Intent Behind WaPo ‘Patriots’ Piece Masked But Still Discernible

www.oathkeepers.org


by:David Codrea 

For something appearing in The Washington Post, it’s not as overtly hostile as we may have expected. That’s a reaction I’ve seen expressed by colleagues discussing “Primed to Fight the Government,” a profile on the Oregon patriot movement “demanding that the federal government adhere to the Constitution and stop what they see as systematic abuse of land rights, gun rights, freedom of speech and other liberties.”
Who would have a problem with that? And it’s the embedded abusive “officials” who are attacking the government, not citizens insisting that delegated powers not be exceeded, and that authority not be usurped.
“Law enforcement officials call them dangerous, delusional and sometimes violent, and say that their numbers are growing amid a wave of anger at the government that has been gaining strength since 2008, a surge that coincided with the election of the first black U.S. president and a crippling economic recession,” the write-up offers, steering readers to several misdirected conclusions.
First, it’s not all LE officials, but essentially those dependent on political favor for their positions of power and privilege.  Left unacknowledged is the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, which sides with the patriots. And the bit about “the first black president” is just another way of implying those who object to the fundamental collectivist transformation of the Republic are racists.

But it figures with that bigotry insinuation that they’d bring in the Southern Poverty Law Center on cue. Adding a bit of Alinsky Rule 5 ridicule by referencing pejoratives like “Y’all Qaeda” and “Vanilla ISIS” helps cement the “redneck” meme, so “progressives” can feel superior. It also bolsters another demonizing talking point currently being pushed by totalitarian lobby apologists, that white male “domestic extremists” are a bigger threat than radical Islamists.
Then there were the embedded video with law professor Louis Michael Seidman. What’s interesting is the “legal scholar” makes a totally unsupported assertion that thinking the words mean what they say is not a “natural” interpretation. Curiously, he concedes “it’s not obvious the federal government should own as much land as it does currently,” but turns around and resorts to the familiar stand-by deflection that we just have no way of knowing “what words written 250 years ago” mean, which is refutable, by the way.

It would seem the citizen has a better handle on things than the academic professional. Perhaps it would have been relevant to let the readers know Seidman brings his own biases to the table, having penned an op-ed for The New York Times where he urges “Let’s give up on the Constitution,” and where he makes his contempt for “a group of white propertied men who have been dead for two centuries [and] knew nothing of our present situation” clear.
Funny, we don’t see anyone referring to that subversive proposal as “anti-government,” and we don’t see Seidman presented as an “extremist.” With Opposite Day “progressives,” such labels are reserved for citizens with the temerity to think they can understand what their rights are without establishment-approved academic specialists telling them why black really means white and why up is down.
Appearances of fairness and balance notwithstanding, the WaPo piece created the desired effect among those inclined to look to it for talking points, and for confirmation of their biases.
“The A-10’s will make corned beef hash of these domestic terrorists,” the comment currently at the top of the pile asserts.
Who thinks this sentiment isn’t shared by the real “anti-government extremists,” those intent on removing the last Constitutional impediments to totalitarianism while they represent themselves as “progressives”?