April 4, 2014 7:33 AM

Cue the Conservative White Christian outrage in 4...3...2...or not

Last week, the FBI arrested Robert James Talbot Jr., 38, of Katy, Texas. Talbot was the self-styled head of the American Insurgent Movement, which openly plotted to massacre Moslems at mosques and kill them with automatic weapons, sought to rob armored cars, and recruited followers to sow more mayhem. Talbot is a violent Christian fundamentalist who advertised his intention to murder people wholesale…. [A]s Death and Taxes point out, where the well was the national panic that attends every arrest of a jihadi terrorist, no matter how cracked and improbable his plan happened to be? Nowhere to be seen.

It’s an article of faith among the Radical Christian Right that terrorism is prima facie the purview of Evil Swarthy Brown People (i.e.- Muslims). Acts of terror are committed by radical Islamofascists; that’s just the way it is. Good, God-fearing White Folks don’t kill indiscriminately based on their religious beliefs. They kill because they’re angry and lashing out…not because they’re convinced they’re acting in the name of their God.

Except nothing could be further from the truth. It turns out that terrorist attacks planned and/or carried out on American soil are far more likely to be perpetrated by angry White males than Evil Swarthy Brown People. For some reason, those good, God-fearing White Folks that populate the Radical Christian Right have convinced themselves that terrorism by definition is something White Christians are incapable of. Acts of terror are committed by radical Islamofascist zealots who harbor an intense hatred of Christians and America. The same or similar acts committed by White males are merely random acts of senseless violence with no connection or relation to any faith- certainly not Christianity.

The case of Robert James Talbot, Jr. should have been a cause celebre among the mainstream media. If he was an Evil Swarthy Brown Person, Talbot would have already have been pilloried by the Right-wing media complex. Fox News Channel would have covered this story from stem to stern and would quite probably be beating the drums for his execution. The hue and cry would have been heard from sea to shining sea…but, since Talbot’s a White man…crickets.

Remember, White men can’t be terrorists.

I could go through a “Who’s Who?” of the Far Right, and they to a person will insist, like Patrick Dollard that terrorism is the domain of radical Muslim fundamentalists who hate America, our freedoms, AND the baby Jesus. They’re dedicated to destroying American and everything we stand for…and they’re horrible, nasty, awful people.

So, when Eric Rudolph bombed abortion clinics and the Atlanta Olympics, in 1996, he was merely disposing of an excess of gun powder and ten-penny nails?

When Scott Roeder killed Dr. George Tiller, a doctor who performed abortions, in the vestibule of Tiller’s church, he was only engaging in some long overdue target practice?

When the Rev. Paul Hill (a Christian minister, no less) assassinated Dr. John Britton (another abortion doctor) and his bodyguard, James Barrett, in 1994, Hill was preaching the Gospel, albeit in a very unconventional fashion?

When Timothy McVeigh blew up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 innocent civilians (including 19 children under age 6), he was exercising constitutionally-guaranteed free speech?

Not to put too fine a point on it, but terrorism is terrorism, regardless of the color and/or faith of the perpetrator. Being a White Christian male doesn’t mean you get a free pass for something an Islamofascist zealot should be executed for. (Yes, I do understand that Hill and McVeigh were executed for their crimes.) You don’t get to apply different standards to different groups for the same crime. If an angry White Christian male blows up a federal office building, it’s every bit the heinous crime it would be if a raving Islamofascist mad man had done it.

Then again, “hypocrisy” isn’t a word most of the Radical Christian Right would ever believe should be used in the same sentence with their name. When you have a monopoly on God, I suppose you can engage in that sort of self-delusion.

It doesn’t mean you get a free pass when it comes to manipulating the truth to your advantage.

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on April 4, 2014 7:33 AM.

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