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On C-SPAN’s Washington Journal this morning Rep. David Nunes (R-CA) expressed his approval of tea party protesters who shouted faggot at Rep. Barney Frank and nigger at Rep. John Lewis. Nunes said, “Yeah, well I think that when you use totalitarian tactics, people, you know, begin to act crazy.” Racism and homophobia have nothing to do with health care, but everything to do with the tea party movement.

Here is the video courtesy of Think Progress:

When was asked about the slurs hurled at Reps. Lewis and Frank, Nunes said, “Yeah, well I think that when you use totalitarian tactics, people, you know, begin to act crazy. I think, you know, there’s people that have every right to say what they want. If they want to smear someone, they can do it. It’s not appropriate. And I think I would stop short of characterizing the 20,000 people protesting, that all of them were doing that -Of course. I think the left loves to play a couple of incidents here or there.”

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Just so everyone understands, Nunes was not only defending the conduct of the tea partiers, but also justifying their actions because of the health care reform bill. There is no piece of legislation that can ever possibly justify racism and homophobia. If this was the first time that members of the tea party have behaved this way, it could be excused as a few bad apples, but this behavior is a common occurrence at tea party protests.

Instead of praising their behavior, Nunes should have differentiated between their deplorable actions and their opposition to health care reform. The Constitution gives everyone the right to protest, but no one has the right to personally attack others because they don’t approve of their position on a piece of potential legislation. The Republican Party is letting itself be taken over by the darkest elements of right wing thought and people like David Nunes are too cowardly to say anything about it.