Town Hall Heat.

Those tweets--which I first saw on TalkingPointsMemo--are from a maniac in New Mexico named Scott Oskay. His call for the use of armed resistance against "ACORN/SEIU" members attending August town hall meetings on health care reform are emblematic of the paranoid hysteria emanating from the outer reaches of both conservatism and reality.

The Republican Party--weak and shedding supporters--refuses to disavow the mob mentality of its extreme right-wing fringe, which reacts like Pavlov's dog to an unholy alliance of talk radio, conservative bloggers and FOX News.

The temperature is rising, and a tiny, boisterous slice of America is confusing our age-old right of assembly and protest with something far more dangerous; a simmering rage which seems to have a strong undercurrent of racism as its flame.

Threats of violence act as an accelerant and the town halls have become engulfed.

Listen to this phone call received by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) today from a lady in St. Louis (h/t: Wonkette):

And she says, "Stop the violence?"

The SEIU--North America's largest union--supports health care reform, which sets them up as a public enemy in the eyes of the fringe. ACORN, of course, is the bogeyman the right has trotted out since they first heard Barack Obama's name.

The mobs are well-organized and have the full support of anti-reform groups funded by the health care industry and are promoted by conservative media. As the angry voices rise and town hall meetings dissolve into shoutfests and worse, legitimate debate is buried.

That's the strategy, along with cries of socialism and scaring seniors.

The United States has had a cooler-than-normal summer, but the temperature is rising.