Stop me if you've heard this one before.
Two terrorists are pulled over by a cop car. The older terrorist is a religious fanatic. His 16-year old son has been thoroughly indoctrinated. Since his home was under foreclosure, this religious terrorist has been traveling the country with his son, preaching ways to destroy the government of the United States by interfering with its flow of revenue and murdering government employees.
On Thursday, May 20, in West Memphis, Arkansas, this terrorist and his son were pulled over by the cops on the interstate. They came out of their car with AK-47s blazing, killing two of the police officers and then taking it on the lam.
When they were finally cornered in a Walmart parking lot, the terrorist and his son shot it out with the police, wounding two before they were both killed.
Now, let's consider for a moment that this terrorist had been named Akhmed. Fox News, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and all the minor league Limbaugh wannabe right wing radio racists would still be crowing about the horrible, horrible slaughter and how can Islam be a religion of peace when these filthy Mooslims murder police cops and how President Obama's cowardly apologizing to the Islamic world was causing the bloodshed and if we don't do something about this spreading cancer of Islamic fundamentalism in America, it's doom for us all.
Doom, I tells ya!
Well, we haven't heard much from Fox about this particular act of terror. Or from Hannity, Beck, Limbaugh or any of the other right wing noisemakers.
See, this guy wasn't named Akhmed. His name was Jerry Kane. The religion he was so fanatical about? Christianity. And the federal agents he wanted to murder? IRS agents.
According to MSNBC,Terrorist Kane had a long record with the cops, using the Internet to question the US government's authority over him. He once spent three days in jail and paid a $1,500 fine for driving without a license and refusing to identify himself. He called it a "Nazi checkpoint."
According to The Memphis Commercial Appeal, Terrorist Kane, in a YouTube video (no longer available online) had some pretty scary things to say about killing IRS agents.
You have to kill them all. So what we're after here is not fighting, it's conquering. I don't want to have to kill anybody, but if they keep messing with me, that's what it's going to have to come out. That's what it's going to come down to, is I'm going to have to kill. And if I have to kill one, then I'm not going to be able to stop, I just know it.
In that video, he and his son Joe joke about using a bat to "take care of" a problem with an IRS agent.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Cannonshop
Did the cops kill the son of a bitch?
YES.
Were there a whole legion of professors, 'culturalists' and other titled apologists
lining up to justify/explain why the cops shooting this turd (and his son) was wrong?
NO.
figure it out, dude.
2 - ParkyBill
Is there a webpage lauding this guy?
Yes.
If his name was Abdul, would Fox and all the other yapping spaniels in the right wing media STILL be yapping about it?
Yep.
I've already figgered it out. Dude.
3 - roger nowosielski
An anti-government sentiment is a natural one, especially in a country that aspires to being a democracy.
There was a relevant comment to that effect on a memorable Norman Mailer-William F. Buckley debate on The Firing Line (1967, folks).
When I get home, I'll provide you with the appropriate link and the relevant excerpt.
4 - ParkyBill
So, Roger... you are disputing my central contention that if this guy was a Muslim the media would still be yapping about it, but since he wasn't, they aren't?
5 - roger nowosielski
Not really. My point was of a more general nature. But of course you're right.
6 - Baronius
There's not much of a connection between this story and Christianity. Kane's religion isn't mentioned in the MSNBC story. The memorial site makes no mention of religion, but has a quote from atheist Ayn Rand. The other article you linked to notes Kane's belief that the Bible calls for overwhelming force against enemies, as well as his affiliation with an Aryan Nations religious group. Everyone but those guys denounces those guys. They're the guys that conspiracy nuts avoid. If you're looking for conservatives to denounce Aryan Nations, ask any of us.
Maybe you have some reason to believe that Kane was motivated by religion, but I don't see it.
7 - konan
You sound like a liberal. That said I see nothing from Jerry Kane that he was religious "christian" fanatic like you claimed. It sounds like Kane was distraught all right...but WHY?.
I believe our banking system and our government are culprits in a lot of people personal problems today. I also think we are going to have to Cleanse the Tree of Liberty as our Founding Fathers said we would have to do. WHatever one beleives...know this: People of various foreign and domestic colors are trying to take away what we have. They exist in our government and live here illegally...or legally. Whoever inherits this Nations future will have to kill to do it. Thats life.
So if your one of those too many idiots who don't yet believe we are heading for a civil war of some sort...then just keep sleeping and you will either be awakened by gunfire or killed by it.
This government has pissed off too many law abiding citizens. We all stole this land from the American Indians and we arent going to give it away to Mexicans, foreigners, lazy ass socialists and communists. That wont happen.
8 - roger nowosielski
"the Tree of Liberty," that's a new one, konan. Which chapter and verse are you quoting from?
9 - roger nowosielski
I happen to agree with Baronius. Kane's alleged christianity is incidental here. No reflection on the religious Right - at least not in this instance.
10 - Glenn Contrarian
Speaking of the MSM being silent about domestic terrorists, I notice that NO ONE here seems to know about the mosque bombing in Florida on the 10th of May.
Now if a local 'Christian' church had been bombed after a smear campaign had been led by state candidates against that denomination, would the MSM have covered it? You betcha! Especially Fox!
But I guess it's too liberal to for the MSM to say a word when a mosque gets bombed.
And did anyone on BC hear about the woman in Yuba City, CA, who took her gun and confronted a census worker, and then died in a confrontation with the police?
But I guess it's too liberal for the MSM to say a word when a census worker gets confronted with a gun like the owner of the far-right-wing blog redstate.com (and now CNN 'contributor') Erick Erickson advised his listeners to do.
Yeah. It's only terrorism when A-rabs or them gol-durned unAmerricun commie bastid nazi-soshulist libruls do it, I guess.
11 - roger nowosielski
It's about to drop that word. It's become useless.
12 - Dr Dreadful
Konan's comment (#7) illustrates the author's point rather well.
Note the elaborate list of grievances and the implied justification for Kane's actions.
Would he go to the same lengths to empathise with an al-Qaeda member? Highly, highly doubtful.
13 - roger nowosielski
It's not the physical act itself, Dreadful, that calls for one and the same classification - it's the motivation behind it.
If it issues from a patriotic, righteous-thinking American as part of a response to his grievances against his government, it's an admirable act, worthy of emulation. But you have to meet right criteria to belong to that exclusive group.
Come to think of it, Tea Party membership might just cut it.
14 - Ruvy
Let's turn this around, guys. A Christian extremist, one who affiliated with Nazis, who was willing to use force against legally constituted authority, was killed doing so. I let you decide if this was good or not. It's not my problem. You live in America, not me.
But if "Abdullah" had been the extremist blowing away all these cops, all sorts of liberal idiots would be writing apologia upon apologia for the Wahhabi trash. The lame brain media would be looking for every excuse for the poor slob to have to murder cops. And Hannity and the other "right wing" types would go after Abdullah - until the Wahhabi "person" who owns 8% of Fox News told them to shut up or find work elsewhere.
And there would be the inevitable story in Yediot Ahronot that the government had this Wahhabi trash on their lists of threats - but did nothing about it.
That, ParkyBill, is a far more realistic assessment.
15 - roger nowosielski
The reason is simple. The Left hates America for the imperialistic power it had become; it is therefore tolerant with respects to acts of retaliation. But the Left is totally unsympathetic when it comes to acts by disgruntled Americans whose only concern is number one.
16 - Glenn Contrarian
Roger -
The Left hates America for the imperialistic power it had become; it is therefore tolerant with respects to acts of retaliation. But the Left is totally unsympathetic when it comes to acts by disgruntled Americans whose only concern is number one.
1. The left doesn't 'hate' America, Roger. I am part of the left, remember, and there are many retired military like myself who are outraged when the blood of OUR military family is shed, OUR treasure is wasted for an illegal invasion committed on false pretenses...and when OUR national honor is tarnished by the use of torture that had been forsworn by George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Honor means something to me - maybe it doesn't mean much to some here who dismiss it as a rankly naive concept, but it means a great deal to me.
Tolerant? No. That's an off-the-cuff and totally unsubstantiated accusation, Roger - and I call you on it. We on the left well understand the motives of the terrorists (we're big on empathy, remember), but we do NOT 'tolerate' it.
2. Should we be any more tolerant of Americans who commit terrorism (domestic or otherwise) than we are of those who aren't Americans?
Rog, you need to get out of your dark place (Ruvy's there beside you - he's been there a long time). The great majority of the people of the world (including the Muslims and including those oh-so-traitorous few of us on the left) are good and gracious people. Please don't make sweeping accusatory generalizations like that unless you can substantiate them.
17 - roger nowosielski
I wasn't talking of liberals, Glenn. Perhaps this should help.
18 - Glenn Contrarian
Roger -
I wonder how many here would think that 'liberals' and 'the Left' are two completely different things? I wouldn't make that assumption.
19 - Baronius
Glenn, do you mean the way the Tucson church fires have been dominating the news? Oh, wait, no one's heard about those either.
20 - roger nowosielski
To me they're entirely different critters. I was speaking ideologically, not in terms of what obtains politically.
Anyways, my account explained Ruvy's well-put paradox. Did your?
21 - ParkyBill
Look deeper than the MSNBC story. The van the dude was driving belonged to a far right church. He and his group had been disrupting church services by interrupting the services to preach their extremist views.
If this had been Mooslims, you would have heard all about it.
22 - ParkyBill
And Konan? The word is "you're". Not "your." "You're." Since you are in a writers' community, punctuation counts.
23 - ParkyBill
Ruvy, just wondering... have you ever heard a "liberal" -- one taken seriously, anyway -- apologizing for Islamic Terrorists killing cops? Or did Glenn Beck tell you to say that?
24 - Ruvy
ParkyBill,
I don't waste time following the lame brain American media too closely, except where your government poses a threat or an interference to my life - which is all too often. I am not a "conservative" and don't much care for the "conservative" echo-chambers that call themselves media. In fact, if you must know, I am a syndicalist socialist.
But I sure as hell remember all sorts of "liberal" types making excuses for that scum of a Wahhabi terrorist who killed 13 soldiers and an unborn foetus in Georgia a while ago. They were all over the place like a bad smell, from the White House press office on down.
25 - ParkyBill
Well, Ruvy, here's your chance to post links and quotes to back up that statement. Let's see some credible "liberal types" taken seriously by the media apologizing or excusing the Fort Hood shooting.
Ready?
Go!