Jimmy Lee Dykes Is Dead-- But Glenn Beck Isn't

When some kind of clownish right-wing kook-- take Idaho state Senator John Goedde for example (the unlikely chairman of the Education Committee)-- says something outlandish and even insane, I generally just shrug it off and figure the voters are smart enough to eventually deal with it-- even in remote Kootenai County, which voted 39,347 (66%) for Romney in November. Goedde wants the legislature to mandate that Idaho public schools force students to read one of Ayn Rand's adolescent and novels, Atlas Shrugged. Goedde said the book, which is a childish paean to greed and selfishness, turned his son into a Republican.

But there's a far more dangerous kind of speech than John Goedde spouting off in the Idaho state Senate that the people who wrote the First Amendment probably never envisioned. It's now possible to broadcast for 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and reach millions and millions of people with perverse lies and instill in their minds-- sometimes very sick minds-- a sense of paranoia, hatred, bigotry, and a loathing for America and the ideals on which its built. That pretty much sums up Hate Talk Radio as a format. And Fox "News."

Jimmy Lee Dykes, the sick wingnut and so-called survivalist who murdered a school bus driver in Alabama and kidnapped a five year old boy and held him hostage for almost a week in his bunker was shot between the eyes by an exemplary FBI agent attempting to rescue the boy. Dykes had planted bombs around his bunker. Where do people get the kinds of hateful, paranoid ideas that motivated Dykes? What made him want to become a movement conservative terrorist for his crackpot beliefs? I bet you can guess. This time, though, the ultimate culprit wasn't billionaire terrorist Rupert Murdoch, the most venal and destructive of the right-wing media barons.

[N]eighbors say that Jimmy Lee Dykes was essentially a conservative extremist who played right wing talk radio most of the time. He was a paranoid and menacing individual who is accused by one neighbor of planning this entire abduction so he could demand a platform to rant his anti-government political opinions. If this is true, will agents release that info? Will it be confirmed or denied by agents who negotiated with the man until contact deteriorated?

The Alabama man wouldn't be the first domestic terrorist who hid behind right wing ideology. Timothy McVeigh has been confirmed by the government as being an anti-government "Tea Party" type, and Jared Lee Loughner is believed to have had an extreme hatred for the gold standard and liberal politics. Dykes' extreme ideology may have led him to committing the crimes he committed, but it's also theorized that he might have conducted the entire event to avoid going to court on prior gun charges.

Was he hearing crap on "conservative" talk radio that drove him mad? You bet he was!

Glenn Beck-- He’s planning a community, known as Independence, USA, ”... [A] $2 billion, self-sufficient, libertarian city-cum-theme park that would mark ‘the rebirth of our nation through its own principles.’”  Free from the tyranny of “King Obama,” and free from the liberties he claims the government (and by that he means President Obama and Democrats in general) is stripping away.

In that same vein, some people, including a dude who blogs under the name “Vernon,” have envisioned a secular community called the Citadel “where you know that residing in every single home in the neighborhood are people who think much as do you, respect most of the values as do you, and will not try to force any of their values on you or your children... has qualified Riflemen inside, ready to come to your aid at a moments notice, whether to help you change a tire, fix a problem, or cover your back in a firefight with an Enemy of Liberty...”  Vernon also noted that “...Militia training will also have a unifying social aspect to it.”  In fact, Drudge reported on the Citadel under a blazing headline that read, GROUP TO BUILD ARMED NEIGHBORHOOD FORTRESS.”

As reported by Talking Points Memo, “The Citadel, as envisioned and advertised by its creators, is to be a walled community of 3,500 to 7,000 ‘patriotic American families’ who are ready for when The Shit Hits The Fan (TSHTF), i.e. the myriad potential society-collapsing disasters, either natural or man made, anticipated by preppers, survivalists, along with other fringe and breakaway strands of -ers and -ists. The Citadel is to be a place for people who want to be ‘removed and protected from peril in order to preserve ourselves, our posterity, and Liberty in the event of a national economic implosion'."

Someone like Jimmy Lee Dykes, who carefully planned his underground bunker and planted homemade bombs inside it, might well have been excited by these folks-- and other survivalist and bunker mentality movements, including the American Prepper Network.  As reported by Salon, “The APN site talks often and explicitly about ‘The End of the World As We Know It,’ which it refer to as TEOTWAWKI.  And judging from the abundance of videos and blogs of self-identified preppers arming themselves while touting conspiracies about government, financial collapse and the apocalypse, it’s clear this isn’t strictly a peaceful movement of people hoarding canned goods.  Preppers don’t just stockpile nonperishables-- they collect weapons... preppers believe having weapons is just as important as having enough water. They are also deeply suspicious of government overreach...”

In fact, the APN, along with other “survivalist” movements, routinely sound alarms about government infringement and the way to survive it, or revolt against it-- largely centered around being well-armed.

The right-wing survivalists and preppers and bunker mentality types, led by Glenn Beck and Wayne LaPierre and Rush Limbaugh and other conservative talking heads, have evolved from “preparedness” to fomenting revolution.  And although Jimmy Lee Dykes will reside for eternity at least six feet under, the fuel for his violent actions lives on.  Though one survivalist with an anti-government, anti-Obama bent was felled, others have already, no doubt, taken root and are evolving into another Jimmy Lee Dykes.

The FBI had better keep its sharp-shooters sharp.

Does that mean, someone should round up inciters and merchants of hate like Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, Rupert Murdock, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and shoot them? Of course not! They should be tried first.