Dangerous rhetoric, dangerous results
By Dan Dick | Opinion Editor
In the last six months we have witnessed varied opposition toward the president and other Democrats over impending health care reform. Some criticism has been legitimate, but the overwhelming majority of it has been a strange mélange of conspiracy driven idiocy. We also have witnessed tragic acts of hate perpetrated by deranged men, angry with where the nation is and where it is going.
The current level of extreme language and the rapid growth of anti-government and hate groups bears an unnerving similarity to the 1990s. The legitimacy given to extremists by elected officials and media personalities and the potential recruitment of disgruntled returning veterans into radical groups likely will cause domestic terrorism to return as a prominent threat to the nation.
While domestic terrorism has not been used only by right-wing groups, glancing over our history illustrates all too well how often progressive voices and movements have been met by the senseless violence of right-wing extremists. We have spent the last decade worrying about the next 9/ll, but many believe another Oklahoma City bombing is more likely.
Opposition in American politics has rarely been cordial, but there are those now who are inciting the fringes of our society, out of ignorance or shared extremist ideology, to hatred and violence.
When the ludicrous claims of death panels and the fiery calls for state sovereignty and secession originate from the mouths of senators and congressmen, why should we be startled when armed men affiliated with militia and white supremacist groups disrupt town hall meetings?
Senator Jim DeMint (R- S.C.) said, “This is not some kind of radical right-wing group,” when referring to the crowd attending the 9/12 march on Washington, despite protest signs emblazoned with angry declarations of violence. Citizens proudly announced that they were more than capable of violence towards the government, even if they had no real reason to make such a statement.
Many still remember the first time they saw the haunting images of the disemboweled Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. The explosion, which injured 680 and killed 168, was perpetrated by Timothy McVeigh, a disgruntled U.S. Army veteran who had accepted the hopelessly false conspiracies proposed by members of hate groups, extremists and the radical right.
McVeigh is the archetypical “lone wolf” that the Department of Homeland Security stated in a report for the Bush administration likely will be the perpetrator of violence.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi commented on the anger found in the health care debate: “I have concerns about some of the language that is being used because I saw this myself in the late 1970s in San Francisco…this [kind of] rhetoric was very frightening.”
The first year of President Barack Obama’s term has seen more than a few violent acts propelled by extreme ideology. The shooting of three Pittsburgh policemen in April by a white supremacist, the murder of Dr. George Tiller by an anti-abortion activist in May and the shooting at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in June have eroded most hopes for an end to hate. As a concerned citizen I cannot help but wonder if more acts of violence are inevitable.
