re: #512 ShanghaiEd

Well said. Even the most whacko, radical extreme environmentalists as a rule destroy property, not people. Which doesn’t make them saints, of course, but they’re operating on qualitatively different principles. And I don’t know of any left-wing group since the 60s whose aim is to overthrow the government, but nowadays there are militias aplenty (see Web) who openly embrace that goal. Apples, oranges. Distracting. Not productive.

Absolutely. There are nuts on both sides and I’ll be first in line to condemn any left wing extremist groups that start killing scientists or the CEO’s of logging companies or bombing labs filled with people. But that isn’t what’s happening right now.

On the other hand, we do have the same rise of anti-government rhetoric and militias that we saw in the 90’s, combined with a crippling economic climate that makes it all the easier for already disturbed people to decide they’re going out and want to take people with them. The conditions are in place for events like the OK city bombing. The Clinton admin saw a fivefold increase in abortion related violence— that all went away under Bush, and yet 5 months into a new Dem admin we’ve already seen the murder of Tiller— and threatening calls to and vandalism of abortion clinics have already spiked upward sharply.