May
7
From Jesse Walker at Reason:
…the Hutaree case is in a state of flux, with prosecutors appealing Judge Victoria Roberts’ ruling that the accused should be released on bond while awaiting their trial. There are signs that the judge is unimpressed with the state’s case, and she has stressed that prosecutors must demonstrate that the arrestees were guilty of an actual conspiracy to kill cops, not just loose talk. Even “hate-filled, venomous speech,” she said, is “a right that deserves First Amendment protection.”
As Walker notes, the Hutaree Militia was supposed to be indicative…
…of a larger, right wing paramilitary threat. Fueled by a bogus “study” of the hard-left Southern Poverty Law Center, we were all supposed to be fearful that right wing violence was just about to explode – and the Hutaree were just the leading edge of a gigantic, TEA Party inspired domestic terrorist putsch.
It hasn’t quite worked out like that.
Among the many problems with the narrative is that the Hutaree people might have really done no more than chest-thump in an aggressively anti-government manner. To be sure, anyone who gathers together to even talk of shooting police officers is worthy of law enforcement attention – but just talking of such things is not out of bounds in our First Amendment society. If we started hauling in everyone who ever says such things, then there are probably 10,000 leftists to be arrested – and I don’t want that.
You’re allowed to talk in America – even if you talk about things no one likes.
It remains to be seen what sort of evidence the Feds bring forth, but this is starting to smell of an incompetent prosecution. I see a lot of “Duke University Rape Case” floating around here. Be that as it may, even if the Hutaree really were directly plotting murder, it still doesn’t feed in to the MSM narrative.
Boiled down, this narrative is that being anti-government is to be in some manner racist, hate filled, violent. This narrative took hold on January 20th, 2009 and will continue until a Republican is sworn in. At that point, the narrative will switch back to dissent being the highest form of patriotism. The most worrisome aspect of this the indication that the MSM will play along with whatever the government says, as long as the targets can be cast as right wing. Rush might have been half-joking when he first referred to “State run media”, but its a reality. By and large, the MSM is a tool of the State – as long as the State is run by liberals.
It is now doubly good that the New Media has arisen – if it hadn’t, then our goose would, indeed, be cooked and liberty would be at an end in America. Which explains why there are now moves to control the New Media – but that is an issue for another day.
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