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An elected county judge in Texas is warning that the nation could descend into civil war if President Barack Obama is re-elected, and is calling for a trained, well-equipped force to battle the United Nations troops he says Obama would bring in.

The comments by Lubbock County Judge Tom Head, who oversees emergency planning efforts, were broadcast by CNN affiliate KJTV. He made similar remarks on radio station FOX Talk 950.

Saying that as the county's emergency management coordinator he has to "think about the very worst thing that can happen and prepare for that and hope and pray for the best," Head told radio host Jeff Klotzman that he believes "in this political climate and financial climate, what is the very worst thing that could happen right now? Obama gets back in the White House. No. God forbid."

Referring to unexplained "executive orders" and other documents that Obama and "his minions have filed," Head said, "regardless of whether the Republicans take over the Senate, which I hope they do, he is going to make the United States Congress and he's going to make the Constitution irrelevant. He's got his czars in place that don't answer to anybody."

Obama, Head said, will "try to give the sovereignty of the United States away to the United Nations. What do you think the public's going to do when that happens? We are talking civil unrest, civil disobedience, possibly, possibly civil war ... I'm not talking just talking riots here and there. I'm talking Lexington, Concord, take up arms, get rid of the dictator. OK, what do you think he is going to do when that happens? He is going to call in the U.N. troops, personnel carriers, tanks and whatever."

Head vowed to personally stand "in front of their personnel carriers and say, 'You're not coming in here.' And I've asked the sheriff. I said, 'Are you going to back me on this?' And he said, 'Yeah, I'm going to back you.' Well, I don't want a bunch of rookies back there who have no training and little equipment. I want seasoned veteran people who are trained that have got equipment. And even then, you know we may have two or three hundred deputies facing maybe a thousand U.N. troops. We may have to call out the militia."

Sheriff Kelly Rowe told KJTV there had been no conversation about such a civil war scenario. The two have discussed contingencies for emergency management, he said.

County Commissioner Gilbert Flores told KJTV he was "ashamed" of Head's remarks, and told the judge, "I think you better plan to go fishing pretty soon."

Attorney Rod Hobson jokingly put up U.N. flags outside his Lubbock office, KJTV reported. "When I saw the story I thought, once again, Lubbock is going to be the laughingstock of the entire nation," said Hobson. "What makes it so sad is he is our elected county judge, who is in charge of a multi-million dollar budget. That is scary. It's like the light's on, but no one is home... I'd just like to think he's off his meds."

But video from the Wednesday meeting showed at least one citizen supporting him. "Judge Head, thank you, and God bless," one citizen said.

Head did not immediately respond to an e-mail or phone call to his office Thursday morning.

KJTV reported that an aide to Head said the judge will not be commenting for one or two days.

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A proposed tax hike to expand the Sheriff’s Office and raise prosecutors’ pay was debated during a Wednesday morning public hearing.

The revenue from the tax increase, said County Judge Tom Head, would pay for three more patrol cars and deputies with the county Sheriff’s Office, two criminal investigation detectives, one more narcotics officer and reinforce the Criminal District Attorney’s Office.

Head told The Avalanche-Journal the revenue from the tax increase would relieve response times by sheriff’s deputies, reduce fatigue, strengthen their law enforcement abilities and help the CDA’s office retain its attorneys.

Criminal District Attorney Matt Powell has asked for a 10 percent across-the-board pay increase for all employees in his department. http://lubbockonline.com/local-news/2012-08-22/lubbock-county-resident
s-argue-both-sides-tax-increase

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While Judge Head, an elected judge in Lubbock, Texas, has received flak for his suggestion that the county should raise taxes in order to arm up the local constabulary in case the state should be attacked, his fears about civil unrest aren’t isolated.

In fact, they’re widely enough shared that some Americans believe the US government has, in fact, put military contingency plans into effect should the results of the election rile up extremists on the losing side.

Those concerns were fueled earlier this month when Col. Kevin Benson of the US Army's University of Foreign Military and Cultural Studies at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., published a theoretical paper in "Small Wars Journal" positing the response of the US government to an extremist militia fueled by tea party sentiments taking control of Darlington, S.C.

Thanks to a stubbornly poor economy and philosophical – some would say foundational – high stakes apparent in the presidential election, it’s clear from political blogs, letters to the editor, and word on the street that tensions are running high in the country, and that extends to politics. The recent shooting of a guard at the conservative Family Research Council by a gay rights activist supports that.

“The American people are so hot and so angry that it would not take much to set off a raging political fire,” columnist Michael Snyder writes on Hawaii News Daily website.

Although civil unrest is always possible (check out the long list on Wikipedia), there is very little reason to believe any of the doomsday “civil war” scenarios trotted out by people like Judge Head will actually come true.

Today’s stakes, though substantial, are not of civil-war caliber. Whether Obama or Romney is elected in November, chances are great that the workings of the Constitution will temper any revolutionary strains, as it has since the end of the Civil War.

Take, for example, the tension between the Obama administration and Texas – and, yes, there are a few beefs there, ranging from emergency aid for wildfires to voter ID. Those disagreements, despite the polarization and heated rhetoric, are being worked out in the place the Founders intended: the courts and the electoral system. Houston, Dallas and El Paso remain calm.

At the same time, there are growing worries among so-called sovereign citizen radicals and other extremist groups that the Republic is teetering on a precipice. One reason for recent gun-buying sprees and the spread of concealed carry licenses is in preparation for defense against unspecified “government tyranny,” Second Amendment experts say.

And of course, the Wild West of the modern media is there to stir things up, as well.

Last week, the federal government scurried to tamp down rumors about government agencies such as the Weather Service buying tens of thousands of rounds of hollow-point bullets – news that some took to mean that bureaucrats were arming up against the prospect of unrest should Obama be reelected. It turns out that it wasn’t the weather service, but NOAA – which has dozens of armed officers that patrol the nation’s fishing grounds – and several other agencies that order bullets up annually for routine training.

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