Nazi or anti-Nazi, it doesn’t matter. The important thing is that these patriots carried and used 2nd Amendment firearms and supported Cliven Bundy, the official GOP/Fox Patriot of the Century.
Oh, and according to their neighbors they were white supremacists, so maybe they thought the Nazis weren’t white enough. Whatever. Guns–that’s the important thing.
It is a basic rule of conspiracy theorizing that anything that tends to disprove the theory is part of the conspiracy.
With respect to potentially dangerous, armed right-wing groups, whatever the labels we ascribe to them; Nazis, Sovereign Citizens, etc., what these right-wing extremist groups seem to me to have in common is their obsession with symbolism: flags, swastikas, guns, market capitalism, John Galt, false flag operations, whatever; and an incoherent view of the world. So, the killers, may not be Nazis; they may believe that Obama is a Nazi or the Police are Nazis, but this is symbolism; they are not killing REAL Nazis.
Likewise, members of the American Nazi Party, may see government, especially the Federal Government as inherently NKVD-like; communistic in nature, totalitarian, because this too is symbolic. Whether they are suffering madness or just feelings of impotence, in a rapidly changing world, they probably won’t shoot at or otherwise disrupt real communists or the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. The latter would most assuredly kick their asses and then some.
Labels are only useful if, in some way [statistics is one], it can be determined whether or not the labels we ascribe to categories are meaningful. The labels we ascribe to these sorts of violent groups are probably not as meaningful as their impact on society which IS meaningful, both quantitatively and qualitatively. So, admonishing us not to confuse the killers with Nazis is, in itself, a meaningless statement.
And, as it happens, one of our two major political parties has, for some years now, dealt only in symbols and is now actually incapable of distinguishing between symbols and policies.
Yeah, can’t imagine where they got ideas like that.
I suggest that Clark County assistant sheriff Kevin McMahill take a look at the very important work that the Southern Poverty Law Center has been doing for decades before he further reveals his ignorance of the likelihood of violence from the extreme right wing.
Is there any other kind?
Amazingly, I remember when the left thought cops were Nazis. If we jsut think of cops as people with families who go to work each day trying to do the best they can to deal with whatever they run into, perhaps we can all appreciate that most police officers are just doing their job and not looking to bust someone’s head.
Groan, It’s true, and I like that band. But who’s tool were they? I don’t yet see any evidence that this was conducted by anyone but them. The band Tool is pretty dark, but you can’t blame it on the band.
Nazis. the tea party’s favorite line. Coincidence? Ah. no!
The forum at TeaPartyNation (Judson Phillips’ outfit) is strikingly silent about this. They’re not even going off about the usual conspiracy theories; there’s only two posts up, whining about how this is going to be unfairly blamed on them while “making heroes out of liberal mass shooters” (where TF does that come from?), but no one is even replying to them. Curious…
Gee, an NRA wingnut making Nazi comparisons! Who’d uh thunk it?