Speaking of political distancing from the fringe, the gun-packing, Ron Paul-supporting, Hit&Run-commenting town hall attendee William Kostric gets a two-handed rhetorical shove away from libertarianism by Justin Raimondo, over at Chronicles Magazine. Excerpt:
So as to make his intent unmistakable, he carried a sign that day which proclaimed it to all and sundry: "IT IS TIME TO WATER THE TREE OF LIBERTY!"
This was widely interpreted as a not-so-subtle threat to the President, personally. And I fail to see how it could be understood in any other way. To carry that sign in one hand, and a gun in the other, is a declaration of war. A war, I hasten to add, that Kostric and his fellow revolutionaries cannot possibly hope to win. […]
Typically, some in the libertarian movement hailed Kostric as a hero. While we've had more than our our share of crackpots and scamsters in the libertarian movement, never have we had a significant organized grouping that openly advocated violence, or even flirted with it—at least, not until now. […]
With [Ron] Paul appearing to endorse this sort of behavior—or, at least, not oppose it—he is encouraging more of the same. And the dangers of that are many, and ominous:
1) It sets up the libertarian movement for government surveillance and infiltration. Under the PATRIOT Act, the government has the "right" to spy on anyone suspected of planning illegal acts, and any act of civil disobedience can be construed as "terrorism."
2) It marginalizes the libertarian movement, and gives the professional "extremist"-hunters as well as the Obama-ite left a reason to tie a seemingly violent "fringe" with individuals and groups working to preserve what remains of our economic and civil liberties.
3) It is bound to end in a violent incident: Indeed, there have already been confrontations between the "tea-baggers" and union thugs at those town-hall meetings. It is only a matter of time before a gun goes off, either by accident or by intention.
