Tea Bagging for Justice - The American Way

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Conservative hand-wringing over the recent report on domestic, right-wing extremists who might be capable of violence and terrorism has been very interesting. Of course we see the typical sorts of deceptions and evasions, like ignoring how the report was originally commissioned under the Bush administration and how a similar report was issued about left-wing extremists. Under other circumstances such callous disregard for facts would shock the conscience, but it's become little more than par for the course for American conservatives.

Far more interesting is the fact that they are upset at all. Why, one might almost imagine that the report specifically targeted the Republican, conservative base of support in America. Or maybe that's precisely what the report did? After all, we didn't see such outrage from liberal and Democratic groups when the government report on left-wing extremists was issued, did we?

In fact, did you even notice when that earlier report was issued? I might not have noticed this new report on right-wing extremists if conservatives hadn't decided to make such a big stink about it. I suppose we should thank them for investing so much effort into publicizing the threat posed to law, order, and liberty by their own supporters. This is something we should all be reminded about occasionally.

In its very title, the report specifies that it's about "Right-wing Extremism," but as David Neiwert observes conservatives like Michelle Malkin immediately started to cry about how "The Obama DHS Hit Job on Conservatives Is Real". So, is Michelle Malkin admitting that "right-wing extremism" is the same as "conservatives"? I suppose we could be generous and assume that Malkin was simply concerned that people being identified as "right-wing extremists" were actually law-abiding and upstanding members of the conservative community. I could be sympathetic with such concerns.

So, whom might Michelle Malkin be so concerned about getting unjustly tarred with negative labels? Maybe it's the nice boys who are members of "white supremacist and violent antigovernment groups"? Maybe she's worried about the person responsible for "the shooting deaths of three police officers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on 4 April 2009"? Or perhaps it's just the "Anti-Semitic extremists" Malkin and others want to protect from unfair Justice Department labeling.

Government focus on all of these groups has been condemned by Malkin as "a sweeping indictment of conservatives," and I guess she isn't far wrong — at least insofar as the conservatives who matter most are white supremacists, anti-Semites, and cop killers. Obviously it's not true that all conservatives are violent extremists just waiting for an excuse to blow up — or to blow something up — but it's also true that most of the most radical and violent extremists in America are currently on the right-hand side of the spectrum.

In other times and other places the opposite may have been the case, but in contemporary America the threat of violence is most significant from the right. Or have Michelle Malkin and other right-wing mouthpieces forgotten that the worst domestic terrorist attack before 9-11 was perpetrated by right-wing extremists? Have they forgotten that the 9-11 attacks themselves were perpetrated by people acting on behalf of a fundamentally conservative ideology?

The radical Muslims inspired by Osama bin Laden aren't vegetarian tree-huggers, they're patriarchal thugs bent on religious and political totalitarianism. Their complaints about modern western culture mirror the complaints made by conservative evangelical Christians and Republican leaders — that's not a coincidence, but a product of fundamentally similar perspectives on modernity, liberty, and the Enlightenment.

Some conservatives even complained about the DHS targeting tea parties, which the report didn't do. So why did I create the image I did? First, because it's something that conservatives are worried about, and if it worries them then it's worth emphasizing. Second, because one of the consequences of the faux outrage and hyped emotions created by the tea parties is precisely the sort of anger which the DHS report is concerned about. In effect, those behind the tea parties are fertilizing the political soil in ways that will help extremism in the future.

It might not even be inadvertent, either. Remember, the same conservatives most responsible for hyping and promoting the tea bagging parties have also more recently been those hyping and promoting the use of torture against terrorism suspects. They regard depraved acts of torture as something to be proud of, so why expect them to treat the rise of violent extremist groups to be problematic, never mind embarrassing? The conservative reactions to the torture memos is thus important for many reasons.

It tells us, for example, about their real attitudes are towards barbaric violence being inflicted on those they dislike and just how much respect they have for human rights, international treaties, and the basic rule of law. All of these attitudes have far-reaching consequences in many other related issues, including the growth of violent extremist groups. We can't treat these various issues as isolated and completely distinct; on the contrary, they are all part of a larger whole and must be considered as a whole. Where, exactly, are these conservatives trying to go and what means will they be willing to employ in order to get there?