Co Posted on RedState.com

Two pertinent diaries this past week on RedState amplify this question, which, no doubt is nagging in the back of many people's minds. When does it turn ugly, and what do we do when it does?

One is Beaglescout's Great Lie of Partisan Tolerance which is an important piece of research (at least to me) in that it connects the dots on Marxist theory from the 60's to current Leftish thinking in the US, and what we call "deconstructive thinking", which at its most base level, allows someone, usually a college kid who has read more than two books without pictures, to be able to tell himself that day is night and dark is light...in other words, shape the world into to any form that he/she wishes. Many trolls who visit here are of this narcissistic mindset, having shaped their own separate reality.

While Bernie Chumm (and I, to a lesser degree) believe these younger skulls filled with mush can be "gotten to" by certain kinds of argument, it's clear the dyed-in-wool lefties can't. For good or ill, Beaglescout has established here a rule we need to take heed of; those people, in the end, will not sit down and parlay...at least in good faith. In fact, the pathological pose Obama gave to House Republicans on Friday only amplifies this growing sense, and fear, that self-delusion has finally reached the highest levels of academic accreditation. (So thank your lucky stars that Thomas Sowell, and Beaglescout, et al are on your side.) There are none so committed as those who are committed to their own vanities. Which begs the obvious question, in the end, what will we do with them?...before they do it to us?

The second diary is Finrod's exposition on the threats made against Hillbuzz for having done, as the esteemed Maxine Waters says, a "three-sixty", by apologizing to George Bush for their prior cries of high crimes against him, and then, calling out OB1 for current ones. More to the point, Finrod tells us 1) Hillbuzz had been outed, i.e., actual name(s) revealed, and 2) they've received threats of violence.

My question...and it is a question...in light of what Beaglescout tells us about the mindset, how serious is that threat? And if to Hillbuzz, how about members here? Or Tea Partiers, who are even more naked? Glenn Beck has a security detail. So does Limbaugh. How soon before EE has to get one, as well? Is this a latent threat? A present threat?

I have a couple of observations. On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd say the current threat level is X, for you see, even venturing that openly, here, is dangerous. If I said 9, then I would be playing to the false bravado that indeed does infect the vast majority of these sonnenkinder-who-make-anonymous-threats, feeding their egos. But if I said 2 I'd be pooh-poohing what may only be a handful of people who are deep in this movement but have both the willingness and capability to carry out a more serious mission....just to prove me wrong. So I say to you, fill in the blank, then keep that number to yourself.

What we do know is that similar threats have abounded since 2000, especially on the internet, but also via telephone, as when names, addresses are "accidentally" released by the media (remember that poor girl who called Arlen Specter out at the Town Hall meeting in the summer?...or of course, poor Joe the Plumber, for whom I am still waiting for the Ohio Secretary of State to be frog-marched over to the courthouse?). But one rarely sees reports of an actual incident, a rock through the window, a pentagram burning in the front yard, blue hoods instead of white, and certainly no bodies strewn around. This tells me that verbal threats alone are probably not much of a threat at all, probably for one of two reasons; the threats were only intended to be nothing more than words, or, no one has yet to give the "Go Order".

So, teatty your cards. Seriously, as it may not always be this way.

People like Beck and Limbaugh have had enough experience with this that they have people who can separate "real" threats from posturing. We don't. I really doubt that anyone is stalking Glenn Beck with a zip-lock pool cue case, but if it got around that he sneaked out of Radio City every night at the same time and walked through two blocks of alleys to sneak a smoke, he is stupidly making himself an easy target of opportunity. So, yes, then the roof tops would be lined with marksmen. It's sort of like if you just decide to take a drive through certain neighborhoods of Miami...at 2 AM...just to see what it's like at that time of the morning. What hungry lion could pass up an easy meal like that?

Verbal threats are intended to frighten and worry and cause changes in one's ordinary life that in fact may make them sit down and reconsider some of their public positions. (In the Vietnam days, SDS and others called parents of GI's, usually in small towns, to tell them their sons were murderers. Or had been killed. In a sense, that tactic worked, and Barack Obama has made common cause with some of the people who dreamt those "legal" acts of terror up.) Also there aren't just threats of harm or physical violence, but threats of exposure. In the old days, gays were especially susceptible to this, but today, just a real name revealed (since most of us use aka's...I searched all the Mississippi phone directories for Beaglescout, not a single hit, in New York City alone there are 6,432 K Solomon's...go figure...and only one Penguin, a J, I assume Juan, living north of the 60th parallel, in Tierra del Fuego.) can change your habits. In fact, many bureaucrats in government desperately want to keep their neighbors in they dark about exactly what they do, especially if they work at IRS or are local tax assessors named Zacchias. I have long been a fan of exposure.

The Left has proved time and again, you can terrorize a person without breaking any law, once they know what frightens that person. The Nazis also proved it is not the tactic, so much as the end behind the tactic that is wrong. These tactics are tools, so like guns, they don't scare or terrorize people, only people scare or terrorize people.

We all run the risk every day of the "lone gunman"-target of opportunity theory, as Obama once called (wrongly) Abdulmutallab, the Knicker Bomber, only usually it is a drunk at three o'clock in the afternoon, in his SUV, instead. The greater risk to us is the drunk.

But there is that heavier-than-air, pregnant "Go order". We know they're there. (They really are.) Still, we know in our hearts, even with what Beaglescout has told us, we have to wait to throw the second punch. John Wayne always did. But what we also have to know now is the Sean Connery Corollary to the John Wayne Rule, so often written here on RedState, that when they put one of yours in the hospital, you put one of theirs in the morgue. The veritas of that axiom is becoming more apparent with every every week.

But when it comes it will not come from those chattering children who make anonymous email threats or phone calls. They are paranoid and believe in right-wing death squads anyway, so it's easy for them to believe we already know who they are (part of the chest-thumping in the mirror)...so if there ever is an outbreak, most will hunker down. As for myself, that is one delusion I don't intend to spend a lot of time trying to talk them out of...I want them to think I know where they live.

We've spoken of this before, and will again, but the heat will rise very soon, this year for sure. In the end it is not for us to spend too much time trying to decide whether it is childish self-love, deep megalomania, or a deep bitter vengeful anger that has Barack Obama on this (I am now convinced, after Wednesday's State of the Union and Friday's showcase to House GOP members) path toward self-destruction. I must first take all necessary steps to insure that he does not take me, or even more importantly, the things I love and hold most dear down in flames with him. The book hasn't been written, but Adolph Hitler destroyed many noble things in Germany is just 12 short years. Stalin literally destroyed the fixed beacons of morality in Russia within 30 years, the fallout of which we have yet to see. So yes, Obama & Co can destroy many things in a very short period of time.

For we all know behind Obama are men with cunning and guile, who may or may not be on the same page as he is, but who clearly do not have self-destruction in mind for themselves. Follow the money. Follow the power. So, even as it will seem to come from a single direction, we have to consider fighting a two or three-front war...while still holding onto out decency. Right now I don't consider any single member of the Enemy to be Obama's ally, yet must also consider them all to be...except Bill and Hil of course. They're cavalry all right, only no one knows whose rescue they'll come to. Or they may just be Comancheros.

Again, this is only a question for now. I expect it to be a little more difficult for Tea Partiers come spring and summer, in part because they've proven what they can do (Massachusetts) and also in part because the GOP hasn't reached out to embrace them, leaving them naked on one flank (Remember your history, GOP, you know what happens when the b***rd child suddenly is proven to be the rightful heir to the manor, and all lands appurtenant thereto...man in the iron mask and all that?). Last year we had a guy in a wheelchair beaten up. A finger bitten off. It will probably get worse.