Becoming what you hate

22 Mar, 2009 by Ron Coleman

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Tim Neal of Miller County was shocked recently when he heard a radio program about a strategic report compiled by state and federal law enforcement agencies to combat terrorism.

Titled “The Modern Militia Movement,” the report is dated Feb. 20 and designed to help police identify militia members or domestic terrorists. Red flags outlined in the document include political bumper stickers such as those for U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, talk of conspiracy theories such as the plan for a mega-highway from Canada to Mexico and possession of subversive literature. . . .

“If a police officer is pulling me over with my family in the car and he sees a bumper sticker on my vehicle that has been specifically identified as one that an extremist would have in their vehicle, the guy is probably going to be pretty apprehensive and not thinking in a rational manner,” Neal said. “And this guy’s walking up to my vehicle with a gun.”

Oh, I get it. Generalizing about people with Ron Paul stickers — people who are obviously completely comfortable with the borderline-Nazi views of that creep — that’s enough to garner the sympathy of Instapundit, who is nothing if not a bumper-sticker-rights absolutist! But generalizing about frothing, fascist, jack-booted, itchy-trigger-finger police thugs? No problem.

“I was going down the list and thinking, ‘Check, that’s me,’ ” he said. “I’m a Ron Paul supporter, check. I talk about the North American union, check. I’ve got the ‘America: Freedom to Fascism’ video loaned out to somebody right now. So that means I’m a domestic terrorist? Because I’ve got a video about the Federal Reserve?”

No, you’re not a domestic terrorist. Necessarily. You’re just a loon who does a lot of things that domestic terrorists also do. More:

Roger Webb, president of the University of Missouri campus Libertarians, also took offense. “It’s absolutely obscene,” he said of the report. “It seems like they want to stifle political thought.”

Oh, that’s those intellectual, rational libertarians. No wonder this is their “moment.” Identification of correlations between dangerous wingnuts and certain … obsessions … by law enforcement: “Absolutely obscene.” And clearly stifling, well, not just political thought. Stifling thought. This is our new libertarian vanguard, the “rationalists,” the “objectivists.” Give me a break.

These guys are every bit as bad as the left-wing crybabies who run to the courts every time one of the Men in Black starts taking license-plate numbers at a “die in for Palestine” demonstration. Read more..

Originally posted on Ron Coleman’s pretty good non-libertarian right-wing blog, Likelihood of Success.