Last night as I was bouncing around on YouTube I came across a comment made about a pro-union video I posted a few weeks back.
At first, I judged the comment as garden variety wingnuttery- I'm a Marxist, Socialist, etc., etc.,
Then I read the commenter's YouTube page. The more I read, the more frightened I became.
By the time I finished reading their YouTube profile, I was ready to call the Chicago FBI office.
Warning: extremely offensive racial and religious remarks.
The kinds of statements made by Darrel from Zeeland on his YouTube page go beyond standard-fare conservative name calling.
Things like this are not written by sane people:
Conservative Christian Patriot
IF I WAS PRESIDENT, I WOULD:
Nuke and/or invade all mudscum countries. Either we exterminate them or they exterminate us.
Repeal Social Security, minimum wage, welfare, the GI Bill, all labor and environmental laws, college financial aid.
That's just the intro, and if you go to the page, which I do not recommend, there's more.
Let me also make clear that my point in publishing this diary is not to inflame fellow Kossacks or to provoke any kind of retribution against this very hateful individual.
I have already called the Chicago Division of the FBI and reported the web page to them. I do not recommend that anyone here engage this sick individual in anything. Hopefully, the proper authorities will investigate Darrel and determine if he is as dangerous as his words.
A statement like this is not political discourse, it is hate speech:
Reinstate the draft. Require everyone 18-30 to serve at least 6 years in the active military, with at least 2 tours of combat duty in the Middle East, requiring each person to kill at least 1,000 muslims each before each tour is up.
After reading Avenging Angel's excellent diary on right wing terrorism, I found the words on Darrel's webpage to be especially chilling.
This is what religious extemism leads to:
Pass a Constitutional Amendment declaring Christianity to be our official national religion and make belonging to a church a requirement to vote or hold office or any business or professional license or to own a business.
Someone who holds views like these does not show up at a campaign rally waving a banner.
Someone who truly believes statements like this shows up at a campaign rally with a gun:
Expand the death penalty to include queers, dykes, drug dealers, drug users, anti-America, anti-military, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity protestors, pornographers, pedophiles, rapists, carjackers, blasphemers, and kidnappers. Eliminate the appeals process and require all sentences to be carried out immediately.
So gay people and anti-capitalists are going straight to execution, I see.
It appears they will be joined by union members as well:
Outlaw all unions and declare them terrorist groups, then hammer them with both RICO and the Patriot Act. Ditto for the ACLU, Code Pink, MoveOn, and all other anti-America, anti-capiltalism, and anti-Christianity groups. Jail or execute all their members and supporters, seize all their assets and property
I doubt that our founding fathers would agree with statements like this:
Repeal all civil rights and anti-discrimination laws. White Christians founded and built this country. Anyone who doesn't like it can go back where they came from.
After literally taking a shower to rid myself of the spiritual filth that Darrel's statements contain, I asked myself some questions like these:
From what cauldron of vicious hatred does someone like this come from?
What kind of parents does this person have?
Do this person's friends and family promote this kind of revilement of others?
Why would anyone choose to subscribe to Darrel's webpage and be a part of such violent and hateful rhetoric?
And lastly:
Are some conservative talkers and elected officials out there stoking the anger and hatred of truly dangerous and disturbed people in our society?
I think it is time for Americans to think about the political discourse in this country and for those who promote division and hatred to be not only called out on it, but to be reported to authorities when their speech openly calls for violence.
I believe that standing against racial and religious hatred will become more and more necessary as we see the ratcheting up of the rhetoric by an increasingly angry and isolated radical religious right.
After seeing the carnage on 9/11 and in the Iraq war, think that most of us in America have witnessed the truth that extremism in any religious or political stance is both foolish and dangerous.
I encourage anyone reading this diary to report web pages like the one I outlined here to proper authorities.
You could be the person who helps to prevent the next senseless tragedy in America.
Update:
Some commenters have made an important point about Darrel's YouTube page and the fact that hatred is not illegal.
Perhaps the point I failed to make clear is that someone who so publicly displays their hatred legally may in fact be practicing that same hatred secretly and illegally as well.
For example, what if the FBI finds that there have been actual hate crimes reported in Darrel's area?
What if Darrel is also a member of some illegal extremist groups who are in fact planning a crime?
I don't want to seem like I am wearing a tin foil hat. I hope that writing hateful words is all that Darrel is up to.
The fact is that hateful rhetoric like the kind displayed is the same kind of language used by some who have indeed perpetrated awful crimes, and that by reporting speech like this other real crimes could possibly be prevented.
Hope that clears the water a bit. Thank you to all who read and comment.