The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

So Much for That ‘Rising Risk’

Posted on | April 1, 2010 | 17 Comments

Eugene Robinson’s fear — or should I say, hope? — of a “serious threat of domestic terrorism . . . from the far right” turns out to be far-fetched:

There’s a lot of anger out there. But the alleged plot by Midwestern militants and violent outbursts by scattered individuals don’t signal any coming wave of extremist violence, federal investigators say. . . .
Militia extremist statements “primarily have served as an expression of anger after a particular event,” according to an FBI intelligence bulletin obtained by The Associated Press. “The FBI assesses the likelihood of violent conflict from the remaining group members or other militia extremists as low.”

Professor William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection:

Of course, reality will not change anything for those intellectually dishonest columnists and bloggers who wake up every morning hoping that there will have been an act of violence they can pin on the “right wing.”

However much of a “threat of domestic terrorism” actually exists from the “far right,” (a) it is miniscule in comparison to the incessant media chatter about the subject, and (b) it is clearly disconnected from mainstream conservative politics.

These “Hutaree” people were a bunch of clowns, malcontented losers enthralled by impractical revolutionary fantasies. Hutaree clown-in-chief David Stone was turned in by a member of the Michigan Militia, and it appears they were so clueless that they wouldn’t have been able to make a functioning bomb without the help of an undercover FBI agent.

There are, however, opportunistic propagandists who specialize in exaggerating the “far right” threat and suggesting to sympathetic reporters that we are on the teetering on the brink of a putsch inspired by Sarah Palin or Ron Paul or Rush Limbaugh. The object of such propaganda about the “far right” is to stigmatize legitimate political activism, to associate it in the public mind with criminal violence, as if every Tea Party rally included bomb-making lessons.

Such fear-mongering results from a profound misunderstanding of who American conservatives are and what they believe. American conservatism is a movement dominated by and culturally attuned to the respectable, responsible, taxpaying middle class. To employ a fancy French intellectual word, American conservatism is bourgeois. These are people with a near-religious devotion to the democratic process and who are therefore far removed from the pipebomb pipe dreams of the “Hutaree” and other such kooks.

The same media voices who relentlessly promote misleading propaganda about the “far right” (hello, Frank Rich) simultaneously ignore far more real dangers to public safety, including the growing violence along the Mexican border. There is reason to believe that Mexico is in danger of sliding into anarchy – e.g., gunmen attacking Mexican military bases and 79 U.S. citizens killed in Mexico in 2009 – and yet you have not seen the border issue addressed in columns by Frank Rich and Eugene Robinson. They are suspiciously selective in their fear-mongering, exaggerating the ”far right”  danger, and ignoring everything else.

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Category: Crime, Media Bias, Terrorism

Comments

  • Joe

    Our biggest risk is stupidity right now.

    I do not want to pick on this congressman, he is just a blanant example of it. Seriously, it affects all aspects of society. There are lots of stupid Republicans and conservatives too, although I suspect there are a lot more stupid people on the Democratic and leftist side. People lack critical thinking and common sense. It is not an IQ thing, it is purely a matter of laziness of thought.

    It makes me worry about the future.

  • Joe

    Our biggest risk is stupidity right now.

    I do not want to pick on this congressman, he is just a blanant example of it. Seriously, it affects all aspects of society. There are lots of stupid Republicans and conservatives too, although I suspect there are a lot more stupid people on the Democratic and leftist side. People lack critical thinking and common sense. It is not an IQ thing, it is purely a matter of laziness of thought.

    It makes me worry about the future.

  • Joe

    It is not purely a matter of laziness. Some people do have low IQs (and you can make your own judgment call on the congressman). But laziness of reasoning and figuring out things is a serious hurdle This country has a herd mentality on conclusions without considering the ramifications of these decisions.

  • Joe

    It is not purely a matter of laziness. Some people do have low IQs (and you can make your own judgment call on the congressman). But laziness of reasoning and figuring out things is a serious hurdle This country has a herd mentality on conclusions without considering the ramifications of these decisions.

  • http://the-classic-liberal.com/ theCL

    My guess is that the undercover FBI was an agent provocateur.

  • http://the-classic-liberal.com/ theCL

    My guess is that the undercover FBI was an agent provocateur.

  • Live Free Or Die

    If only the FBI would infiltrate the Islamic terror groups the way they infiltrate ‘Christian’ militia groups.
    The Hutaree bust was timed to coincide with the Industrial Media Complex’s broadbrush of Conservatives/Tea Partiers as dangerous, fringe, lunatics.

  • Live Free Or Die

    If only the FBI would infiltrate the Islamic terror groups the way they infiltrate ‘Christian’ militia groups.
    The Hutaree bust was timed to coincide with the Industrial Media Complex’s broadbrush of Conservatives/Tea Partiers as dangerous, fringe, lunatics.

  • Joe

    Okay, Allah says he is suffering from a medical condition.

    So why be an active congressman if you are mentally unfit? They take away your driver’s license for that.

  • Joe

    Okay, Allah says he is suffering from a medical condition.

    So why be an active congressman if you are mentally unfit? They take away your driver’s license for that.

  • Joe

    Okay, Allah says he is suffering from a medical condition.

    So why be an active congressman if you are mentally unfit? They take away your driver’s license for that.

  • Montana

    I love that they asked for “Public Defenders”, now they know about the undercover FBI agent. The simpleton Tea baggers keep missing the point. These are the same whiners that were crying when the McCain/Bailin ticket lost. Now they are crying again because their yelling (because they are haters not debaters) did not stop health care from passing. They think they can scare, intimidate and force others to go along with them by comments like “This time we came unarmed”, let me tell you something they are not the only ones that are armed and not all ex-military join the fringe militia crazies who don’t pay taxes and run around with face paint in the parks playing commando, the majority are mature and understand that the world is more complicated and grey then the black and white that these simpleton make it out to be and that my friend is the point. So it’s only fitting that their leaders are Sarah Bailin, Victoria Jackson, Michele Bachmann and their turn coat Glenn Beck. So if you are bothered that there are some misconceptions of your group, well then I think you need to be more careful who you invite to give you speeches.

  • Montana

    I love that they asked for “Public Defenders”, now they know about the undercover FBI agent. The simpleton Tea baggers keep missing the point. These are the same whiners that were crying when the McCain/Bailin ticket lost. Now they are crying again because their yelling (because they are haters not debaters) did not stop health care from passing. They think they can scare, intimidate and force others to go along with them by comments like “This time we came unarmed”, let me tell you something they are not the only ones that are armed and not all ex-military join the fringe militia crazies who don’t pay taxes and run around with face paint in the parks playing commando, the majority are mature and understand that the world is more complicated and grey then the black and white that these simpleton make it out to be and that my friend is the point. So it’s only fitting that their leaders are Sarah Bailin, Victoria Jackson, Michele Bachmann and their turn coat Glenn Beck. So if you are bothered that there are some misconceptions of your group, well then I think you need to be more careful who you invite to give you speeches.

  • Montana

    I love that they asked for “Public Defenders”, now they know about the undercover FBI agent. The simpleton Tea baggers keep missing the point. These are the same whiners that were crying when the McCain/Bailin ticket lost. Now they are crying again because their yelling (because they are haters not debaters) did not stop health care from passing. They think they can scare, intimidate and force others to go along with them by comments like “This time we came unarmed”, let me tell you something they are not the only ones that are armed and not all ex-military join the fringe militia crazies who don’t pay taxes and run around with face paint in the parks playing commando, the majority are mature and understand that the world is more complicated and grey then the black and white that these simpleton make it out to be and that my friend is the point. So it’s only fitting that their leaders are Sarah Bailin, Victoria Jackson, Michele Bachmann and their turn coat Glenn Beck. So if you are bothered that there are some misconceptions of your group, well then I think you need to be more careful who you invite to give you speeches.

  • http://www.rightviewfromtheleftcoast.blogspot.com Mark J. Goluskin

    Hate to say it, but Charles Manson in a drug-induced state had a better plan than these clowns. Really, killing a policeman or men and then attacking their funerals. Some plan. But, hey, this all fits in coinkidinckly with the Dear Leader pontificating about the “core” of the Tea Party movement.

  • http://www.rightviewfromtheleftcoast.blogspot.com Mark J. Goluskin

    Hate to say it, but Charles Manson in a drug-induced state had a better plan than these clowns. Really, killing a policeman or men and then attacking their funerals. Some plan. But, hey, this all fits in coinkidinckly with the Dear Leader pontificating about the “core” of the Tea Party movement.

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