Terror

Thank you!

Bora, you made my morning - again! Please go read my own bit on this at my blog

http://andune.blogspot.com/2006/09/quick-interlude-i-am-going-to-briefl…

I would love to read what you have to say about my own post on the 'Terror goes both ways' piece.

I thought you did not like government? And how about KKK burning crosses next door (in Durham) last year?

Coturnix,
What are you talking about 'don't like the government'? Are you making assumptions based upon your belief that A) I am a conservative and B) all conservative believe x, y, and z?
OK, crosses were burned last year. A lot of anti-Catholic messages were spray-painted las year - does that mean the Know-Nothings are still a political power in America? Does it mean the cops aren't investigating the cross burnings?

Which is soooo NOT the point of the article you talk about.

No, its about the non-sequitor *you* posted here! As I point out - with references - the author of your obligatory reading of the day piece on terror makes several serious errors of fact. Like painting the government as always making violence worse when there are many obvious counter-examples (one of which I detail) and, the real killer of his credibility, claiming that the federal government did nothing to oppose the KKK when, in *fact*, the original KKK was crushed by local and federal government actions and its reincarnation in the 20th century was also hounded into a shadowy existence by very effective police and political action.

He is writing about an exhibit.

He does not state that government did not crack down on such groups - quite contrary.

He states that the government, whenever it cracks down on a group, does a lot of damage because it does not know how to recognize who are the bad guys and who are the regular folks, so it attacks with too much force too great a swath of the population - an important lesson today, with all the profiling, wire-tapping and fear-mongering. It is not about any particular case, KKK or other, it is about a general rule that the government uses tools that are too blunt wchih do too much damage.

In other words, you are using the Rightwing rhetorical strategy #1

Ah, yes - don't read my post in detail, don't respond to my points of fact, don't go to my references, mischaracterize what the original author states - and then accuse me of using a rhewtorical ruse. Very compelling!

Let me quote you from above:
"He does not state that government did not crack down on such groups - quite contrary."

and let me quote the author:
"The KKK wasn't stopped by the police or prosecutors, as an important new exhibit in Raleigh makes clear."

Which am I to believe, Bora - you, or my own eyes? Bob also states that the government always goes after 'the masses' - yet we have some very clear examples of this *not* happening, which I list. should I assume that the author uses "always" to mean "sometimes", or should we conclude he is wrong?

These aren't "small details" these are *the* details of his argument "The government always over-reacts" and "the government did nothing about the Klan" are two of his three arguments - both are wrong. Fool yourself all you want, but two main points out of three is not 'focusing on minor details'.

But it wasn't stopped by police and prosecutors because at the time the police and prosecutors were either KKK sympathizers or members. He is correct about that.

You are revelaing two things; one, your own prejudices and two, you didn't go to the references in my post. The KKK in Alabama was chased out of the state or locked up by the police between 1925 and 1930. Even the Southern Poverty Law Center states that the efforts of police and prosecutors in Alabama in that period were effective and recommend their techniques to other law enforcement agencies to this day.

Hardly sounds like they were in the Klan's pocket, now, does it? The same things were repeated again and again all over the country, making the Klan politically toothless by 1965.