The GOP-Terrorism Connection: It's Not 'Just' Palin

Posted by Paul Rosenberg, Open Left at 5:29 AM on October 26, 2008.

Noxious though it may be, there's nothing aberrational about Palin's refusal to condemn anti-abortion violence as terrorism.  The right has a long, long history of inciting violence, and excusing it, rather than condemning it.  When Clinton was President, there were frequent examples of this.  After the Oklahoma City bombing, the GOP Congress held hearings during which the "Militia" leaders were treated with deference and respect.

Then, just last fall, while Ron Paul was ramping up his "insurgent" presidential campaign--and in full denial about his past racist publications--he praised a couple who then engaged in an armed stand-off with federal officials.  I wrote about it in a diary, "Ron Paul Equates Former Militia Wingnut Tax Evaders With Martin Luther King", which included this video, so there can be no mistaking Paul's position.  The principle tax-evader in question, Edward Lewis Brown, was convicted of armed robbery and assault with a dangerous weapon in 1960, and was imprisoned until 1965.  But Paul compared him not only to Martin Luther King, but to Ghandi as well:

Hey, they's not terra-ists! They's just Gandhi with a gun!

Here's a couple of passages from Brown's Wikiedia entry I presented in my original diary.

First, the "peaceful" actions that Paul was defending:

Edward Lewis Brown (born 1942) and his wife, Elaine Alice Brown (born c. 1940), residents of the American state of New Hampshire, gained national news media attention in early 2007 for not paying their federal income tax and refusing to surrender to federal government agents after having been convicted of tax crimes.[1] After the conviction and sentencing, a long, armed standoff with federal law enforcement authorities at their New Hampshire residence ended with the arrest of Edward and Elaine Brown on October 4, 2007.[2][3][4]

And his equally Ghandian past:

Earlier felony convictions and pardon

In 1960, Brown was found guilty of assault with a dangerous weapon and armed robbery in connection with an attack on a man in Somerville, Massachusetts.[9] Brown was imprisoned at the Massachusetts Correctional Institute in Concord, Massachusetts, was paroled in January 1965, and was pardoned in July 1976 by then-governor Michael Dukakis, with the recommendation of the Massachusetts Advisory Board of Parole.[9]

As well as his "milita" connection:

Involvement in militia movement

According to an October 1994 article in the New Hampshire Sunday News,[10] Ed Brown was the spokesman for an organization called the Constitution Defense Militia and had become involved in the militia movement in late 1993. The newspaper reported that Brown designated various individuals and organizations as being part of a conspiracy to deprive Americans of life and liberty. Among the people and organizations named by Brown were then-U.S. President Bill Clinton, former President George H.W. Bush, Mikhail Gorbachev, The Council on Foreign Relations, the United Nations, the Trilateral Commission, the American Bar Association, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).[10]

Brown reportedly had stockpiled 18 months' worth of food, with weapons and ammunition, and believed that there would be a Federal government takeover of "private property, utilities, health facilities and the media." The 1994 article reported that Brown believed the militia was setting up its own "courts . . . for the purpose of taking back America."[10] The newspaper reported that Brown said he saw no way the conflict would end except in violence.[10] The paper stated: "Brown, who says he is an agnostic, admits it's easy to dismiss him as a nut."[10]

This propensity to violence is neither accidental nor incidental.  It is essential to the nature of rightwing conservatism--as opposed to the more temperate moderate conservatism of folks like President Eisenhower (or even Bob Dole, most of the time) that drives rightwingers bananas.

As I've pointed out before, political conservatism has a strong correlation not just with rightwing authoritarianism, but with Social dominance orientation (SDO) as well. And SDO is identified by scales such as this one (first 8 items are pro-SDO, the last 8 are counter, in order to cancel out "agreement bia"):

SDO-6 questions

  1. Some groups of people are simply inferior to other groups.

  2. In getting what you want, it is sometimes necessary to use force against other groups.

  3. It's OK if some groups have more of a chance in life than others.

  4. To get ahead in life, it is sometimes necessary to step on other groups.

  5. If certain groups stayed in their place, we would have fewer problems.

  6. It's probably a good thing that certain groups are at the top and other groups are at the bottom.

  7. Inferior groups should stay in their place.

  8. Sometimes other groups must be kept in their place.

  9. It would be good if groups could be equal.

 10. Group equality should be our ideal.

 11. All groups should be given an equal chance in life.

 12. We should do what we can to equalize conditions for different groups.

 13. Increased social equality.

 14. We would have fewer problems if we treated people more equally.

 15. We should strive to make incomes as equal as possible.

 16. No group should dominate in society.

If you believe that "Some groups of people are simply inferior," and that "it is sometimes necessary to use force against other groups," and to "step on" them, sometimes, then terrorist violence is simply to be expected.  It's just that simple, really.


There's nothing abberational about rightwing conservative support for terrorism--provided they're the right terrorists, of course.  Such support is definitional, not abberational.

And so long as the GOP is in the hands of rightwing conservatives, it will be definitional of the GOP as well.  It is their choice.

Tagged as: domestic terrorism

Paul Rosenberg is a regular blogger for Open Left