by va

This is something very special from "The American Thinker," which has been on a quite a tear of late. The Problem, as editor J.R. Dunn spells it out, is that the left just loves terrorism, and terrorists, and thinks that MASS DEATH is just, meh, another one of those things that happens. "This is a historically unique situation," he says, completely different from all those other historical situations in which the left could "never be truly patriotic in the real sense," you know, in the sense of getting yourself up in a star-spangled wetsuit and whacking it to some picture of a demure Betsy Ross in three-quarters profile til you're red, and then blue, and then white in the face. (Auto-patriotic asphyxiation?) Or whatever it is J.R. Dunn does to express his love of country.



Ahem. Dunn (no relation to Anita, we presume) goes on: "Never before would effective treason by a large minority have been tolerated, particularly involving such crucial sectors as media, academia, and education." So please, oh please, tell us about what our forefathers would have done to solve this problem of people who love terror, we're all thinking, Americanly.

So how do we respond? We'll pause here to allow the loud cry of "Hang ‘em all!" to roll over us and commend everyone involved for their enthusiasm, if not their prescription. But what we need, though perhaps not as final, is something effective and workable within with contemporary social norms.



Yes, contemporary social norms you say, this is a good strategy, even if it's a not-quite-final solution. Usually wingnuts are content to stand athwart 1863 yelling stop! but every now and again they venture into contemporary methods of elimination, which is how they stay relevant. To wit: "We yank drunk drivers out of cars; we must also yank leftists out of the public sphere." And then: "The second step is to identify them. Call them out by name, relentlessly and repeatedly." If you're Michelle Malkin, call them out by name, address, place of employment, place of elementary-schooling, whatever. And then "don't bring a knife to a gun fight." This would be sound advice if Dunn or his audience knew what a gun fight looked like. But finally, there's the third step which is to "target them, isolate them and render them harmless." Ohmigod, let us all be very afraid of the little American Thinkers threatening to terrorize the nation at some point, when they get around to it, to save it from terrorists. Methinks J.R. Dunn has consumed too much tea at those parties.