Let me summarize, a man held a sign, as stupid as the saying was, it is just a sign, and he was exercising a First Amendment right; another person, who as research pointed out actually holds a valid concealed weapons permit in his state, New Hampshire, and thus exercising, even as an alarmist article states, his "legal" Second Amendment right; a mentally ill person was in a stand-off in L.A.--seems to be business as usual in Los Angeles; a talk show host spoke, hmmmm, seems like the First Amendment again; and, an unidentified person painted a swastika on an office. Anyone know who? Any identified Nazis in town? Any groups meeting there? Any uptick in violence? Any Brownshirts marching in the streets? Anything of substance at all?
No.
One anonymous person performed a reprehensible act.
None of these isolated actions widely dispersed and unconnected across the entire country are indicative of a rise in racial hostility. They are not even racial incidents.
However, as the alarmist news report attempts to drive up emotion, God forbid, the bad guys are also associated with rock music and the Internet. Goodness, what will they think of next? These people must be truly evil, the article can impugn them with guilt by association with connotations of racial hatred, rock 'n' roll, and the Internet.
The news media is ratcheting up the rhetoric. Another story from Florida notes that: "city officials, meanwhile, are trying to determine what local crimes might be associated with the posting of the images on public and private properties," about a possible suspect who is posting the Obama as Joker posters.
Graphic source: poster of Soetoro as the Joker at the S.R. 50 underpass in Clermont, Tom Benitez, Orlando Sentinel/12 August 2009.
Why is it that the local police are "currently. . . still conducting interviews of victims, witnesses, and other suspects," yet they have not determined what crime was committed? First they are pursuing an individual for an unknown offense, then they will find the crime. Isn't that the fascist way? Let's face it, at the worst this is vandalism, at best it is free speech and worth defending.
Nonetheless, the alarmists, such as the Southern Law Poverty Center and the Secret Service, are implying as a headline states: "Fear Grows for President as Hate Groups Thrive on Racial Backlash." There is no concrete evidence for this position. Evidence exists that stories are manufactured. For example, Fox News reported that an African-American man from Mississippi admitted to posing as a white supremacist to send a death threat across state lines by Facebook. Even the Department of Homeland Security cobbled a threat assessment together from nothing more than pointless Internet drivel and did not follow standard intelligence practices to conclude that hate groups are thriving.
Yet, that watchdog of violence, the Southern Law Poverty Center, states that there is: "a genuine backlash against Obama."
They are correct to a certain extent. People are simply exercising their liberties under the law. The Center and others are mistaking genuine, simple American frustration with Obama and his misguided policies. If every dumb expression was censored then there is no way to distinguish between truth and falsehood. It is more revealing that the opponents of expression are so dumb founded with legitimate dissent. The cognitive dissonance that they are experiencing demonstrates how out of touch they are with ordinary simple expressions of dissent. Not all dissent is violent, the First Amendment states that there exists: "the right of the people peacably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Peaceable assembly is just as American, and just as authentic. Consider Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s example if peaceable assembly is American. The genuine backlash against Obama may, as in the case of King, involve boycotts, demonstrations, marches and other staples of non-violent protest.
The media created a problem: a cult of personality of Obama as the first black president. Actually, he is not black. If he would release his long form birth certificate we might know for certain but by all reasonable accounts he is a product of a white mother and a black father. Thus, he is half-white and half-black. Nonetheless, he was packaged both by the media and in the election rhetoric as black. Despite his black packaging the American people, 53%, voted for him. The Americans, we have to reasonably conclude, did not invoke the "Tom Bradley" effect, named after a former L.A. mayor who did not garnish white voters since as a black man they would not vote for him.
Meanwhile, real people, an African-American Kenneth Gladney, are physically assaulted by Obama's purple-shirted Union thugs SEIU, yet this incident is not mentioned at all as a racial crime. In addition, the most consistent and incindiary anti-Obama statements are made by African-Americans such as Dr. Alan Keyes,
The Reverend Dr. James David Manning,
Manning interviewed on Fox News, Part 1, in the interview, it is Hannity and Colmes who object to Pastor Manning's characterization of Obama.