Right-wing extremism is exactly what Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders must have wanted when she appointed former state Rep. Jason Rapert to the Arkansas state library board. And that’s what she got. Right Wing Watch reported that he has been “regularly lashing out at his fellow board members for refusing to support his far-right agenda and complaining that he’s been experiencing a ‘hostile work environment’ because he is ‘a Christian white male.’”
Pobrecito!
I don’t know where in the Bible, the Constitution or the library board bylaws it says torturing your enemies is the way to deal with differences of opinion. But that’s obviously Rapert’s preferred way to work things out. As a member of my own local library board, I always thought it my duty to encourage people to read, not push them away from material I don’t like.
But Rapert clearly thinks his job as a board member is to police and limit what Americans read.
Right Wing Watch caught Rapert longing for tarring and feathering his library board colleagues on a program called “Save The Nation.” After complaining that he “cannot get those other board members to take a stand to stop some of the [LGBTQ] smut that is in those libraries,” he said he’s “at the point now” that the legislature should remove the whole board (except himself, presumably) and start over. “Or maybe they just need to call on people to resign if you’re not going to do your job.”
“You need to protect children. When you don’t protect children in America, you have no business serving in a public official’s role,” Rapert continued. “When you get to a point that you’re so confused and you’re so completely jaded that you cannot make a decision to keep smut or pornographic stuff out of the front of children, you’ve lost your ever-loving mind and you need to be replaced. You need to be taken out.”
Rapert insisted, “I’m not talking about violence.” No, he was talking about torturing his fellow board members less eager than he to ban books. “You need to be run out on a rail. You probably should be tarred and feathered. That’s what they used to do in America is they would tar and feather those kind of folks. Get rid of them. Teach ‘em a lesson. Get ‘em out of office.”
Just what Jesus would have said and done, I’m sure.
