BREAK THEM.”
In the days that followed, glass windows and doors were shattered at local Democratic Party offices and the district offices of House Democrats from Arizona to Kansas to New York. At least 10 Democratic lawmakers reported death threats, incidents of harassment or vandalism at their offices over the past week, and the FBI and Capitol Police are offering lawmakers increased protection.
Vanderboegh has been in this so-called “patriot” movement for more than a decade, according to the SPLC. He also believes we’re going to have a civil war (or is a better word “hopes”). The WaPo also solicited this interesting tidbit:
Vanderboegh said he once worked as a warehouse manager but now lives on government disability checks. He said he receives $1,300 a month because of his congestive heart failure, diabetes and hypertension. He has private health insurance through his wife, who works for a company that sells forklift products.
This anti-government warrior, this self-styled leader, sponges our tax money? I guess he really deserves that money while other people are just lazy.
It’s difficult to take a movement of confused, angry people who get government checks (disability and Medicare) seriously as some kind of movement that will change America. They don’t even have a coherent ideology. All they have in common is fear and unfocused rage. Shame on those people who seek to feed that fear instead of trying to educate.