The New American recently warned that Americans who oppose policies emanating from Washington are being tarred as right-wing extremists and even potential terrorists by the Obama administration's Department of Homeland Security as well as by the New York Times and other liberal media organs. This push to demonize and even criminalize political dissent appears to be accelerating.

Earlier this month, New York Times columnists Frank Rich and Paul Krugman wrote pieces laying the blame for the murder of an abortionist and a U.S. Holocaust Museum security guard at the foot of President Barack Obama's critics. Both have received figurative high-fives from the left-wing blogosphere. The Huffington Post’s Dennis Palumbo called Rich’s column “gripping” and added: “What is news ... is the unchecked level of rancor, and the seeming lack of interest in how this wave of hate-speech may well contribute to more tragedies.” DailyKos.com reposted the money quotes from Rich’s column in several places and defended Paul Krugman’s column “The Big Hate.” The leftist People for the American Way essentially seconded the columns. Columnists from the New York Daily News and Salon.com published similar sentiments. The Rev. Jesse Jackson took up the familiar gun-control theme in the Chicago Sun-Times.

The chorus of New York Times columnists calling for silencing the right reached a trifecta with Bob Hebert’s June 19 column, “A Threat We Can’t Ignore.” Hebert’s piece had a naked message to anyone criticizing Obama: Shut up. The focus of Hebert’s rage was the rather mild actions by the National Rifle Association to set up a website to oppose any efforts by the Obama administration to ban firearms in violation of the Constitution’s Second Amendment. “While the N.R.A. is not advocating violence," Hebert acknowledged, "it shouldn’t take more than a glance at the newspapers to understand why this is a message that the country could do without.”

Shut up, he politely explained. You have the right to dissent with policy opinions only when a Republican is in the White House, as far as the New York Times editorial page is concerned. Hebert claimed that the NRA website was unnecessary. “There is no Obama gun ban on the way,” he wrote. However, he concluded his column by  proposing the following solution to the current crisis: “The first step should be to bring additional gun control back into the policy mix.” That’s logic, New York Times-style.

While Hebert and his New York Times colleagues didn’t explicitly call for government censorship, none of them put vigorous criticism of Obama into the category of constitutionally protected free speech either. Of the NRA, Hebert says “you can sure blame it for ignoring the tragic lessons of history and continuing to spray gasoline into an environment that we have seen explode time and again.” Let the reader project the line to where such argumentation is heading.

This whole public discussion about the dangers of dissent originated in a Department of Homeland Security report entitled “Right Wing Extremism.” Released in May, the report said that there was no organized right-wing terrorism but that there is a danger in “lone wolf” killers being incited to commit deadly acts. The DHS report echoes a FBI program under the Justice Department called “Operation Vigilant Eagle.” Who are the would-be lone-wolf killers? Who is inciting them? According to the organized left and government officials, anyone who criticizes policies emanating from Washington is an “extremist” and is worthy of a watchful eye from law enforcement at best and of being considered a terrorism danger at worst. "Lone-wolf offenders continue to be of great concern to law enforcement," the Wall Street Journal reported June 15.

Whenever a crazed killer gives a political motivation, officials always try to place the blame at the feet of its own critics. "Hate speech" can be loosely defined as speech politicians hate. It makes no difference whether the critic is on the political “left” or “right.” The Department of Homeland Security also sought to demonize left-wing critics of Washington policies with its own report on “Leftwing Extremists,” which was written shortly before the report on “Rightwing Extremism.”

Even if a killer doesn’t provide a motivation, journalists always clamor for a reason for any particularly senseless killing. This idiotic tendency of the press was satirized by musician/songwriter Bob Geldof in his 1979 hit song “I Don’t Like Mondays.” The song is about a schoolyard shooting that same year by 16-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer in San Diego, California. After shooting and killing two school officials and injuring eight schoolmates and a police officer, a reporter asked her why she did it. She replied “I don't like Mondays, this livens up the day.” Geldof’s unforgettable lyrics satirize a conversation between dopey reporters incessantly asking why she did it and the girl’s father, who had no answer:

He can see no reasons, ‘cause there are no reasons.
What reason do you need to be shown?
Tell me why!
I don’t like Mondays.
Tell me why!
I don’t like Mondays.
Tell me why!
I don’t like Mondays. I want to shoot the whole day down.

Crazy doesn’t need a reason.

But that doesn’t mean government officials and a compliant press won’t invent one, if it can help stifle dissent.

Photo: AP Images

Related article:

"The New Push to Criminalize Dissent"

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OperationCounterstrike said:

	... Abortion and terror! And, COUNTERTERROR! AICH TEE TEE PEA://operationcounterstrike.blogspot.com
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June 20, 2009 | url
Votes: -4

Dave Wickert said:

	Hang'em High Good. Right Wingers have been nothing but trouble since Eisenhower was elected. Track'em down. String'em up. No mercy. Like Ronnie Reagan said, "If there's to be a bloodbath, let it be now."
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June 21, 2009 | url
Votes: -5

Flu-Bird said:

	Obama shows his true color RED Looks like our dictator has shown his real true color and its RED just wait for the RED STAR to be flying over the new REDHOUSE all the work of the NEW YORK PRAVDA(TIMES) and DAVE you have shown just how ultra left-wing you are
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June 21, 2009
Votes: +1

bg said:

	Response to David Wickert I guess anyone who has another viewpoint has less value? That is regrettable. There is a great divide between the left and the right, no doubt about that. We once had a civil war, which brought heartbreak and sorrow to our American soil. We can agree to disagree, without rancor and violence. That is why we have our Constitutional system, use it. It is bloodless.
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June 22, 2009
Votes: +2

Mary said:

Law and Order I caught a few episodes of Law and Order last night. The new L&O: CI on USA was about a Christian pastor/father who believed that God spoke to him and commanded him to kill members of his family so they would go to heaven rather than fall into sin here in earth. Stereotyping religious leaders and the traditional family unit has become very commonplace on police-drama shows. I am recognizing it now more than ever.

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June 22, 2009
Votes: +0

Thomas Paine said:

NWO agenda not just Obama They continue to close down our society at quickened pace. Ever since their 911 play which "crossed the Rubicon". Arhitects and Engineers for 911 truth have gained a lot of press lately in attempts to expose the inside job. This move to criminalize the Right, is part of preparing us all for Marshall Law. They will get us to accept it once they paint so many groups as potential terrorists and create one more false flag operation. Now is the time to add the real criminals to the watch list. (The NWO criminals).

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June 22, 2009
Votes: +0

Deborah said:

First Amendment Rights It was surprising for me to learn in May that I, as a prolife sidewalk counselor, am considered a potential terrorist. This is clearly an attempt to silence the right completely. I believe that this administration is on the way to dismantling the Constitution to serve their own ends. Taxing the populace to death and causing rampant unemployment and business closings to create chaos that will keep Americans from organizing. But as inconvenient as it is- we must organize to oppose the bloodless overthrow of our democratic Republic.

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June 23, 2009
Votes: +2