Sic Semper Tyrannis

I've been mulling over how these words are floating around on the web.  It is Latin for "Thus always to tyrants" or something to that affect.  Since it is most famous for having been shouted by John Wilkes Booth as he killed Abraham Lincoln, and supposed (by some) to have been said by one or more of Caesar's assassins, the implication is that tyrants always are, or should be, killed.

Why this phrase?  A huge segment of the American public has convinced themselves that Obama is the worst tyrant ever to "reign" in America.  Google the phrase and you will get 100s of thousands of links which at a first look seem to be to right wing blogs, etc.



On a whim, I went to twitter and entered the phrase and within minutes ran across the following, from within the past 24 hours.  I suspect there is much more like it, and much worse, if I found this so easily:

Note: "sum times history must be repeated for the Good of ones country, in our case to save Republic from Tryanny"(sic)

Very subtle.  As Henry II said of Thomas Becket " Will no one relieve me of this lowborn priest".  Well, somebody did.

Does anyone think any good will come of this?  and if so, why?  Where do people get their ideas that Obama will Gulag-ize America?  Why do they think, even if he wanted to that the military would just fall in line and start oppressing fellow citizens?  Like I tried to illustrate in "My Not-really-right-wing Mom and her adventures in Email-Land (revision)", I think the systematic churning out of disinformation in the form of anonymous emails is probably a much larger factor than seems imaginable to most people.  The big pundits are just the tip of the iceberg as seen by most of us who expect sane and civil debate.  While completely irresponsible and anonymous sources provide made-up "proofs" that Obama is a Muslim, or Marxist, or whatever, the big pundits, who have something to lose by being too obviously dishonest wrap it up in a tidy package by saying "He doesn't think like us" and so on.  They only have to assert that Obama is socialist (which can be defended as a vague opinion) while others "prove" it for them.