Some people didn’t like my column last week, the one that took the extreme position that people who point high-powered rifles at law enforcement officers aren’t patriots, and are, in fact, behaving like criminals. Some of the anonymous right-wingers who took issue with my opinion even accused me of “bias,” an odd complaint about a column written on the opinion page of a newspaper, the place where bias has traditionally been aired. But it’s a sign of the times that so many people who think Fox “News” is fair and balanced (and unbiased) no longer know the difference between news and opinion, or between reporting and commentary.

Several readers wrote in to differ with me on the subject of Cliven Bundy, the racist rancher and scofflaw who was the darling of Sean Hannity, Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz, and other loose cannons who were encouraging insurrectionists to go to the Bundy ranch and resist the “tyranny” of the U.S. government, though they backed away from cheerleading for Bundy when he revealed himself, to hardly anyone else’s surprise, to be a raving racist nitwit who wants free government subsidies.

But here, in part, is what a reader who calls himself “JJ” had to say about last week’s column:

“What an ignorant and misinformed steaming pile of excrement. There were no snipers aiming at BLM agents, in fact, the BLM had the only snipers there Since you talk smack about the Oath Keepers, I’ll be letting all Oath Keeper brothers and sisters in this county [know] just what you think of them. The Oath Keepers are over 15,000 strong, and mostly comprised of Sheriffs, Peace Officers, State, and even a few Federal agents. You might even get pulled over by one someday soon.”

JJ has that tendency so frequently seen when right-wingers ring in on stuff. While concealing their identities, they simply deny reality when it doesn’t suit ’em. JJ doesn’t see any snipers aiming rifles at BLM agents, and I guess he didn’t hear the organizer at the Bundy ranch talk about putting women in the front lines so that if shooting started, the cameras would see government agents returning fire at anti-government shooters who were hiding behind women. Brave cowboys, these guys.

These self-proclaimed “freedom fighters” see “tyranny” when the government expects a rich rancher to pay lawful (and cheap) grazing fees for use of public lands, but see no tyranny at all in their own attempts to silence critics by parading around with guns and making veiled threats against those who don’t share their views.

This is how the Nazis rose to power in Germany, with Brown-Shirted bully boys frightening the majority into silence. Intimidation works, and these “domestic terrorists” know it, which may be why so little is heard from liberals, Democrats, Move-on members, or advocates of non-violence and tolerance up here on this ridge.

Jaime O’Neill is a retired Butte College instructor and freelance writer and columnist.