Update | By Joey LeMay
A judge in Lubbock County, Texas has called for a tax increase to help “beef up” resources for the state’s district attorney’s office and sheriff’s office should President Barack Obama win re-election. Judge Tom Head says his call for a potential “civil war” comes on the grounds of his belief that Obama would hand over U.S. sovereignty to the United Nations (U.N.), sparking unprecedented violence in America. The tax increase, according to a CBS affiliate in the Dallas/Forth Worth area, would help hire a law enforcement team large enough to “protect the country.”
“I’m thinking worse case scenario; civil unrest, civil disobedience, civil war maybe … we’re not just talking a few riots or demonstrations,” Head said. “I don’t want rookies. I want trained, equip and seasoned veteran officers to back me.”
(MintPress) – A group of Virginia Republicans are raising eyebrows for rhetoric that suggests an “armed revolution” if President Barack Obama is re-elected in November. The Virginia Republican Committee newsletter, sponsored by the Greene County Republican Committee, calls Obama a “political socialist ideologue unlike anything world history has ever witnessed or recognized.”
The violent and suggestive dialogue has become increasingly common since Obama was elected into the White House in 2008, but legal actions have rarely been taken. It seems, however, that an inordinate amount of peaceful protests have been the subject of police crackdowns over the past four years.
By inciting rebellion and encouraging dissent within, the group echoes the call of some Republican organizations and politicians alike when it comes to combating political opposition. In 2009, the same year Obama was inaugurated into the White House and Democrats overwhelmingly succeeded in the general election, Florida Republican House candidate Robert Lowry hosted an event at a gun range, which saw Lowry fire a series of shots at symbolic political targets – one of which was a silhouette with the initials of his democrat opponent.
There is a mounting laundry list of incidents where those who identify with extreme right-wing ideologies have made threats on left-leaning politicians that incite personal attacks, death threats and harassment.
Threats vs. actions
In 2011, one Republican senator who wished to remain anonymous out of fear of reprisal from their party, said the tipping point was the shooting of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. The gunman, Jared Loughner, could claim mental illness for his role in the attack that nearly killed Giffords. But other reports, which could be presented when his formal trial begins, suggest that his association with the fringe right-wing group American Renaissance could have been a motivating factor for his attack.
“There is a need for some reflection here – what is too far now?” the senator asked. “What was too far when Oklahoma City happened is accepted now. There’s been a desensitizing. These town halls and cable TV and talk radio, everybody’s trying to outdo each other.”
In an infamous manner, prior to the Giffords shooting, former Republican Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin unveiled a map that “targeted” 20 Democratic House members with crosshairs typically seen within the sight of a gun. Reports speculated whether that display fueled the attack on Giffords. After the map was unveiled, Giffords told MSNBC that her campaign office was the target of hateful protests from members of the far right.
“Our office corner has become a place where the tea party has congregated. And the rhetoric has become incredibly heated. Not just the calls, but the emails, the slurs,” Giffords said. “We’re on Sarah Palin’s targeted list, but the way she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district. And when people do that, they’ve gotta realize there’s consequences to that action.”
Clear and present danger
The string of threatening actions over the past few years have largely gone without police or legal intervention, but rather media attention resulting in a statement of clarification or apology. But one factor that cannot be overlooked is the legal precedent of clear and present danger – a Supreme Court of the United States doctrine that determines what circumstances offering limitations of the First Amendment can occur. The popular example of inciting clear and present danger is shouting “fire” in a crowded theater because it immediately poses clear and present danger to public safety.
When groups such as the Virginia Republican Committee pose threats in newsletters, their actions could potentially be seen as illegal and a violation of the doctrine. The law came to fruition in the early 1900s when Charles Schenck was convicted of sending more than 15,000 pamphlets through the mail to men who were slated to be drafted for military service. His anti-draft message called for the draftees not to “submit to intimidation” but rather to “petition for repeal.”
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, who presided over the case, said the First Amendment was not an absolute right and that Schenck was illegally interfering with military recruitment and inciting a “clear and present danger” to public policy.
“The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that the United States Congress has a right to prevent,” Holmes said in a statement following the case. “It is a question of proximity and degree. When a nation is at war, many things that might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its effort that their utterance will not be endured so long as men fight, and that no Court could regard them as protected by any constitutional right.”
The threats that have risen since 2008 against members of the Democrat Party have not been challenged or escalated to the point when a case has reached the Supreme Court.
Unbalanced approach?
The increase of right-wing extremist threats and attacks is going without proper investigation, according to former U.S. government counterterrorism analyst Daryl Johnson. Johnson said the number of investigations into anti-liberal, white supremacist and sovereign citizen groups are still lacking when compared to inquiries into Muslim terrorist organizations, even though the right-wing extremist groups pose more of an immediate threat.
Johnson concedes that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) should not ignore foreign terror threats, but says there needs to be a balance when it comes to Congress investigating domestic and foreign terror threats when the U.S. has come under attack from both. He cites an example of New York Congressman Peter King conducting three separate hearings in the past year in regards to Muslim extremism, but none as it pertains to right-wing extremism.
“DHS is scoffing at the mission of doing domestic counterterrorism, as is Congress,” Johnson recently said. “There’ve been no hearings about the rising white supremacist threat, but there’s been a long list of attacks over the last few years. But they still hold hearings about Muslim extremism. It’s out of balance.”
While it appears little attention is being paid to the growing number of instances involving right-wing extremism, if you look further to the left, you’ll find members of the predominantly liberal Occupy movement being arrested at alarming rates for overwhelmingly peaceful demonstrations. Since the Occupy protests began early last fall, more than 7,300 demonstrators have been arrested at some point in the U.S.
Crackdowns of Occupy camps and activities have become common in the headlines, as the Washington D.C. branch of Occupy found out earlier in the year when seven protesters were arrested after police in riot gear raided a tent-filled park where the protesters slept. A handful of demonstrators locked arms without escalating the incident before police broke them up and detained them. Onlookers, such as Occupy D.C. activist Todd Fine, made little sense of the continued attack of Occupy.
“If the U.S. government enforced its banking laws like it did its park regulations, we wouldn’t be in this damn park in the first place,” Fine said.