A number of people here and elsewhere are expressing grave concern about whether we are sliding toward a civil war and perhaps the arising of a fascist state. The hooligans who are disrupting the town-hall meetings are being labeled terrorists, brownshirts, and Nazis. Let's neither understate the problem, nor overstate it, nor overreact.
I'll stipulate to the following:
-- There is a highly vocal minority who are very unhappy that Barack Obama is the President, and that the Democrats are more or less in control of both houses of Congress.
-- Some of them are disrupting town-hall meetings.
--The likes of Limbaugh and Beck are stoking the coals and are acting highly irresponsibly.
-- There are some on the Far Right who are armed and potentially dangerous.
All of that said, we should neither be Pollyannaish about the risk of violence, nor should we be Chicken Little.
I'm all in favor of confronting the teabirthers in a civil fashion, and preventing them from disrupting peaceful assemblies and meetings with elected representatives. There have been several excellent diaries about how to do this. The methods include showing up in numbers, early, having a good PA system and a moderator who acts as a buffer between Congressional representatives and attendees, and a resonable police presence.
At the same time, I think that we do ourselves no favors by overreacting. The people who are showing up at these meetings may be foolish, they may be obnoxious, and some of them -- perhaps a lot of them -- may be prejudiced. Many of them are irrationally fearful, some of them -- perhaps many of them -- may be full of hatred for the "other." But they are not terrorists, and we make a big mistake when we call them that.
Terrorists fly airplanes into buildings. Terrorists plant pipe bombs in shopping malls during the Christmas shopping season, on the theory that the malls will be most crowded at that time, and there will be a maximum number of casualties. Terrorists park car bombs on busy streets and detonate them. Terrorists strap dynamite to themselves, walk into crowded areas, and blow themselves up. Terrorists carry guns or assault rifles into museums and other public places with the avowed intent of shooting up the place and perhaps provide the trigger for the race war that they "know" is coming.
The disruptive screamers who have been crashing the town hall meetings have not done any of those things. These people may be rude. Some of them may properly be called hooligans. But they are not terrorists.
Save the word for the situations to which it really applies. Don't stretch it to cover obnoxious loudmouths. It cheapens the word to call them terrorists. The easier it is to call someone a terrorist, the more likely it is that one day you yourself will be called a terrorist.
The battle will be won in the great middle. That's what happened in the 2008 election. The great middle got put off by the screamers who attended the Palin rallies, and they voted for the Democrats. It is to the middle that we must appeal. We have to show that we are reasonable and offer real solutions to real problems. The other side will suffer by comparison and just dig their hole deeper.
We as a country survived the Civil Rights struggle, we survived the civil strife brought on by the Vietnam War (remember the hardhats and the Yippies?), and we have survived (although suffered through) the last eight years of incompetence (e.g. Katrina), divisive tactics (the Book of Rove), dissembling, domestic spying, and cowboy/Millenialist foreign intervention.
We got through the church bombings, the cross burnings, the fire hoses and the police dogs. We got through the shooting of college students by National Guardsmen. We got through the assassinations of the Kennedys and of Martin Luther King. We got through the riots.
We'll get through this.
Remember -- Democrats hold the reins of power at the Federal level. Democrats also hold many of the governorships. Republican governors like Charlie Crist and Arnold Schwarzenegger will do what they need to do to maintain civil order.
The Justice Department is being run by the people we elected. In the event of Hell breaking loose, the President can nationalize state National Guards if and when necessary. Remember what Dwight Eisenhower did in Little Rock.
Many policemen may not have voted for Barack Obama, but most of them have a deep belief in the importance of maintaining law and order. They are our allies in the effort to prevent violence, and to contain it if it happens to break out.
We must avoid getting violent ourselves at all costs. Physical violence by individuals is only justifiable in self-defense, and as a last result, and with the minimum amount necessary to defend ourselves if being physically attacked. If we get violent, it will not only hurt people, it will hurt the cause.
It's important to organize, to peacefully demonstrate and express our opinions in numbers large enough to show that the wing-nuts are in the minority. It's important to let our elected representatives know what we expect of them, that we have their backs, and that they will not be punished for doing the right thing now, comes the next election.
In the peaceful expression of reasonable demands by large numbers, there is strength.