A Classic Right Wing Nutjob
From the New York Times, some history of terrorist murderer Scott Roderer:
"Years earlier, Mr. Roeder belonged to a Kansas group known as the Patriot Movement, a citizens’ militia which, according to a fellow member, Morris Wilson, 70, aimed to “kick Uncle Sam in the shins” by bucking rules like mounting license plates on cars. “He didn’t like taxation and overregulation,” Mr. Wilson recalled....
For more than 10 years, Mr. Roeder had been linked, at various times and in varying degrees, to the Freemen, a group that rejected federal authority and the banking system....
In April 1996, the police stopped Mr. Roeder near Topeka for a traffic violation. Inside the car, they found a pound of gunpowder and a homemade fuse, according to published reports. Mr. Roeder was found guilty of charges including one connected to the explosives and served jail time...
Mr. Roeder also encountered Dave Leach, an anti-abortion activist from Des Moines whose publication, Prayer and Action News, had received articles from Mr. Roeder. Mr. Leach said Mr. Roeder had presented strong anti-government views (he believed the government tracked money, Mr. Leach recalled, and offered his own method to “remove the magnetic strip from a five-dollar bill”) and views similar to Mr. Leach’s own on abortion. “To call this a crime is too simplistic,” Mr. Leach said of Dr. Tiller’s death."
Here is the picture not just of an anti-choice maniac, but of a full blown right wing lunatic, mixing his wacko religious beliefs with the standard Conservative hatred of taxation, i.e. refusal to accept his share of the cost of maintaining our society.
Now, this leads me to the point that I really want to make. Since at least the 19th century Russian nihilists, there has been a readily identifiable pattern to terrorist incidents. There is always a group of ideologues and propagandists who incite violence. Then, when the inevitable deluded individual takes matters into his own hands, these propagandists angrily deny any responsibility, even though they knew all along what the inevitable consequences of their incitements would be.
Today, we have the Limbaughs, the Glenn Becks, and the Dick Cheneys and Karl Roves. These people are fully responsible for the violent incidents that are produced by their rhetoric, whether they will admit it or not.
"Years earlier, Mr. Roeder belonged to a Kansas group known as the Patriot Movement, a citizens’ militia which, according to a fellow member, Morris Wilson, 70, aimed to “kick Uncle Sam in the shins” by bucking rules like mounting license plates on cars. “He didn’t like taxation and overregulation,” Mr. Wilson recalled....
For more than 10 years, Mr. Roeder had been linked, at various times and in varying degrees, to the Freemen, a group that rejected federal authority and the banking system....
In April 1996, the police stopped Mr. Roeder near Topeka for a traffic violation. Inside the car, they found a pound of gunpowder and a homemade fuse, according to published reports. Mr. Roeder was found guilty of charges including one connected to the explosives and served jail time...
Mr. Roeder also encountered Dave Leach, an anti-abortion activist from Des Moines whose publication, Prayer and Action News, had received articles from Mr. Roeder. Mr. Leach said Mr. Roeder had presented strong anti-government views (he believed the government tracked money, Mr. Leach recalled, and offered his own method to “remove the magnetic strip from a five-dollar bill”) and views similar to Mr. Leach’s own on abortion. “To call this a crime is too simplistic,” Mr. Leach said of Dr. Tiller’s death."
Here is the picture not just of an anti-choice maniac, but of a full blown right wing lunatic, mixing his wacko religious beliefs with the standard Conservative hatred of taxation, i.e. refusal to accept his share of the cost of maintaining our society.
Now, this leads me to the point that I really want to make. Since at least the 19th century Russian nihilists, there has been a readily identifiable pattern to terrorist incidents. There is always a group of ideologues and propagandists who incite violence. Then, when the inevitable deluded individual takes matters into his own hands, these propagandists angrily deny any responsibility, even though they knew all along what the inevitable consequences of their incitements would be.
Today, we have the Limbaughs, the Glenn Becks, and the Dick Cheneys and Karl Roves. These people are fully responsible for the violent incidents that are produced by their rhetoric, whether they will admit it or not.
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