Virgina Thomas and Teaparty literally lifting quotes from Tim McVeigh and 1990's right-wing militias

[Ian David]

Tyranny, From Tim McVeigh To Ginny Thomas
Mar 18 2010, 11:22 AM ET

Among other items of evidence seized from Timothy McVeigh's car when he was arrested 15 years ago next month outside of Oklahoma City was a papered quote from Samuel Adams. "When the government fears the people, there is liberty," the quote read. "When the people fear the government, there is tyranny."

Lest anyone remain unsure about McVeigh's motivations for the cold-blooded murder of 168 innocents at the Alfred P. Murrah federal building on April 19, 1995, the self-styled "patriot" wore to the attack a t-shirt with the Latin inscription: "Sic Semper Tyrannis" and the Thomas Jefferson line: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

At the time, however, even in the shadow of the Branch Davidian siege near Waco or the fiasco at Ruby Ridge, this sort of "tyranny" talk was universally considered back then to be part of the right-wing fringe. It was the stuff of shadowy militia groups and bigoted paranoids but out-of-bounds for mainstream politicians and scorned by official Washington. In fact, McVeigh's cowardly attack marked a sharp pause in loose talk about tyrannical government; the faces and stories of the dead and wounded taken from the Murrah building silencing to shame the notion that federal employees (or their elected representatives) were anything but exactly the same as the rest of us.
That was then. This is now. Today, loose, dangerous talk about "government tyranny" is back in vogue (evidently its sinister design appears regularly during middling Democrat administrations but never during power-grabbing Republican ones) and on a political amptitude far beyond where it was during the Age of McVeigh a generation ago. Twenty-first century tyrants abound in the hearts of little old ladies at tea parties, in the minds of erstwhile government officials (who evidently aren't tyrants themselves) and on the lips of at least one outspoken spouse of at least one underspoken justice of the United States Supreme Court.

In other words, what the nation rejected as superheated lunacy and dangerous incitement out of McVeigh's mouth in 1995, tens of millions of Americans now praise as patriotism from popular figures. What the militia movement lost in support following McVeigh's attack it has gained a thousand times over by the current devolution in the language of dissent. Now, the nation's mainstream conservative forces routinely employ the overcharged language of "tyranny" and "tyrants," mongered as righteous fear and loathing by mainstream media outlets, in a way unthinkable back in the McVeigh's day.

The most disturbing recent example of the use of the "tyranny" saw was offered up by Virginia Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. She told a conservative blogger last month that she wanted to get more involved in conservative politics because "we're headed for tyranny" in government. One month later we are still waiting to hear what she precisely meant by that remark, what specific sort of government "tyranny" currently in use or on the horizon worries the spouse of one of the most powerful people in government, whose salary and perks we all pay for.

More:
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/03/tyranny-from-tim-mcveigh-to-ginny-thomas/37637/


See also:

Virginia warns wife of Justice Clarence Thomas her group is violating law
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4312675

Hat-tip to: http://twitter.com/TuffyK/status/10799639997

[Lyric]

1. Why does the right-wing pal around with terrorists?

[Wilms]

2. What a misleading title. Those were not Timothy McVeigh's quotes.

Samuel Adams and Thomas Jefferson wrote the quotes.

That using them may be a poor choice, the headline turns us into dumbasses. Like freepers. :puke:

[Ian David]

3. Point well-taken. Thanks. n/t

[Wilms]

8. On the house, as a good friend of mine says.

:hi:

[Posteritatis]

4. Terrorist linked to use of adjectives!

;)

[Biker13]

5. Agreed. Unrec.

[K8-EEE]

6. sic semper tyrranis is what Lincoln's killer shouted

after killing him.

[starroute]

7. It's all a matter of emphasis

I was reminded of this recently when I tried to figure out how those Texas textbook crazies could be throwing Jefferson overboard as a source of the American Revolution in favor of Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin. What I found was that both Aquinas and Calvin did both espouse a right to resist or overthrow tyrants -- but that hardly makes them fathers of American democracy.

There's an important distinction between claiming a right to oppose tyranny and a right to self-determination. The first is a violent, force-based approach that can get to the point of endorsing assassination. It's the source of John Wilkes Booth and his "Sic semper tyrannis." But the second is rooted in the democratic ideal of Lincoln's "government of the people, by the people, and for the people."

This is probably the same reason the Texas crazies maintain the old John Birch Society claim that the United States is a constitutional republic and not a democracy. They really, really don't trust popular self-government. They'd much rather have a kind of soft authoritarianism which keeps the "wrong" people in line and can be brought to heel any time it dares infringe on the privileges of the "right people."

Democracy is the crucial issue here, and these people clearly don't believe in it.