Double Standard in Definition of Terrorism (update) or The Further Acceptance of Political Violence

Earlier this month I wrote about the double standard that is used when labeling some things as acts of terrorism and other things as … well … not terrorism. In the days following the passage of the health care reform bill, this double standard has been in evidence yet again. By now, you’ve certainly heard about a number of Democratic campaign offices being vandalized, several with rocks being thrown through windows. Guess what? It appears that the rock-throwing campaign may have been in response to a veritable call-to-arms from a right-wing blogger named Mike Vanderboegh. Here’s his March 19 post (emphasis added); if reading this manifesto doesn’t give you chills, then I’m even more worried about the slide toward political violence that we seem to be experiencing.

To all free Americans who still hold dear the Founders' vision of a constitutional Republic and who wish to remain free --

Nancy Pelosi's Intolerable Act is within days of passage by devious means so corrupt and twisted that even members of her own party recoil in disgust.

This act will order all of us to play or pay, and if we do not wish to, we will be fined.

If we refuse to pay the fine out of principle, we will be jailed.

If we resist arrest, we will be killed.

They will send the Internal Revenue Service and other federal police to do this in thousands of small Wacos, if that is what it takes to force us to submit.

This arrogant elite pretends that this oppression is for our own good, while everyone else understands that this is about their selfish, insatiable appetite for control over our liberty, our money, our property and our lives.

The majority of the people have made it plain that they do not want this tyrannical transfer of power wrapped in soft lies.

It does not matter.

Pelosi and her ilk apparently do not understand that this Intolerable Act has some folks so angry that they are ready to resist their slow-rolling revolution against the Founders' Republic by force of arms. Why should they? For in the past seventy-five years of being pushed back continually from the free exercise of our God-given rights to life, liberty and property, WE HAVE NEVER SHOVED BACK. Rather, it was we, the law-abiding, who backed up each time, grumbling.

These are collectivists. They do not hear you grumble. They do not, it is apparent after the past year of town halls and Tea Parties and nose-diving opinion polls, hear you SHOUT. They certainly do not hear the soft "snik-snik" of cleaning rods being used on millions of rifle barrels in this country by people who have decided that their backs are to the wall, politics and the courts no longer are sufficient to the task of defending their liberties, and they must make their own arrangements.

The Imperial Democrats do not care what you think. They will not hear you. They are every bit as arrogant and isolated as King George the Third was from the liberty-loving American colonists in 1775.
And yet, if we are to avoid civil war, we must get their attention BEFORE the IRS thug parties descend upon us each in turn -- when we will be forced into dozens of defensive slaughters and then, to end it, forced yet again to call Pelosi and the other architects of this war upon their own people to final account.

We are the law-abiding of this country, yes. We always have been. But when the "law" is distorted and twisted into an unconstitutional means of oppression, backed by the entire weight of the federal Leviathan, it is not "law" at all, but mere illegitimate force.

John Locke said it best:

"Whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience."

When the law becomes a deadly tool of tyranny, it is no longer a good thing to be obedient and "law-abiding." It is, in fact, suicidal.

Yet, given the federal mandarins' willful ignorance of our very existence and conviction that we have no opinions that they are bound to respect, is there anything that can be done to prevent civil war?
Yes, there is.

We can emulate the Sons of Liberty of old.

We can break their windows.

These windows are not far away from where you are reading this right now. In virtually every city and county in this land, there is a local headquarters of Pelosi's party -- the Democrat party. These headquarters invariably have windows. When the Sons of Liberty wanted to express their opposition to the actions of the King's ministers, they would gather in front of the homes and offices of his tax-collectors and government officials in Boston or New York and break their windows. Glass was expensive. The King's minions were often the most well-to-do. The Sons of Liberty hit them in their pocketbooks.

Most importantly, however, was the message to the royal functionaries that there are personal consequences for oppressing your fellow citizens. The King is far away, and you are here, among us, the people.

This is the message that modern Sons of Liberty should get across to the Royalists of today. Now. Before we have to resort to rifles to resist their "well intentioned" tyranny.
This is not to say that the GOP (I refuse to call them "Republicans" for that is a misuse of the word) does not bear a large measure of responsibility for the situation we find ourselves in today. However, they have opposed this Intolerable Act. Yet, if we do a thorough job of breaking Democrat windows, I am sure that the GOP will profit from the example.

So, if you wish to send a message that Pelosi and her party cannot fail to hear, break their windows.

Break them NOW.

Break them and run to break again. Break them under cover of night. Break them in broad daylight. Break them and await arrest in willful, principled civil disobedience. Break them with rocks. Break them with slingshots. Break them with baseball bats.

But BREAK THEM.

The time has come to take your life, your liberty and that of your children and grandchildren into your own two hands and ACT.

It is, after all, more humane than shooting them in self defense.

And if we do a proper job, if we break the windows of hundreds, thousands, of Democrat party headquarters across this country, we might just wake up enough of them to make defending ourselves at the muzzle of a rifle unnecessary.

Sons of Liberty, this is your time.

Break their windows.

Break them NOW.

And Nancy, if this be sedition, if this be treason in your eyes, then make the most of it.

Mike Vanderboegh

[I am not providing a link to Vanderboegh’s site because I don’t want to send any more traffic his way; similarly, I’ve removed his contact information from his manifesto.]

Now just for a moment consider the public outcry if this had been a Muslim calling on other Muslims to break windows to show outrage over the Iraq war or the Patriot Act or Guantanamo. Consider the outcry if this had been an employee of ACORN calling on African-Americans to break windows to show outrage over voting rights abuses or disparate treatment in affordable housing. Consider the outcry if this had been a left-wing blogger calling on Democrats to break Republican windows to show outrage over the Supreme Court’s decision in Bush v. Gore or warrantless wiretaps or refusal to recognize global warming. Do you have any doubt that in any of those cases, the person advocating the window-breaking campaign would have been called a terrorist and treated as such? Hell, Republicans would probably be demanding that the person be tortured to find out who else was involved. But when a right-wing blogger advocates violence? The silence is almost deafening.

At least MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow didn’t let this pass without notice or comment:

It is time for leaders on both sides … but especially Republicans as that is the direction from which most of the current hate speech and violent rhetoric is coming from … to stand up and make forceful and strident denunciations of this kind of behavior. For that matter, it is time for people like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh to recognize what their words can lead to. Because if this continues in its present course, how long will it be until we’re confronted by:

or

or even

.

If we don’t stop this now, political violence will become worse … or even the norm. And all of this because President Obama wanted to extend health insurance coverage to millions of uninsured Americans.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go meet my death panel before flying off in a black helicopter to my New World Order meeting about taking away guns so that we can put people in FEMA concentration camps.