Could Tea Party Rhetoric Lead to Another Oklahoma City?
AP
It was fifteen years ago today that Timothy McVeigh killed 168 people by detonating an explosives-filled truck near the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in the nation's deadliest-ever homegrown terrorist attack.
McVeigh was an anti-government extremist inspired by the 1993 raid on the Branch Davidian compound at Waco; he railed against taxes, gun control and federal interference in Americans' lives.
Those who betray the Constitution, he wrote in a letter, "are domestic enemies and should and will be punished accordingly." After the attacks, McVeigh suggested that he acted for the "larger good" and said that even if he were executed, it would still be "168 to one."
Former President Bill Clinton, among others, see echoes of the rhetoric that drove McVeigh in the current political discourse. In an op-ed in the New York Times today tied to the bombing, he wrote that the bombers were driven by "the belief that the greatest threat to American freedom is our government, and that public servants do not protect our freedoms, but abuse them."
Lamenting the fact that "deeply alienated and disconnected Americans decided murder was a blow for liberty," Clinton went on to say Americans have a right to dissent but not violence when they don't get what they want.
There is, he wrote, "a big difference between criticizing a policy or a politician and demonizing the government that guarantees our freedoms and the public servants who enforce our laws."
That was a shot at folks like Rep. Michele Bachmann, who last week railed against what she called the "gangster government" at a tax day Tea Party rally. Clinton said it is not appropriate to call elected officials "gangsters" and added, "you can attack the politics" but "don't demonize them, and don't say things that will encourage violent opposition."
Time magazine's Joe Klein, meanwhile, suggested that the rhetoric of Glenn Beck and "to a certain extent" Sarah Palin "rub right up close to being seditious." Added New York Magazine's John Heilemann in that weekend interview: "Joe's right and I'll name another person, I'll name Rush Limbaugh who uses this phrase constantly and talks about the Obama administration as a regime. That phrase which has connotations of tyranny. And what's so interesting about it to me, to get to Norah's point - what is the focus, what is the cause of this? You think back to 1994, there was Ruby Ridge. There was Waco. There were triggering incidents. There's been nothing like that. The only thing that's changed in the last 15 months is the election of Barack Obama. And as far as I can see, in terms of the policies that Obama has implemented, there's nothing."
Thirty-eight percent of Americans now see domestic terrorism as a more serious threat than international terrorism, according to a new CBS News poll; that's up eight points from 2002. On Monday, MSNBC is airing a documentary called "The McVeigh Tapes" detailing McVeigh's motivations and perspective on his crime -- and raising questions about the dangers of the extreme rhetoric that influenced him.
Some conservatives are unhappy with the broadcast; Colin Hanna of the group Let Freedom Ring complained that the message is "that tea party fervor and an anti-Washington mood are precursors to domestic terrorism akin to Oklahoma City bombing."
Last year, conservatives attacked a report from the Department of Homeland Security warning of a rise in "rightwing extremist activity" tied in part to the recession and the election of an African-American president, alleging that it was politically-motivated or worse. This year, after Democrats complained amid threats to members of Congress that members of the GOP were "fanning the flames with coded rhetoric" with suggestions that Democrats should be put on "the firing line" and that opponents of reform should "reload," Palin mocked the notion she and others were encouraging violence. Republicans offering strong rhetoric insist they are trying to get politicians voted out of office, not attacked.
But that hasn't diminished suggestions that some anti-government words could incite another domestic terror attack. Last month Fox News anchor Shepard Smith was discussing the threats against lawmakers when he asked if politicians were going to look at themselves and say, "My overinflated rhetoric is causing some people who digest it -- and don't think of it as they do as just political rhetoric-- they think it's real, that this might be Armageddon or something, and then they go out and act."
McVeigh, of course, was an individual psychopath, not a representative of any larger group, including the Tea Party movement or proponents of smaller government. While he may have been encouraged by far-right rhetoric, his actions may, in one sense, simply be part of the price of free speech. Should Americans not be able to play "Grand Theft Auto" because they fear it will lead teenagers to be violent? Should they be denied "Catcher in the Rye" because Mark David Chapman, John Lennon's murderer, was a fan? Where does the line exist between acceptable rhetoric and something else?
"Civic virtue can include harsh criticism, protest, even civil disobedience. But not violence or its advocacy," Mr. Clinton wrote in his op-ed. "... In the current climate, with so many threats against the president, members of Congress and other public servants, we owe it to the victims of Oklahoma City, and those who survived and responded so bravely, not to cross it again."
OKC Bombing, 15 Years Later: Are We Safer?Tea Party Supporters: Who They Are and What They Believe
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"But even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed. AND DO NOT FEAR THEIR INTIMIDATION, AND DO NOT BE TROUBLED,"
and ...
Isaiah 8:12_
"You are not to say, 'It is a conspiracy!' In regard to all that this people call a conspiracy, And you are not to fear what they fear or be in dread of it
remember that even Pharroh was a servant of God, For God to show
his power to those who would not be ruled by Him in thier Heart.
The I ask this..Who is Bill Clintion? when it come to the things of God.
Isaiah 8:13_KJV
"Sanctify the LORD of hosts himself; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread."
(and do what is right in the sight of God.for those who are
unbelieving, will also bend thier knees, and confess with thier
mouths, that He is Lord)
"Should Americans be concerned that heated rhetoric will incite domestic terrorism?"
Note: Most all of the "heated rhetoric" is coming from our national media - and from Democratic politicians and their operatives.
The news folks witness a simple peaceful event of the Tea Party - and then they go on a 24/7 wall to wall coverage - with their many anxious radical guests - all bringing up race, violence, anger, hate, etc.
The national MSM has for years, and continues, to promote division and hatred - all for the purpose of furthering their preferred agenda.
PRESIDENT OBAMA LIKELY TO BE ASSASSINATED...AND IT WILL BE BY
A RIGHT-WING EXTREMIST-PATSY (POSSIBLY AN MK-ULTRA SUBJECT)!
THE PLOT IS INTENDED TO TURN AMERICA AGAINST THE BURGEONING
PATRIOT MOVEMENT AND CONSERVATIVES, INCLUDING CHRISTIANS.
Posted @ http://www.tedgunderson.net/President_Obama_Assassination_Exposed.html
Also posted @ http://presidentobamaassassinationplotexpose.blogspot.
com/2010/04/president-obama-assassination-plot.html
Actual Scientific Statistics involving gun violence in the United States has nothing to do with militias or the Tea Party.
This story is just Nerdy White Liberals fabricating another paranoid delusion.
What happened to "dissent is patriotic", guys? Does that only apply when The Other Team is in office?
I notice that during the entire eight-year temper tantrum on the Left during the Bush Administration, never once did any President or government organization suggest that the hate-filled speech and demonstrations sponsored by groups like MoveOn.org, Code Pink, and others might encourage acts of domestic terrorism. In case you've forgotten, there was even a film made about the assassination of President George W. Bush. Yet he never whined like the current Administration does on a regular basis.
Apparently, the slogan on the Left is "Free speech for me, but not for thee." Keep insulting us, guys - it'll do wonders for you in the next elections.
Clinton wrote, "there is a big difference between criticizing a policy or politician, and demonizing the government that guarantees our freedoms and the public servants that enforce our laws."
Beyond-The-Political-Spectrum.blogspot
-------------------------
Sure you are, about as independent as the racist, far-right teabaggin' KKKlan that supports armed anarchist insurrection against our government, as long as the republiCONS don't control Washington!
Just because somebody like you finally denounced the republiCON party after voting that way for decades, certainly doesn't mean you would ever vote for anything but a conservitard with a "R" next to their name!
Before the federal government raises taxes, they MUST reduce spending. And there are so many areas where spending can be cut completely. Here are a few:
1. Drop all funding for the Endowment of the Arts. The federal government donates millions of dollars to people who don't have the talent to make a living on their own. Let them find a job they can actually do. I want to be a profession football player or a fighter pilot, but don't have the skills for either. Will the government subsidize me to do either job???
2. Stop all funding for research projects like how much methane is produced by cows in Iowa, or the reproductive cycle of the house fly, or building a tunnel under a highway for salamanders to cross safely. Far too much pork for ridiculous projects. Cut them completely.
3. Eliminate the lifetime benefits for politicians. Heck, I don't mind them getting great health care and pension money while they're working for the government. But when they are no longer serving, STOP PAYING THEM!!! Let them go back to work in the private sector and get their health coverage and pensions/401-Ks on their own, like we have to.
4. Go after any company employing illegals and fine them HEAVILY for every illegal employed. Make them hurt for breaking our laws. Round up all the illegals and boot them out of this country along with their kids. If they're here illegally, so are their children. Let them try to come back in by following our immigration laws. And NO CASH PAYMENTS for work. How many illegals get paid in cash so that there is no record and they pay no taxes?
5. Add a value-added tax (federal sales tax) ONLY if they eliminate the federal income tax. That would mean that EVERYONE will pay taxes on what they buy and use. We have 50% of the American population not paying any federal income tax now. Let EVERYONE contribute since it is EVERYONE who benefits from living in this country.
I'm sure there are many more areas people could come up with to reduce government spending and keep taxes down.
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by krusenjames April 20, 2010 2:57 PM EDT
1. Cutting that funding cost me my job at a museum in the 80's I went homeless, a single parent with two grade school girls. I guess we don't need any of that "educational" kr@p. Thank you very much.
2. Would that go for oil company drilling studies too? can't waste money there, boy howdy.
3. Most of them go to work when they're done anyway. But besides health care and pension, what cash payments are you talking about?
4. Getting rid of the illegal aliens sounds all well and good, until you or I have to go out and pick cotton, or oranges, or lettuce, or... Oh wait, we can have teenagers do it in the summer, yea...that'll work!
5. value added taxes will insure that the tax burden is carried on the backs of the middle class and poor. No Income tax lets the wealthy and the big corporations off the hook. I'm sure they'll take all that money they don't pay and let it "trickle down".
All your "solutions" knock the props from under the way of life you want to "conserve". There are no simple answers, much as I wish there were.
Do you want real change? Stop electing liars. How do you stop electing liars? Stop lying to yourself. Stop the lies.