What the fuck is wrong with these guys???

Following up on this post about the full-on crazy that Glenn Beck is, it looks like the republican party has decided to imitate their newest spiritual leader and get a little batshit nutty themselves. For instance:

• U.S. Representative Mark Kirk (R-IL), supposedly a moderate, told reporters that "I think that the decision to raise taxes by 50 percent in Illinois is political suicide. I think the people of Illinois are ready to shoot anyone who is going to raise taxes by that degree."
• Vulnerable North Carolina senator Richard Burr, during a speech he gave on the economy, discussed a conversation he had with his wife during the beginning of the bank crises where he told her "[Friday], I want you to go to the ATM machine, and I want you to draw out everything it will let you take. And I want you to tomorrow, and I want you to go Sunday.' I was convinced on Friday night that if you put a plastic card in an ATM machine the last thing you were going to get was cash."
• The Georgia state legislature passed a resolution which states that "if Congress, the president or federal courts take any action that exceeds their constitutional powers, the Constitution is rendered null and void and the United States of America is officially disbanded." It specifically refers to restrictions on the type of arms as such an action (Beck must have written that one in). Oklahoma and South Dakota's legislatures have both passed similar resolutions.
• And then there's the ever-present discussion of Texas' potential secession from the union which governor Rick Perry refuses to completely reject, which has been covered so much that there's not much less to say, other than that 18% of Texans would vote to secede if given the choice.

At this point, I'm not worried so much about the political ramifications of all of this; the more I see of the republican party, the more I'm convinced that they'll stay in the minority for a long time based solely on their own actions. What I'm more worried about is the societal ramifications. I'm worried that idiotic comments like these are going to incite economic panic, civil unrest, violent behavior, and the loss of human life.

Look, it's one thing for a personality like Beck to act like a fucking idiot. But elected politicians are supposed to be acting just a tad (and by tad I mean completely and totally) more responsible, and not trying to one-up the stupidity. I have to believe that these guys are smart enough to realize what their statements could lead to. I'm not sure if they're doing it because they feel like they have to do this to keep their base, or if they truly believe what they're saying.

Frankly, at this point I don't care. Someone on that side of the fence needs to seriously start smacking their colleagues around and tell them to knock it off. Of course, nowadays that's going to be politically inconvenient for a republican to do, but someone's just going to have to behave like a grownup and take that chance.