The Dangers of Militias, Teabaggers, and Christian Extremists

Rand Paul is so proud of his affiliation with militia that he’s putting the link to his speeches to them on Youtube videos on his website.

These are the same sort of militia groups (but not the same groups, of course), which gave rise to Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City murders. Yesterday, the Courier-Journal reported on a resurgence of Kentucky right-wing hate groups known as militias since Barack Obama was elected president in 2008.

As these bizarre groups re-emerge, it is worth noting several ties to Rand Paul, Jeff Fugate, and several previous militia actions.

From the Courier-Journal report:

After nearly a decade of decline, militia groups are seeing a resurgence in Kentucky and across the nation, fueled partly — according to militia leaders and watchdog groups — by the bad economy and Obama’s election.
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Leaders of the Kentucky Militia, a confederation of six militias based around the state from Bowling Green to Eastern Kentucky, also report membership increases, although they won’t give specific numbers.
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Mark Potok, an analyst for the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala., which tracks extremist groups and recently issued a report on the resurgence of militias, said the center estimates that at least 50 patriot or militia groups have formed nationwide since 2008, bringing the total to more than 200.
In April, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security warned law enforcement agencies that right-wing extremist groups may be exploiting worries spawned by the economic downturn and Obama’s election as recruiting tools, noting that as anti-government sentiment builds, militia movements were “likely to grow in strength.”
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And members of the Freedom Fighters — roofers, mechanics, salesmen, truck drivers, factory workers and emergency medical technicians who are mostly middle-aged men with a survivalist bent — deny that they are extremist, racist or violent.
“We’re not out to start a war,” Terrell said, although he added, “it may be forced on us if lines are crossed,” through “gun confiscations, forced inoculations and the rounding up of dissidents.”
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Earlier this month, Freedom Fighter William Rushing held an M-4 semiautomatic rifle at the Knob Creek Gun Range, firing rounds at a paper target as he lay on the ground while another member, a former Marine, stood above him and others barking orders.
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In 2002, Charlie Puckett, former head of the Kentucky State Militia and a felon, was charged federally with possessing firearms, pipe bombs and nearly 35,000 rounds of ammunition. Around the same time, Steve Anderson, a former militia member, was sentenced to 15 years in prison after firing on a Bell County deputy sheriff.

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The Kentucky State Militia whose members committed the criminal attacks of 2002 is remarkably similar in name to the Kentucky Militia now beating the drums of paranoia and governmental attacks on its citizens. The chilling fact is, the militia members identified above as criminals who fire on deputies (such as Steve Anderson) are the ones who just before their criminal acts were saying the same things that are being reported in this Courier article. What is even more disturbing is that just like Rand Paul is currently courting these people as political allies, in 2001, they were being courted by state elected legislators. Recall that 9 days ago in Lexington, Rand Paul was wooing teabaggers by bragging about taking target practice at Knob Creek Machine Gun Shoot.

Q: Dr. Paul, what is your interpretation of the right of people to keep and bear arms about their person?

A: I am absolutely a supporter of the Second Amendment without question and backer of it. I’ve given speeches at the Knob Creek Machine Gun Shoot.

Also recall the reference that “forced inoculations” could be the trigger for a violent response by these groups in the story above. Of course, right after the Lexington teabagging party for Rand Paul, the following photo on his Facebook web site fanned the tin-foil-under-the-hat crowd on how flu vaccines are part of a government conspiracy.

The significance is, if that pattern repeats itself, Rand Paul could be courting the very groups who produce new criminal defendants.

In April, 2001, that same Kentucky State Militia which would produce the above-mentioned criminal conduct was being courted by Kentucky state legislators, despite the fact that the militia likened former President Clinton to Adolf Hitler, and urged members to “track down” the General Assembly’s lone Jewish member, state Rep. Kathy Stein, D-Lexington, and “bring plenty of ammo.” While the militia would later claim its whipping up of violence was a “parody”, in light of the shooting by Steve Anderson in 2002, there is no doubt it was a deadly serious situation.

Indeed, the 2001 report noted that “State Rep. Perry Clark and state Sen. Virgil Moore have agreed to appear at a militia meeting in Grayson County this weekend, drawing criticism from several religious groups and lawmakers.”

Also on the program is a “communications seminar” by a broadcaster who has espoused virulent anti-Semitic views.
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“I am uncomfortable with the idea of lawmakers addressing extremist groups,” said Mark Pitcavage, who tracks militias nationally for the Anti-Defamation League. “It gives these groups legitimacy and encourages them to think they have support, and it sends the wrong message to the community.”
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House Speaker Jody Richards, D-Bowling Green, said that if Mr. Clark and Mr. Moore believe that “these are their constituents and they want to ask questions about working with legislators … I think it’s fine.”
Both Mr. Clark and Mr. Moore have espoused conservative views and are strong defenders of the rights of gun owners. Mr. Clark, who represents Louisville’s South End and the Fairdale area, has said he fights for “Christianity and individual freedom,” as well as protecting the Bill of Rights and property rights.
As an honorary member of a group called Friends of Liberty, he unsuccessfully sought to ban police roadblocks, saying they violate the constitutional rights of drivers. He also opposed legislation that would have required parents to place trigger locks on guns, on the grounds that the state has “no business legislating what goes on inside the home.”

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And the 2001 report about the event legislators agreed to attend included another session by the man who would next year shoot on a deputy in Bell County: Steve Anderson:

The article stated:

A session on communications will be offered by Steve Anderson of Somerset, who on a short-wave radio program called “The Militia Hour” has identified himself as a follower of the Christian Identity movement, which holds that Jews are the offspring of the devil, according to the Anti-Defamation League, which monitors the broadcasts.
On March 12, Mr. Anderson said that those who worship “idols and Gods” other than Jesus should leave the United States.
In an interview, Mr. Anderson said his comments and beliefs are protected by the First Amendment, and that there is nothing wrong with legislators being exposed to them. “They attend anti-Christian events, don’t they?” he asked.

With that, the circle ties back to Jeff Fugate, a man who at the same time of Anderson’s comments was also saying non-Christians should go back to wherever they came from.

So, both conservatives and liberals alike—watch this Rand Paul video at Knob Creek Machine Gun Shoot, and ask whether responses like these are a healthy thing for our country:

As the Courier-Journal noted in its editorial on the matter yesterday,

The Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and assembly, and the right to keep and bear arms — which means fringe elements in the nation are perfectly within their American prerogative to express and embody the most extreme points of view with like-minded comrades and guns in their hands. They are free to be, as long as they stay within the law.
But that constitutional protection does not mean the rest of America should give a big shrug to the increasingly poisonous rancor in the nation’s public discourse, or to the disturbing rise in the number of militia groups (and their growing memberships) in the past year. A news article in today’s Courier-Journal by Chris Kenning journeys inside some area militias to offer a glimpse of their members’ activities (target practice, survivalist/end-times hording of food and other materials) and their conspiratorially bent obsessions (government confiscation of guns, government takeovers in general).
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Despite ups and downs and interruptions in extremist groups in recent years, the Midwest has remained fertile and welcoming ground because of a historical tie to the Ku Klux Klan earlier in the 20th Century. The race-based Klan is not necessarily the same type of organization, but anti-government, paramilitary militias also found a home in the region in the early 1990s, a time that increasingly and alarmingly reminds watchdog groups of today’s festering climate

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