Informed Speculation

…about the Department of Homeland Security’s newly issued warning of dangers from right-wing radicals (it’s certainly got most of the popular conservative blogs up in arms – er, so to speak).  Well, I’m not indignant.  As some very right-wing blogs have noted (including Little Green Footballs), there is a very small but quite dangerous group of right-wing radicals out there, and that’s an undisputed fact.

Now, of course, the usual lefty suspects (like the increasingly tiresome Glenn Greenwald, who paints it as the right reaping what it sowed – though he is right about how ridiculous some of the conservative complaints are)  are trying to use the warning to smear all conservatives with that broad brush they love so much, but that’s ridiculous, too.  Suffice to say that the fringes on both the right and the left are very scary places, indeed, with much more in common than seperates them, including a blinding conviction that they know the truth concealed from the ignorant masses, and that their insight into the takeover by the powers that be entitles them to take up arms against their oppressors, even if their oppressors are fairly benign and largely innocent public employees.

On a very related side note: the best argument against conpsiracy theorists is the fact that they are allowed to tout their asinine beliefs in a very loud voice to all comers.  In truly oppressive societies, such as Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s (and increasingly Putin’s) Russia, and Kim’s North Korea, criticism of the powers that be results in persecution, exile, imprisonment, and frequently death…