From the "
Tell us something we didn't already know" Department:
There is hardly a bigger motivator than fear, and it
is a fact not lost on Republicans who prey on Americans’ fear of all
things not wingnut, but especially those foreign “extremists.” Of
course, some Americans are acutely aware that the biggest threat to
their safety, and the nation, is from American extremists in the white
supremacist, anti-government, and fanatical 'christian' bowel movements. Whether
it was the white supremacist who massacred nine African Americans in
church, several predominately Black churches set on fire across the
South, or armed militias seeking to start a war against the United
States government, most people comprehend that homegrown extremists pose
the greatest threat to America.
In fact, some Americans may recall that it was just
six years ago in 2009 that the Department of Homeland Security released a
report warning that the greatest threat to Americans and national
security was from domestic extremists. The report elicited such outrage
from Republicans, wingnuts, and religio-wingnut covens that the DHS
all-but apologized for reporting empirical data, and then retracted the
report and terminated the team tasked with investigating non-muslim
violent extremism on American soil. However, a research organization in
Washington is not backing down like the DHS did and issued its findings
that mirror the 2009 DHS report results that Americans should be
terrified of homegrown extremists that, by the way, are not Muslims.
The new
report
from New America, released a little over a week after a Confederate
extremist gunned down nine people in Charleston, finds that since the
September 11, 2001, “
nearly twice as many people have been killed by
white supremacists, anti-government fanatics and other ‘non-Muslim’
extremists than by radical Muslims.” According to the New York
Times, this real and present danger to Americans, and national security,
is not a new revelation to the nation’s police and sheriffs. A
survey released just last week revealed that not only is there a bigger threat from homegrown extremists in the “
conservative” movement than from “
radical muslims,” the domestic extremist threat to Americans is very “
familiar to police officers.”
In fact, three-quarters of police and sheriffs listed anti-government
extremism as a greater threat to their communities than “
Al Qaeda-inspired” violence.
When the DHS issued its
report
on countering violent wingnut extremism in 2009, religio-wingnut
extremists such as the American Family Association (AFA) and Family
Research Council (FRC), as well as the American Center for Law and
Justice and Concerned Women for America were
insane-angry and claimed President Obama used the DHS to attack christians. The religio-wingnut “
legal terrorist” cabal, Liberty Counsel, concluded that the President targeted christians and then handed out cards to its members to show DHS and law
enforcement officials they were in solidarity with violent wingnut
extremist cabals.
In February, six months before this latest report, Ted Poe (R-TX) referred back to the 2009 DHS report and
complained to a Family Research Council host that “
the
Obama administration is more aggressive toward Republicans, wingnuts, christians, and concerned about them being threats to the
country, which they’re not, than they are about the real threats to 'his'
country.” Of course, the DHS report, New America report, and
three-quarters of police and sheriffs heartily disagree with Poe’s
contention. In fact, according to recent religio-wingnut clergy closely
aligned with Republicans calling for violence against other christians,
gays, and marriage equality supporters, Poe’s assertion
is patently false; and he knows it.
One religio-wingnut extremist with close ties to
both Mike Huckabee and Rand Paul used biblical scripture and catholic
dogma as the foundation for calling for the execution of LGBT people and
their christian supporters. The maniac, Theodore Shoebat, appeared with
Republican pretender candidates Huckabee and Paul, as well as with Trent Franks (R-AZ), Louie Gohmert (R-TX),
and Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) in a recent anti-gay film. Shoebat said that “Opinions
expressed in favor for homosexuality and other deviancies (such as
cannibalism), are worthy of capital punishment to purely illustrate that christianity is so much against the license to do evil — even if it is
done in private — that it prohibits any approval of it.”
Shoebat, a self-described “christian militant” that the DHS and New America reports seemed to specifically warn about claimed that homosexuality is seditious because it represents a threat to “the building block of society,” marriage. He claims that, “The
sodomite, the atheist, the fanatic feminist, the muslim — all such must
be deemed as criminals and enemies to civilization, for they war
against the delusion. They should be told to leave their wicked ways under
coercion, and if that does not work, then death is the only solution.”
It is noteworthy that although Republicans do not particularly call for
violence or death sentences, they have incited those kinds of actions
with their fear-mongering claims that christians face an existential
threat because Constitutional equality extends to all Americans.
Another group of dangerous lunatic fringe extremists,
anti-LGBT 'christian' preachers, leveled warnings that god would take
vengeance on America and cited the 'christian' dissenters
on the Supreme Court to call for stoning to death ministers who
performed same-sex marriages, and the execution of all LGBT people.
Steven Anderson, of delusional word baptist cult, agreed with
Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, Mike Huckabee, Piyush
“Bobby” Jindal, Rand Paul, and other Republicans that the Obergefell v.
Hodges ruling was invalid because it was against dog’s law and that the
ruling meant that christians were going to be punished.
After calling
for stoning deaths, Anderson reiterated the christ-like love for all
humanity his religion’s namesake preached by boasting that “I hate them (gays) with a perfect hatred.” He then spewed for christians to “have the guts to stand up to our culture that now accepts homos,” and asked, “where’s the hope, where’s the love and the grace? It isn’t there.”
So there it is in a nutshell; perfect christian hatred, calls to stone
to death non-compliant preachers and gays, hope, love, and the grace
that any semi-sane human being would label perfect religio-wingnut
extremism.
This new report on the threat of wingnut
extremism is only different from the old report on the threat of wingnut extremism in that now religious Republicans have openly
aligned themselves with the lunatic fringe extremists Americans should fear most. There
is a good reason the religio-wingnuts and Republicans were ballistic
when the Department of Homeland Security released its report on the
threat from wingnut extremists in 2009; the DHS exposed them for what
they would become when their drive for theocracy hit a 14th Amendment
speed-bump in the Obergefell v. Hodges ruling.
It
is just a matter of time before there are more extremist attacks
against Americans and it will come from the evangelical extremists that
Republicans have joined forces with and worked into religious frenzy
that because gays have Constitutional rights christians face an
existential threat. History shows that religious frenzy, coupled with
religious extremism, never ends well and it appears that is precisely
what extremist Republicans aligned with evangelical fanatics hope comes
to pass. Based on the New America report, they will get their hope
fulfilled.