Christian terrorist arrested in Planned Parenthood bomb plot

[Liberty]

So he is left with the following choices:
-Advocating that every egg has to be fertilized and carried to term by all means possible, since "not existing ist the worst thing possible" and anything that reduces their chance of existing is therefore a terrible crime.
-Staying with his hypocrisy that focusses solely on abortion and misogny and ignores his own contradictionary logic.
-Realize that his arguments are bullshit and retract them.
-Run away like the shithead he is

You called it. Kind of sad, really. I wanted to see his response!

[bobalot]

So he is left with the following choices:
-Advocating that every egg has to be fertilized and carried to term by all means possible, since "not existing ist the worst thing possible" and anything that reduces their chance of existing is therefore a terrible crime.
-Staying with his hypocrisy that focusses solely on abortion and misogny and ignores his own contradictionary logic.
-Realize that his arguments are bullshit and retract them.
-Run away like the shithead he is

You called it. Kind of sad, really. I wanted to see his response!

I don't see why anybody is surprised, he has run away from every other thread where he has gotten into a debate (over a wide range of subjects). I'm just ashamed that the fundamentalist clown is Australian. I think he has left the forum to be honest.

Back to the topic of the thread. Do our resident Americans think it's just a matter of time before some right wing nutjob kills a whole bunch of people? The rhetoric and anger doesn't seem to be abating among the fringe right.

[Liberty]

Back to the topic of the thread. Do our resident Americans think it's just a matter of time before some right wing nutjob kills a whole bunch of people? The rhetoric and anger doesn't seem to be abating among the fringe right.

Hm. It's hard to say. It looks to me like there is a whole lot of rhetoric and not as much action (except for voting in primaries, anyway!). A lot of the rhetoric, however, is indeed very inflammatory. So I wouldn't be surprised if someone did do something stupid and blow something up. But then, I'm not completely surprised there hasn't been. So, it could go either way.

Usually (in my understanding, anyway), the nuts who do the actual killing don't have many friends, much connection with family, etc; they're kind of on the fringe of society. This rhetoric, though, gets to them and gives them a purpose. Not having much to lose, they go blow something up or shoot someone. Timothy McVeigh, Tiller's killer, and the guy who shot up a UU church all fit this pattern. THAT is why the inflammatory rhetoric is dangerous, even if those using it don't mean it to be actually carried out (don't retreat, reload!).

Weirdly, I have to say that attending the local UU church at the present time makes me slightly nervous.

[Temujin]

Back to the topic of the thread. Do our resident Americans think it's just a matter of time before some right wing nutjob kills a whole bunch of people? The rhetoric and anger doesn't seem to be abating among the fringe right.

Absolutely. One could argue that it already has happened with McVeigh. And while he was on the fringe, the political climate wasn't nearly as bad then as it is now, nor were the nutjobs so plentiful, open and vocal; and I see no sign of it getting anything but worse.

[Liberty]

Back to the topic of the thread. Do our resident Americans think it's just a matter of time before some right wing nutjob kills a whole bunch of people? The rhetoric and anger doesn't seem to be abating among the fringe right.

Absolutely. One could argue that it already has happened with McVeigh. And while he was on the fringe, the political climate wasn't nearly as bad then as it is now, nor were the nutjobs so plentiful, open and vocal; and I see no sign of it getting anything but worse.

It was a different kind of nutjob then. It was militia season, big time.

[Temujin]

Well the militias haven't exactly gone away, and they are closely related to the Teabaggers and other nutters running around today. The militias seem to bridge the gap between the really openly offensive and confrontational KKK and Aryan Race type groups and the Teabaggers and their ilk.

My boss is a proud Teabagger, and there are strong parallels with the militias in the stuff he openly says, does and supports, as well as a lot of the people he hangs out with.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Back to the topic of the thread. Do our resident Americans think it's just a matter of time before some right wing nutjob kills a whole bunch of people? The rhetoric and anger doesn't seem to be abating among the fringe right.

Personally, I think it's a matter of when, not if. It'll be some fringe lunatic, though - as mentioned, the kind who has nothing to lose and who's a dumb-ass True Believer.


As for the rest, the screaming hordes of teabaggers? They terrify the shit out of me, not because they're the ones who are going to go and pull another Oklahoma City Federal Building, but because they give me the impression that as soon as it becomes acceptable to do what they're screaming about, they will. As soon as it becomes clear to them that they can lynch homosexuals, or those of dark skin or who looks Latino, or anyone who looks liberal or intellectual, and they can get away with it, they will.

They're just waiting for it to become acceptable enough that they, personally, will not suffer any consequences of their actions. They're the Indians, waiting for a chief to show up, waiting for some strongman to raise up from amongst them and lead them in their vitriolic crusade against that which they hate.

[Liberty]

Well the militias haven't exactly gone away, and they are closely related to the Teabaggers and other nutters running around today. The militias seem to bridge the gap between the really openly offensive and confrontational KKK and Aryan Race type groups and the Teabaggers and their ilk.

My boss is a proud Teabagger, and there are strong parallels with the militias in the stuff he openly says, does and supports, as well as a lot of the people he hangs out with.

I am aware that there are a lot of parallels, but it is my understanding (and I may be wrong) that militia sentiment peaked in the '90s and has gone down since. In my understanding, militia activity has gone up since 2008, but I don't believe it is as high or popular as it was at its peak. Again, I could be wrong.

And I'm sure not saying that militias today aren't dangerous!

[Temujin]

For anyone who's interested: Active militia groups in the US.

[loomer]

There are likely a few hundred more small-scale militias on top of those that aren't on the radar - three or four guys who go out in the woods, run drills, and believe in the New World Order and such.

[Temujin]

This article is also relevant to the discussion (only the intro; the whole article is too long to post):

The Second Wave: Return of the Militias

The 1990s saw the rise and fall of the virulently antigovernment "Patriot" movement, made up of paramilitary militias, tax defiers and so-called "sovereign citizens." Sparked by a combination of anger at the federal government and the deaths of political dissenters at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and Waco, Texas, the movement took off in the middle of the decade and continued to grow even after 168 people were left dead by the 1995 bombing of Oklahoma City's federal building — an attack, the deadliest ever by domestic U.S. terrorists, carried out by men steeped in the rhetoric and conspiracy theories of the militias. In the years that followed, a truly remarkable number of criminal plots came out of the movement. But by early this century, the Patriots had largely faded, weakened by systematic prosecutions, aversion to growing violence, and a new, highly conservative president.

They're back. Almost a decade after largely disappearing from public view, right-wing militias, ideologically driven tax defiers and sovereign citizens are appearing in large numbers around the country. "Paper terrorism" — the use of property liens and citizens' "courts" to harass enemies — is on the rise. And once-popular militia conspiracy theories are making the rounds again, this time accompanied by nativist theories about secret Mexican plans to "reconquer" the American Southwest. One law enforcement agency has found 50 new militia training groups — one of them made up of present and former police officers and soldiers. Authorities around the country are reporting a worrying uptick in Patriot activities and propaganda. "This is the most significant growth we've seen in 10 to 12 years," says one. "All it's lacking is a spark. I think it's only a matter of time before you see threats and violence."

A key difference this time is that the federal government — the entity that almost the entire radical right views as its primary enemy — is headed by a black man. That, coupled with high levels of non-white immigration and a decline in the percentage of whites overall in America, has helped to racialize the Patriot movement, which in the past was not primarily motivated by race hate. One result has been a remarkable rash of domestic terror incidents since the presidential campaign, most of them related to anger over the election of Barack Obama. At the same time, ostensibly mainstream politicians and media pundits have helped to spread Patriot and related propaganda, from conspiracy theories about a secret network of U.S. concentration camps to wholly unsubstantiated claims about the president's country of birth.

Fifteen years ago, the Southern Poverty Law Center wrote then-Attorney General Janet Reno to warn about extremists in the militia movement, saying that the "mixture of armed groups and those who hate" was "a recipe for disaster." Just six months later, Oklahoma City's federal building was bombed. Today, the Patriot movement may not have the white-hot fury that it did in the 1990s. But the movement clearly is growing again, and Americans, in particular law enforcement officers, need to take the dangers it presents seriously. That is equally true for the politicians, pundits and preachers who, through pandering or ignorance, abet the growth of a movement marked by a proven predilection for violence.