Bending It Like Beck

Last June Thomas H. Naylor made another appearance on an extremist media outlet as head of the increasingly ineffectual group, Second Vermont Republic. This was his second guest spot of Beck's conspiracy addled hour. In that mushy, mangled methaphor way of his, Beck states that he regards Naylor and SVR as evidence that the American "pot is boiling."

BECK: "Columnists in The New York Times will blame me for stirring the pot and they have blamed me for stirring the pot, but I'm just pointing out that the pot is boiling. Instead of reading The New York Times, why don't we talk to someone from an actual group that is actually saying, "boiling water here" and wants to secede from the United States?"

"In Burlington, Vermont, is Thomas Naylor. He is the founder of the Second Vermont Republic (M)ovement. Sir, I believe, Thomas I spoke to you two years ago?"

NAYLOR: "Yes, greetings. Thanks for stirring the pot!"

[snip]

"... the interest in secession has increased rather substantially. We now have about 12 percent of the registered voters in Vermont support secession. That's about 60,000 people. The movement continues to evolve."

Glenn Beck program, June 23, 2009 [1]

Really? 60,000 "registered voters in Vermont support secession?" How did Naylor ever get to that figure? Well, he's spoken in the past about his "extrapolations" from a UVM Center for Rural Studies polls that he commissioned in 2006 and 2007, and, as most anyone knows, when Naylor the economics professor uses economics speak like "extrapolate," that means that he's just making shit up. [2] [3]



Given that Naylor's last political endeavour, undertaken at a time when he claimed to have "60,000 registered voters in Vermont support(ing) secession," was an utter failure, should we expect that with seven or nine announced flakes, er, candidates in his vanity campaign that he's to be seven or nine times as "sucessful" as he was the last time he tried this with Peter Moss? [4] , (What is seven or nine times zero, professor?) It's really hard to say what they're really doing since they have yet to register as a party or organize as required by statute.

As if to drive home the point that the SVR candidates clown car is headed full speed for the cliff/wall/ether, Naylor gives us this new pronouncement about his goals for secession in Vermont:

1. Political independence by 2015.

2. Dissolution of the American Empire by 2020.

[snip]

(and under Strategies) 3. Imagine…Free Vermont. Launch a new political party whose aim is to elect state government officials and members of the legislature committed to Vermont independence. Once the party has a majority in the legislature, a motion will be introduced calling for a statewide convention to consider articles of secession. After these articles of secession have been approved by a two-thirds majority of the convention delegates, negotiations will begin with the United States Government for the peaceable departure of Vermont from the Union. [5]

"Two-thirds?" Within three election cycles? And he's yet to have one of his secession stooges win one office in the 7 years that he's been harping on secession?

Finally, Naylor posted on his website the following brief essay of his intent for Vermonters who don't agree to toe the SVR Vermont Independence Day Party line:

"The Loss of Moral Authority in Vermont"

"Any Vermonter who supports Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, Patrick Leahy, or Peter Welch is personally morally responsible, and should be held accountable, for the death and destruction inflicted by the U.S. Government upon the Afghans and Iraqis and upon the Palestinians through our proxy Israel."

Imagine…Free Vermont
Thomas H. Naylor
February 1, 2010 [6]

That's just creepy.

Naylor's long-standing rep for payback to those who don't slavishly support his secession plan (Sanders, Leahy, DeWalt, Odum, McKibben, etc.) is well known, despite the minimization of his attacks by his flack, Rob Williams. [7]

Really, "what could be more absurd" than making Beck sound like the sane one in the room?

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