Folks on teh intarwebz are already trying to link these Hutaree whackos with the Tea Party, with the militia movement, with Republicans, and with conservatism in general.
Quotes from reader comments on the Hutaree story posted on Yahoo:
Arrest the Tea Bag Militia Wingnuts!
Just more republican wackos that dont know what democracy means. Their in the minority yet all they do is talk about democracy. Its the democracy they love so much that has put them in the minority and they can't stand that! LOL
I bet they were inspired by the neocon cheerleader, SarDUH "the retard" Palin. Got caught reloading.
Right there are three people who are eager to use these Hutaree nuts to paint all of us in a false light. I could post more, many many more, but I'm sure you get the point. Now, is it paranoia to acknowledge what's happening right in front of your own eyes?
I expect that once I read the news tonight that I'll find prominent members of the media trying to draw the same false links. I'll look into it in a few hours.
I'm sure you already know this, but most of the internet is populated by idiots (current forums excluded
). Anecdotal evidence that some anonymous users posted on a left wing message board that this militia is linked to the Tea Party movement is inconsequential. If news casters starts claiming there is a link between this militia and the tea party movement they better hope there is
proof or else someone would call them on it. Wouldn't Rush, Hannity, or someone else at Fox call B.S. on MSM if they tried that?
Suppose even *IF* one of these Hutaree members went to a Tea Party Rally does it really matter? I know the some people will try and paint all Tea Partier's as crazies but the reality is their just protesters. I don't know how to combat the "crazy label" aside from maintaining the peacefulness already displayed at the protests, and possibly trying to get more air time on Fox News and any other media shows to actually air their grievances with the Gov.
Furthermore, just one week ago I saw members of Congress and the media lie about racism at a Tea Party rally. Saw it with my own two eyes. Now, is that a conspiracy, and does my knowledge of it make me paranoid?
We've all seen a sudden emergence of trumped up news stories about violence against congressmen for voting for the health bill. And while I'm sure that congressmen get threats every day, am I paranoid to notice that the reporting on these events went from nil to front page overnight?
There is an effort to manipulate public opinion underway right now. Does realizing this make me paranoid?
I haven't been paying close attention to the reports of a Congressman having racial slurs yelled at him at the protest but I do have a couple of questions / statement.
I'm not doubting your claim that you heard no racial remarks but is it possible you didn't hear them over the crowd? How many people where there, where you near the Congressman the whole time?
Second, who cares if a Congressman got insulted by a bigot at a rally? Seriously even if one guy, or fifteen guys yelled a racial slur at him weren't there thousands of people at this rally? (I didn't read the articles, its really a non issue for me. ) If there was 1,000 people at the rally 15 racist people are only .015% of the total population of protesters. Its obviously a tiny fraction of the protesters. I wish a MSN reporter would say that, but they won't.
There is always someone or some group trying to sway public opinion, its the way of the world everyone's always trying to do it for one agenda or another it doesn't make you paranoid to notice that, but when from the word arrest people are claiming that this is a set up by Democrats or homeland security on some nefarious mission it starts to sound like nonsense, especially when the charges are this serious and we have a board member you is pretty much backing up the media reports. If it comes out that these charges are trumped up I'll be one of the first people on here to decry it and call for their release, and for someone to be held accountable for this but until then I will believe the gov version until some evidence comes out to prove other wise.
It would make us all look crazy to support a militia who may have been planning to ambush and murder police officers, we would do MSN's job for them. Do we really want that? Lets not mince words, these people are domestic terrorists if these allegations are true.