WASHINGTON (AP) - The ATF says it has broken up a plot to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and shoot or decapitate 102 black people in a Tennessee murder spree.
In court records unsealed Monday, agents said they disrupted plans to rob a gun store and target an unnamed predominantly African-American high school by two neo-Nazi skinheads.
I don't know how competent these idiots were or how close they could have gotten, but I expect that more of the same is coming. The backlash against a black President may be both dramatic and bloody -- and not just for the (presumable) president.
Obviously, I don't think any violence will be widespread in the sense that states are going to secede again, but there are enough hate groups that may test the patience of the US security apparatus-- probably to the point that a Democratic majority Congress would go to extraordinary (and extra-constitutional) lengths to attempt to bring them under control. I certainly hope we won't have a spate of domestic terror cells, but I'd be lying if I said that it wasn't a small fear of mine.
Unconstitutional impediments to assembly, speech, and--of course--firearms, will only fuel the fire of the hate groups and perhaps cause them to grow, albeit to rather limited (thankfully) extent. The problem with this is not that terror-minded hate groups will be stopped before killing or otherwise harming people--I'm all for that. But perfectly legal yet marginal fringe groups might be targeted in anti-racist crackdowns just because some group of white boys with guns decides to name themselves "militia." It isn't as if the government doesn't already cast too wide of net for terror suspects. (You know, like the environmentalists who ended up on terror lists in Maryland.)
If and when that happens, the same Democrats and other liberals who are (correctly) arguing against domestic wiretapping and treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo may be calling for similar measures--at least as they apply to surveillance and suspicion-- to be used against our own citizens who may or may not be associated with domestic racial terror.
The problem with fighting for liberty is that often you're stuck protecting the rights of bastards. But being a bastard does not equate being a terrorist--even if you're a racist bastard with guns. I have a feeling that the political dynamics of the personal liberties debate may change once the targeted people under suspicion aren't named Khalid and Abdul, but rather Kenny and Cletus.
Let's hope we don't find out.
Hat tip: NJ Ray
