Andrea March, the ex-fiance of the leader of the Hutaree militia group, spoke with Shepard Smith and said that David Brian Stone was a Ron Paul fanatic who was afraid that Obama would take away his guns. Where have we heard that one before? Oh, it reminds me of the Richard Poplawski saga. (rough transcript)

Marsh: When Obama took the presidency is when he lost it because he was a Ron Paul fanatic.

Smith: Ron Paul fanatic, what does that have to do with ?

Marsh: To tell you the truth I don't know. I never really understood why Ron Paul was so much different, but he thought he could get away with anything and he wanted more freedoms than what he had and he was trying to do it through the violence.

Smith: Do you know what was his particular concern was with the current government? Was he worried they would take his guns away?

Marsh: Well yes, he clearly believed in guns and having them and he didn't think . He didn't want to have a driver's licence, he didn't want to fill out any census papers

Smith: Oh.

Marsh: He wanted to own guns unregistered....

--

And he is said to have believed that anti-Christ was on the way and he wanted to do something about that?

Yes, he explained to us that through the bible the world was going to end in war and Christ wanted us to do this. Now he couldn't prove that to anyone, but the kids always listened to him.

Ron Paul's brand of anti-government rhetoric influenced Stone greatly which also fed into his 'End Timer' philosophy. And in this case, Obama was the anti-Christ.

These outbreaks of violent right-wing "cells" within our country will only increase, unfortunately. We can only hope that the feds and local law enforcement keep up the great work, or people will really get hurt.

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One of libertarians' real blind spots is that they seem to believe that only government is capable of taking away your freedoms and your rights. Which is how right-wingers like Glenn Beck and his fellow Foxheads (see especially Michelle Bachmann) have managed to turn things smack on their heads and create the Planet Bizarro talking point that "net neutrality means censorship of the Internet".

It never seems to occur to them that, you know, lots of other people are perfectly capable of taking away your freedoms. Especially the giant corporations who control our media.

Megyn Kelly gave a succinct demonstration of how this works at propaganda shops like Fox News yesterday on her America Live program. To discuss net neutrality, she brought on Jim Harper of the libertarian Cato Institute and Josh Silver of Free Press.

Kelly proceeded to let Harper ramble uninterrupted at length, pitching the hogwash notion that "free enterprise created the Internet" (um, no it didn't). Then, when it was Silver's turn to talk, Kelly aggressively interrupted him, notably just as he was getting to the major point: Maintaining net neutrality is about ensuring that there will be no corporate censorship of content -- in other words, about maintaining the architecture that made the Internet the free and open medium that it is.

Then, when Silver finally got a chance to raise that point again, Kelly again interrupted:

Kelly: Is that right, Jim? Because everything I've read about this says this is a push, the beginnings of a push by the Obama administration to control the Internet to some extent -- more so than they had in the past.

Well, she's obviously reading from diverse sources, isn't she?

In any event, Kelly again let Harper ramble on, speculating that taxes would be imposed, blah blah blah -- and cut the segment off before Silver could point out the blatant falsity of his claims.

It was quite an exhibition in "fair and balanced" TV news. And it demonstrated rather neatly what happens when corporate news channels control the flow of information: They pretend to offer "balance," but facts that undermine the predominant narrative are never given the light of day.

All the more reason to defend our Web freedoms by maintaining net neutrality. And what's bizarre is that the supposed defenders of "liberty" are on the side of the would-be corporate media controllers. But then, we already knew that libertarianism is fundamentally incoherent.

field negro: They say it didn't happen

Obsidian Wings: They hate Russia for its freedoms, too!

New Deal 2.0: To rob a country, own a bank

fivethrtyeight: It's not about race unless I say it is

TreeHugger: A bad winter and pesticides spell more trouble for honeybees

onegoodmove: Links with your coffee

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Megyn Kelly wanted to talk about Fox News' latest Opinion Dynamics poll, which asked people about their attitudes on government spending and the reach and power of the federal government, with a set of questions clearly geared toward Tea Party movement sentiments, as well as a recent CNN poll -- similarly trying to gauge the Tea Partiers' reach -- that found 54 percent believe the federal government poses a threat to their rights.

So she brought on Fox's token liberal, Alan Colmes, to discuss these results, and he pointed out that at least some of those who see the federal government as a threat to their rights are people who object to the Republican-backed Patriot Act. Then he asked an interesting question of the Tea Party folks:

Colmes: I'd like to know exactly what freedom -- what freedoms are being taken away from people?

Kelly: People are worried they're going to lose their health-insurance coverage! They're worried the federal government is going to step in, take over, and they're not going to be able to see their coverage.

Colmes: I didn't see any particulars about exactly what freedoms people think are going to be taken away. I would like to know what they are.

Kelly: There is just as much in this survey about health care as there is the Patriot Act!

Colmes: Yeah, but nothing in this survey says particular health care, particular Patriot Act, it's just a general question, "freedoms". I mean, what particular freedoms. People call my radio show all the time, 'My freedoms are being compromised.'

All right, I ask them. What freedom is being compromised? What freedom have you lost under Barack Obama?

Kelly: You tell me, Alan -- do you think the Democrats on Capitol Hill are going into 2010 election thinking, 'The problem with numbers like this is the Patriot Act! It is the Bush administration policies.'

Colmes: They're also not going, 'The problem is health care. If we get health care, my freedoms are being taken away.' How do your freedoms get compromised?

Kelly tried to argue that the people who fear for their freedoms are monolithically anti-Obama Tea Partiers, and reflected somehow in the high numbers of those opposing the Senate health-care reform bill. But Colmes pointed out, accurately, that a large portion of those opposed to the Senate bill are people who want a public option.

Kelly: If you have a majority of Americans saying that the federal government poses a threat to the right[s] of Americans, those are not people who want the public option!

Colmes: Well, what rights are being -- wait a minute, you're suggesting that the public option is more government. No, it gives you greater options. It gives you greater opportunity.

I'd like to know what freedoms people think are being taken away. What particular freedom -- where in the Bill of Rights are you losing something, based on what? What have Obama or Democrats done to take any right away from you? I'd like to know what that is.

Kelly: OK, and on that note, e-mail me at Kelly@FoxNews.com and you can answer that question.

In other words: No answer from Megyn. Because she didn't have any after Colmes shot down her health-care trial balloon.

Right-wing fearmongering pundits like Beck, Hannity, Limbaugh, and the rest of the long list have made it conventional wisdom among the right-wing Kool-Aid drinkers that Obama somehow mysteriously are "taking away our freeeeeedoms!"

But they never can tell you exactly what freedoms are being taken away without calling out the Oath Keepers and their black helicopters, can they? Which is why the Megyn Kellys out there just say nothing.

I wasn't planning to write about this today, but reading this really got to me. Despite the fact that this country was founded on the idea of freedom of religion, there's a substantial bloc of citizens who seem to believe their religious beliefs trump everyone else's, even to the inclusion of institutionalized terror tactics.

I wonder when our constitutional-law president is going to use the extensive anti-terror powers at his command to protect women's legal rights?

For a nation that claims to cherish its freedoms, America is pretty damned complacent about the harassment that goes on outside abortion clinics. Imagine this circus outside of dentist's offices instead. Imagine what it would feel like, having to endure being called a whore and a killer on your way in to have a bad tooth pulled. Maybe they'd throw little plastic teeth at you; maybe they'd even take your photograph on the way in. People wouldn't stand for it: I have the right to choose my own dental care, they'd say. Who do these people think they are? And even if I were the smallest bit unsure about the choice I'd made, even if some part of me wanted to be talked into a filling and not an extraction--why in god's name would some hostile, red-faced, screaming stranger get a vote?

Maybe there's an element of trolling to that analogy. I could write the outraged top-text for an email forward of this blog myself. "Can you believe it! A LIVING, ALMOST-BREATHING CHILD who will PROBABLY CURE CANCER SOMDAY is nothing more than a ROTTED MOLAR to this BARREN GODLESS WHORE!!!"

Feel free to copy/paste--but if you do, you're missing the point. Bullying never won any hearts or minds, and harassment or intimidation of private citizens going about their private lives is never, never, never a tool for good. There is no place for such tactics of fear in civil discourse, and no one who employs them can be truly called a warrior for good, no matter what they tell themselves while they're packing their bullhorn and their gore posters into the car every morning.

I can't make the protesters who camp out in front of my clinic in the mornings go away. I can't even make them behave like rational, responsible citizens. But I can make sure that the women (and men, and children) who walk into my clinic don't have to run that obstacle course alone, and I believe I can assuage some of their fear. I can shield them physically from shouts and eyes and cameras. I can assure by my presence as a witness that the protesters don't "forget" where the property line is. And I can be one voice of supportive reason, quiet but strong, in opposition to the shouting about the blastocyst deep conditioning cabal:

"I'm a volunteer with the clinic. We have some protesters out front who will try to shout at you. They don't know why you're here, but they're going to shout at you anyway. You don't have to listen to them. I can just walk alongside and keep myself between them and you. I'm sorry you have to deal with this today."

Their fear is why I escort. Their gratitude is why I keep coming back.

From Strange Tales:

Mary Wohlford, 80, of Decorah, Iowa, had the words “DO NOT RESUSCITATE” tattooed on her chest [last year, tattoo shown above] to make her medical wishes clear, but at least one doctor thinks that isn’t enough to stop medical personnel. Dr. Mark Purtle of the Iowa Methodist Medical Center in Des Moines told the Des Moines Register that state law defines when caregivers are permitted to end life-sustaining measures, and a tattoo isn’t enough. Wohlford noted that she also has a living will hanging on the side of her refrigerator.

Update: Zennurse wrote a comment and added to it in a separate email:

"I'm concerned about the limits of the post; she has a living will on her fridge and that is where the EMT's will look for it if needed. As a retired nurse, she decided to have the tattoo done after seeing what happened to Terri Schiavo, but she has family who know about her living will and she is apparently aware that it will cover her in an emergency. As a nurse myself, I feel certain she knows the tattoo will not. I think what I'm concerned with is that after reading through the comments, I find no mention of the fact that

having a living will or advance directive is the best way to exercise freedom of choice, in fact that is where such protections came from.

(Kind of like the labor party bringing you vacations) I see this woman's choice as more of a snarky statement of despair at the state of healthcare in this country and the pretty rational fear of overtreatment out of fear of litigation should she be "found down", or have a medical event outside her home which renders her unable to make choices for herself.

I'm glad you were prompted to post the petition link and have signed it. I just wish there had been a little more research into who she

was, why she did what she did and what the implications of it might be beyond a knee-jerk reaction that it was government out of control. I just don't think that's the case here.

I'm a hospice nurse and understand all too well the risks involved. I have stood over patients to prevent CPR while waiting for family to deliver the correct paperwork and have also, in earlier days, done CPR on patients who had no hope of surviving because the family insisted on taking the chance. The basic premise of the post is correct, it is about choice, but it says more about the disaster that is healthcare in the country than some underhanded effort by the government to limit our freedoms."

This story just came to my attention today, and it seems timely to run this video from last year. The whole thing is good, but particularly the story from Lucy at 2:02.

An 80-year-old woman should not need a tattoo on her chest in order to protect her right to refuse resuscitation if she has made the choice of sound mind. There is a petition online that covers this and other issues at the First Freedom First website.

Save the Internet:

According to The Register on Friday, John Kneuer, assistant secretary of commerce and head of the National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA), "quickly lost his temper and began shouting" after an audience of technology experts pressed him to explain how the U.S. had fallen so far behind other developed countries in providing Internet access to citizens.

Kneuer claimed that free market competition was the reason for the Internet's "great success," dismissing the history of Net Neutrality protections that have fostered new innovations and public participation online.

Kneuer, who previously served as a top phone company lobbyist for Washington law firm Piper Rudnick, told the audience that the "free market" (by which he means the current duopoly of large phone and cable companies) should be unencumbered by consumer protections and basic Internet freedoms.

Kneuer is a member of the camp of neo-cons who categorically refuse to "even *think* about regulation to promote competition," writes Harold Feld of Media Access Project.

We're Number 1! We're Number 1!

Wait...what's that you say?

We're Number FIFTY-THREE?!?!?!?! Behind Bosnia, Serbia, Slovakia and the Czech Republic????

But...but...the terrorists hate us for our freedoms, don't they?

O'Connor Decries Republican Attacks on Courts

NPR:

"2006 · Newly retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor took on conservative Republican critics of the courts in a speech Thursday. She told an audience at Georgetown University that Republican proposals, and their sometimes uncivil tone, pose a danger to the independence of the judiciary, and the freedoms of all Americans....read on" (hat tip Andrew)

You can listen to Sandra Day O'Connor at this link.

You can read a transcript here.

Wow. Respectful of Otters

I have also noticed that two values that BushCo likes to fling around are "life" and "freedom", but I have also noticed that the two are opposite values in their rhetoric. You can have freedom or life, but not both. They are pretty consistent in this viewpoint, and if they evoke freedom, you can be sure they are covering up for someone's death, and if they evoke "life", you can be sure they are trying to take away your freedoms.