New at Reason: Jesse Walker on the Return of the Militia Scare

June 17, 2009

We've heard a lot of warnings about extremist paranoia in the months since Barack Obama became president, and especially since the deaths of George Tiller and Stephen Tyrone Johns. We've heard much less about the paranoia of the centrists; indeed, the very idea that the sober center could be paranoid sounds bizarre. But when mainstream columnists treat a small group of unconnected crimes as a "pattern" of "rising right-wing violence," writes Managing Editor Jesse Walker, their thesis bears more than a little resemblance to the conspiracy theories of the fringe figures they oppose.

Read all about it here.