Beauty may be only skin deep, but ignorance, racism, and hatred go clear to the bone.
It would be easy to expend energy and column inches wondering why and how America went off the tracks. We might think our era is the first to prominently feature, racists, haters, and other assorted wackjobs. Truth is, the emotionally, intellectually, and/or morally unbalanced have always been among us. It’s just that in the Internet age, where news outlets are forever looking for something they can pass off as “news,” those most would laugh off now have a forum. With websites like Breitbart, World Net News, InfoWars, and others who devalue facts and journalism, those with nothing to add but plenty to say but little to add can count on being treated as “Serious People.”
It would be easy to pass off Wilhelmsen as just another ignorant troll with a Facebook page and the delusional belief that he has something of value to contribute to the public discourse. The fact that he references the 2nd Amendment as somehow providing a moral authorization- indeed, a duty- to assassinate Barack Obama is bad enough. That he’s openly calling for killing a democratically-elected President is both treasonous and worthy of visit from the Secret Service. Since when is openly advocating for the murder of the President not a federal crime?
I’d normally be loathe to give an ill-informed, ignorant troll like Wilhelmsen the time of day, but he does represent a disturbing strain of thought among the American Sheeple. When facts, truth, and logic cease to have relevance, you get people who feel they possess the absolute right to advocate treason while presenting it as “patriotism.” I thought it might be fun to dismantle Wilhelmsen’s argument…not that there’s any particular challenge to it.
1) “We now have authority to shoot Obama”: What- specifically- are you using as justification for advocating for the assassination of Barack Obama? What Constitutional precedent allows you to believe that killing the President is the right and patriotic thing to do? I suspect we’ll be waiting for some time for you to answer that question…because you won’t be able to find an answer. There’s nothing in the Constitution that allows for (or demands) the assassination of a democratically elected President.
2) “His willful violations and alienation of our Constitution”: Again, how about citing some specific example…or does your delusional hatred and racism provide sufficient evidence of the correctness of your claim? I love how how so many on the Far Right babble on ad nauseum about how The Black Guy in the White House © has trampled on the Constitution while providing no evidence to support their claim. Here’s a news flash, y’all: an accusation is not the same as evidence and objective proof. Believing something to be true doesn’t make it so.
3) “[C]onstant disregard for our peaceful protests”: Oh, you mean the peaceful protests where you advocate for armed revolution? And why would the President take anything you have to say seriously when your arguments are grounded in hatred and racism? Your voice is no more or less worthy of being heard than any other American, and your “patriotism” doesn’t grant you special dispensation or greater relevance and value. Get over yourselves, already.
4) “[R]ogue and illegitimate government…[T]he dictator he is”“: When last I checked, Barack Obama had been legally and democratically elected- twice, if memory serves. What, then, makes him “rogue and illegitimate”? The fact that he’s not a White uber-Christian Conservative doesn’t de-legitimize him…except in the eyes of racists who can’t stomach the idea of a Black man living in the White House.
5) “[A]n enemy of the United States…with the design to reduce us under absolute Despotism”: This is as laughable as it is disingenuous. I hear and read this accusation a lot these days, but I have yet to see anything offered to support this spurious claim. Barack Obama is a duly-elected President. What in that fact says “enemy of the United States” or “Despotism?” Nothing…not that people like Wilhelmsen trouble themselves with inconvenient things like facts or logic.
6) “He is levying war on the United States”: Again, examples that would support this accusation would be appreciated…but there are none to be cited. Once again, the mere act of believing something to be true doesn’t make it so. How ‘bout joining the rest of us in the reality-based world?
7) “I would be very surprised…if he is not dead within the month”: Cue the door knock from the Secret Service in 4…3…2….
Hatred of the federal government is as old as the Republic. Ignorant trolls like Wilhelmsen are neither new nor particularly interesting, but they can be dangerous. There’s a fine line between exercising your 1st Amendment rights and advocating treason…and Wilhelmsen has both feet WAY over that line.
Sometimes, the best way to get cockroaches to scatter is to shine a light on them.
