Left Coast Observatory

Imagine John Q Public, your average American, living in a house on a street. The neighbor on his left is kind of a crank, given to lecturing our protagonist on what he's doing right and wrong. Always telling him what he should have done, how he could do better. Naturally, that sort of thing gets on your nerves, and Mr Public doesn't like what he's hearing from the left.

One morning, our hero wakes up to find that someone's spray-painted filthy slogans all over his house. The family dog's been poisoned. His kids get harassed at school. An anonymous caller has been spreading slanders about him all over the neighborhood. The next thing he knows a molotov cocktail comes crashing through the living room window. Gunfire starts pouring into the house.

But it's not the crazy guy on his left who's resonsible. It's the guy on his right. It turns out he's just as nutty as his other neighbor, he just expresses it in a different way. He collects guns and builds bombs for a hobby. One more thing: he thinks he is God's instrument to punish and destroy all he finds fault in.

It's something to think about when someone starts talking about how the Left 'hates' America. Maybe sometimes the criticism from the Left is a little over-the-top. But at least you can be pretty sure they're not adding your name to a hit list, as the Right is prone to do-- and to act on it, as they also have a long history of doing.

After all, how many left-wing anti-government militias do you know about? Where's the Left's version of the Ku Klux Klan? Have any doctors been targeted for assassination because they refused to work in a family-planning clinic? Where are all the gangs sporting communist flags assaulting couples that look too straight? Where are the pro-integration lynch mobs?

Right-wing terror has been a fact of life in these United States for a long time. It's so common, we hardly think about how shocking it really is that these people feel safe carrying on these hideous anti-American activities year in and year-out.

It is disgusting that the right-wing media feels it's all in fun to talk about killing judges, shooting immigrants, rounding up all those who disagree with them for disposal. There are some of their listeners who then go out and act on these hateful fantasies.

As we draw closer to the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, it would be well for all Americans to meditate on the victims of right wing terror in America.