My Thoughts About Today

My heart goes out to security guard, Stephen Tyrone Johns, who died as a result of his wounds today.

First things first, let's get the easy stuff out of the way.

Will there be an intensified focus on hate crimes, hate speech, extremist activities, etc. as a result of today's shooting at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum?  YES.

Will there be calls for increased gun control legislation?  YES.

Will this be an issue about free speech and First Amendment protections?  YES (The shooter, James von Brunn, maintained an active website, published hate-writings, and had a prior criminal history).

Will your speech be threatened?  Only if you incite imminent violence (Brandenburg v. Ohio 1969), or make threats to the President (Watts v. United States 1969), and other "speech-acts" that cross the line of criminal activity and violence.

Will your speech be threatened?  Dude, shut up now.

Will federal agencies enact new measures, adopt new tactics, and pass new legislation regarding hate and extremist violence as domestic terrorism?  YES.

Will Democrats play a key role in sponsoring this kind of legislation?  YES.

Will it pass?  YES (at least, some new version now).

Will this event be used to criticize and undermine Republicans?  YES.

Will conservative talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, and Michelle Malkin shut the hell up now?  God I only wish.

Will there be sanctimonious calls for tolerance and an appreciation of diversity and other "touchy-feely" nonsense?  Yes.  Look, don't get me wrong.  I think they are essential so long as it includes an analysis about economic inequality, poverty, institutional critiques, and so on.  

Is this a new form of violent activity?  NO.  This is the first point that I want to focus on in terms on today's discussion about hate violence, extremist activities, and governmental responses.  Today's shooting, and last week's assassination of Dr. George Tiller in Kansas, is not new.  In fact, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and others across the US, synagogues, mosques, and abortion clinics, and many others, have safety and emergency protocols because they know they are often high profile targets for extremist activities.  One can look to the history of these institutions to know the history of domestic terrorism.  

Second, what I will be mindful of in the coming months is the federal response, and much of it is dependent upon how they frame today's shooting and last week's assassination.  There will be the usual questions but most will be centering on how much is too much federal power if it decides to combat extremism?  Again, one can look to history to answer that question in this country's first "war on terrorism."  In 1871, President Ulysses Grant requested and was granted by Congress expanded executive powers to suppress the violent activities perpetrated by the Ku Klux Klan during Reconstruction.  The Civil Rights Act of 1871, aka the Ku Klux Klan Act, was passed and used to deploy federal troops to southern states to enforce the law, suspend habeas corpus, arrest and prosecute known Klansmen to which untold numbers of members were fined and/or imprisoned.  South Carolina saw the most action by federal intervention.  By the end of Reconstruction in 1877, the first manifestation of the Klan no longer existed, that is, until 1905 ( by the way, the parts of the Act were ruled unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court in 1882 ).  If you want to combat the rising tide of extremism, this historical case study is a clear example on what it actually takes to accomplish that goal -- unleash federal power.  This of course will make me sound like a totalitarian dictator, but if you look at the history of equality and civil rights, it has always depended upon the federal government to intervene with force either by law or by police/military action ( even if the federal government perpetrates that inequality ).

Final point, the unclassified Department of Homeland Security report on extremist recruitment and activity is by far the most prescient report ever developed since the inception of this federal institution.  Why?  Because it reflected the recent and best scholarship on hate violence and extremist activity in the most clearest language possible.  I don't know who exactly authored the report or what methodology was used, but what they concluded is what agencies such as the Southern Poverty Law Center and scholars such as Jack Levin, Jack McDevitt, and Barbara Perry have long contended: extremism is on the rise because of this specific confluence of terrorism, anti-immigrant sentiment, unstable economy, high unemployment, right-wing rhetoric as mainstream news, and, of course, the ascendancy of Barack Obama.  The DHS report simply stated within reasonable guidelines what to expect and prepare for law enforcement agencies.