That was a comment I left in a Dkos diary last night, The heat is on: Bloomberg.com decimates Boehner and the republicans. It was in response to this comment by slippytoad:
Imagine thousands of people who have barely hung on in this tsunami of an election now unemployed and with lots of free time on their hands.
Especially Teabaggers who do not understand even slightly what the fuck just happened to them.
I got a response back from one individual who I will not name or quote to the extent that progressives need to “man up” and get a gun. That the extreme elements of the Tea Party are nothing to be frightened of. They are just a bogeyman. That progressives are “wimps” (a gay slur by the way).
Well, I own a gun. Lots of progresives and Democrats own guns (just check out the RBKA diaries sometimes). I don’t think its wrong to be concerned about a group of individuals (the Tea Party) whose purported leaders constantly speak in terms of shedding blood, of second amendment remedies, and publicly broadcast their eliminationist fantasies. Indeed, a prominent diary on the rec list at the moment is calling out Glen Beck for that very reason.
I don’t think it is unreasonable to express concern about the astonishing iincrease in right wing militias, white supremacists and other hate groups (now over 1000 hate groups as identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center in February 2011) since Obama was elected.
That the scourge of hate continues to spread does not surprise researchers at the Montgomery, Ala.-based SPLC. “What we’re hoping to do is bring a public awareness so that people understand there is a significant and violent radical-right wing,” said Mark Potok, editor of the Intelligence Report. “In no way do we want to suppress free speech or extremely robust political debate … but we’re seeing an enormous amount of anti-immigrant propaganda and a demonizing of particular groups of people that sets up members of these hate groups to commit acts of violence.”
Who among us here has forgotten the FBI raid on the Huttaree militia that prevented and armed uprising and planned massacres of police officers?
The anti-government militia allegedly plotted to kill law enforcement officers with improvised explosive devices and projectiles before being foiled by FBI raids that started Sunday in three states that netted nine members of an extremist group, federal authorities said today.
Who among us has forgotten the that an individual with ties to a white supremacists planned to bomb an MLK day parade in Spokane in January of this year that was prevented literally minutes before the parade was to commence:
The bomb was discovered by three workers just half an hour before Spokane’s MLK Day parade was set to begin on Jan. 17, the FBI said.
Authorities rerouted the parade while officers from the Spokane Police Department’s bomb disposal unit worked on the bomb.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder confirmed the arrest had been made and said today the bomb “was planted with the aim of injuring or killing people.”
“We were fortunate that it did not go off and people were, in fact, not killed. We were just lucky in that regard,” he said in a press conference.
Who among us has forgotten about the threat posed to law enforcement officers and the general public by members and adherents of the Sovereign Citizens Movement?
This is a story about a group of Americans you’ve likely never heard of: they’re called “sovereign citizens.” Many don’t pay taxes, carry a driver’s license or hold a Social Security card. They have little regard for the police or the courts, and some have become violent.
The FBI lists them among the nation’s top domestic terror threats.
By some estimates, there are as many as 300,000 sovereign citizens in the U.S. And with the sluggish economy and mortgage mess, their ranks are growing. […]
“What is a sovereign citizen?” Pitts asked J.J. MacNab, who has been studying sovereign citizens for a decade.
“Sovereign citizen, in its simplest form, believes that he is above the law,” she explained.
MacNab has testified before Congress and is writing a book about the movement. “He has a twisted sense of history and he thinks that people who lived in the 18th century were free of all legal constraints. And they want to return to that time now,” she said.
Jerry and Joe Kane were part of an anti-government movement whose roots date back to the racist Posse Comitatus of the 1970s and the Montana Freemen of the 1990s. Convicted Oklahoma City bomber Terry Nichols was a sovereign citizen. […]
“(The) Average sovereign citizen today is 30-35, and is in economic dire straits. They’ve probably lost their job. They’ve probably lost the wife,” MacNab said.
Asked if they’re paranoid, she told Pitts, “Many are.”
“Conspiracy theorists?” Pitts asked.
“Most are,” she replied.
I don’t think its unreasonable or demonstrates cowardliness to point out the numerous incidents of murderous violence and attempted violence by individuals with right wing extremist views over the past three years, individuals who claimed they felt encouraged to act out their violent fantasies because of what they has heard from people like Mr. Beck and others who demonize Obama, Democrats, liberals, progressives, LGBT people, minorities, and anyone else who doesn’t believe in their “truth”. Here are a few of the more well know incidents:
- Jim Adkisson, who attacked a Unitarian church to kill liberals in July 2008.
- James W. von Bruun the Holocaust Museum killer who held white supremacist views.
- Scott P. Roeder, the murderer io Dr. George Tiller, was motivated by his belief that killing abortion doctors was morally and legally justified. He had connections to and received assistance in tracking Dr. Tiller from the extreme anti-abortion group “Operation Rescue.”
- “Sovereign Citizen” Jerry Kane and his son murder two police officers in Arkansas on May 10, 2010.
- Byron Williams, who on July 20, 2010, was stopped by two CHP officers before he could commit mass murder against employees of San Francisco ACLU and The Tides Foundation, claimed he wanted to start a revolution and his actions were motivated by Glenn Beck’s constant tirades slandering those two charitable organizations.
- James Cummings, a Maine right wing extremist linked to white supremacist groups by the FBI, had bomb-making instructional materials and components to assemble a dirty bomb in his home. His actions were only discovered after he was killed by his wife in a domestic dispute.
- Joseph Stack flew his plane into an IRS building on February 18, 2010, killing one person and wounding 13 others. He left a suicide note blaming the US tax system and an authoritarian federal government.
- Schaeffer Cox and other member do his militia, Alaska Peacemaker, are arrested on March, 10, 2011, for plotting to kill Alaska State Troopers and a Federal Judge.
- Gary Thomas Kelley, on May 6, 2010, shot an killed his neighbor of 8 years, Juan Varela, after using racial slurs and demanding that the victim “go back to Mexico. This murder occurred during a week of protests regarding Arizona’s Anti-Immigration “papers please” law SB 1070.
Threats to Federal Judges and other court officials have doubled. The number of death threats to President Obama has skyrocketed compared to previous presidents, including his immediate predecessor.
A little while ago I posted a diary that included a list of some of the numerous incidents of right wing violent rhetoric and the violent acts it inspired that have occurred since Obama locked up the Democratic nomination in June, 2008. The complete list can be found here: Link. That list should give pause to anyone, liberal, moderate or conservative who believes in the rule of law, and does not advocate violence as a political tactic.
To be concerned about the hateful and violent political rhetoric from right wing politicians and news “personalities” on Fox News and on conservative talk radio is not unwarranted or evidence of weakness. To be concerned about the vicious lies and propaganda that has the “tea party” crowd riled up over alleged conspiracies by the federal government to take their guns away, or that Obama is pursuing a socialist, fascist, or Muslim takeover of the country, is not evidence of an unwarranted alarmist reaction. To be concerned about the numerous examples of domestic terrorism and known terrorist plots by right wing groups is not irrational or and example of progressive bed-wetting.
It’s merely common sense.
