Conservative Extremists Putting the War in "Culture Wars"

(Forgive me if the formatting is off here. This is my first post for Illinoize.)

There's a reason conservatives coined the term "Culture Wars".

Ever notice how (with the brief exception of hard-left violence during the 60s and other occasional points) almost all of the domestic-bred terrorism here in these United States have come at the hands of the hard-right? In recent memory, conservatives Tim McVeigh and Eric Rudolph come to mind. Even back to the horrific lynchings and the like in the 19th century and certainly throughout the 20th century, it has been conservatives committing these acts of violence.

Several others have taken note also as Meteor Blades explains. This violent streak is especially evident in recent weeks (not years, weeks) as domestic terrorism plots have been foiled at scenes as different as a counterprotest at pro-immigration rally in Washington, DC and the funeral of Rev. Jerry Falwell (plus at least a handful of other similar cases on issues ranging from virulently anti-abortion to ardently pro-2A).

The only difference between those two "caught-in-the-act" terrorist plots and the recent Ft. Dix and JFK plans -- which garnered a great deal more media attention -- is that the immigration march and the funeral plots involved white conservatives (with at least the funeral plotters claiming to be "Christian") that had enough finances and were caught red-handed with actual, live weapons. Indeed, one of the suspects in the thwarted Falwell funeral bombing actually traveled to Virginia from Ft. Benning, GA in an effort to carry out the attempted terrorist act.

This is as opposed to the Ft. Dix and JFK plots which involved minority Muslims who had no financing, let alone explosive devices or any weapons whatsoever. Moreover, while the march and funeral plotters were each directly involved with conservative movements, the much-more-publicized Muslim guys were rogue al Qaeda wannabe copycatters, not affiliated with anyone.

Watchdog blogger Dave Niewart posits that the underlying issue is that such conservative extremists have fairly successfully embedded themselves into the mainstream conservative movement vis a vis the Republican Party and other entities. This would, in part, explain why the mainstream media has all but ignored these stories -- they sadly appear to actually be mainstream enough in and of themselves. Writes Mr. Niewart:

No, the real problem with the far right has been its ability to insinuate itself back within the mainstream during the years of Republican rule in this new century, building on the bridges created during the surge of hateful rhetoric and envelope-pushing that characterized the conservative movement in the 1990s. The extremist right, particularly its racist/paranoid factions, have long been seeking this kind of resinsertion; certainly, the militia movement of the '90s was a direct manifestation of this effort. The result has been a steady rightward drag of mainstream conservatism, to the point that now it is virtually unrecognizable as anything genuinely conservative.

So far this century, we've seen a real growth of far-right rhetoric, and the march of its agenda, manifesting itself in such shapes as the Minutemen -- who are in fact almost direct descendants of the '90s militias -- and various cultural eugenicists posing as "immigration reformers" and twisting the national debate on immigration in truly perverse directions; Christian "Dominionists" who want to turn the United States into a theocratic state; and most of all, a real culture of totalism fueled by an increasingly ugly tide of eliminationist rhetoric.

Mr. Niewart takes a national view of things. Of course, here in Illinois we have our own borderliners who may be susceptible to crossing over from angry talk to violent action at any time. The folks at Illinois Carry seem a lively bunch and they really, really like any and all guns ... so a citizen can easily put two and two together yourself. (Remember, Tim McVeigh, et al, attacked the Murrah Federal Building in OKC on the anniversary of the Branch Davidian stand-off in Waco, TX. They did so to start a revolution against, in part, a government they thought wanted to take away their guns, among other things.) These are the same folks who came out to counterprotest, and clearly attempt to intimidate, Rev. Jesse Jackson and fellow anti-violence marchers a few weeks ago.

Another branch of the vitriolic conservative clans comes in the form of the just-this-short-of-racist groups misnamed as "Minutmen", of which Illinois boasts a couple. Nevermind the very oddity of our state being home to such groups since Illinois borders neither Mexico nor Canada ... maybe these Minutemen consider cheesheads, hoosiers, bluegrassers, show-mes and hawkeyes to also be highly offensive for pouring over our state's lines. Every time I've seen these folks in action or read their acrid remarks they literally ooze hate and loathing. And being awash in inflammatory statements like "Forth in revolution!" and violent rhetoric like "I have chosen as my weapons -- for the time being -- a pen -- for the pen IS mightier than the sword -- but time may be running out", it's not too surprising to see learn from Mr. Niewart that such groups often have roots in both radical militia movements and supremacy-based separatist organizations.

Then there are the Dominionist folks at Illinois Family Institute and Culture "we say we're Christian, but we oppose a Hate Crimes Bill" Campaign (and even related local pushing-rhetoric-to-the-extreme bloggers such as nurse Jill Stanek, Petey "hates gay parents with babies" LaBarbera or those found at Illinois Review) who appear to loathe any interpretation of the Bible or Constitution other than their own narrow, cherry-picked, quasi-literalist views.

Given the short leap from heated, angry vitriol against one or another minority demographic to actual violence against those folks and their allies ... it's easy to see how the extreme rhetoric from the groups could easily become a catalyst that pushes some impressionable acolyte across the line (even as IFI, CC, Illinois Review and the others may not overtly promote violence themselves). In fact, as Dave Niewart points out, the acid-tongued militantism of Ann Coulter, G. Gordon "shoot ATF Agents in the head" Liddy, and more serve to poke and prod borderliners into actually crossing over toward violence and self-believed vigilantism as was the case with hoax anthraxer Chad Castagana whose sole aim (inspired by Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Laura Ingraham and the Free Republic forums) was to harm people he considered liberal because he hated them.

From a top-line, forest-view perspective it's fascinating to see how the once grand national Republican Party has allowed itself to be cored and have that hollowed-out center of a formerly moderate to right-leaning political organization replaced with extremists who are constantly pulling, even jerking, the national party to a hard-line brand of conservativism (see this discussion of the simmering 2006 internal debate between Republican operatives and Dominionist leaders as witness to the current importance of the hard-liners to the party). Contrast that internal acceptance of the Republicans' extremist ranks to the national Democratic Party which in recent times has generally rejected the similarly extremist hard-left, leaving those folks to go to the budding Green Party or other organizations.

It's also very interesting to see how Illinois' Republican Party and that of a few other states is different from the RNC in this regard. While we do have our local conservative firebrands (here, here and here, among others) constantly trying to tug political debate rightward, whether subtly or overtly, there are a great many other 'channels' toward which Illinoisans can choose to tune their attention (whether "tuning" their radio, their reading, their Net surfing, their TV, etc)... and thus they are not incessantly bombarded by a singular hard-right viewpoint.

"Combine" that with Illinois' historic reputation of legislative across-the-aisle back-scratching and perhaps this is why the Prairie State's small band of conservative bedfellows is forced to simply nip at the heels of this state's Republican Establishment, rather than be wholly embraced by it.

(h/t Meteor Blades for the pertinent summary of nationally-oriented essays on this topic.)

(c/p at Illinois Reason. Please post comments there, though I have turned on the comment feature here also.)