I like to see the right wing called out for its excesses of rhetoric and it’s shameless disregard for the bounds of civility when focusing its wrath on those with whom it disagrees.

I’ve been following the opinion pieces published by the libertarian site, LewRockwell.com. Economic libertarians would feel pulled to vote Republican, and so they share in the blame for giving us the current regime.

But there should be at least one area of freedom where we ALL could agree: We tolerate free non-violent political speech in opposition to war!

Ah, but the Republicans with the most persuasive power seem to be opposed to free anti-war speech in the face of a truly powerful anti-Bush speaker: Cindy Sheehan.

Limbaugh-Hannity-etc, and their friends in the influential religious right, have been on a crusade to make Sheehan into an enemy of the United States due to her peaceful political speech opposing war.

Remember the old saying that we ALL like to use to describe our commitment to free speech? “I might hate what you say, but I’ll defend to the death you’re right to say it!” (to paraphrase).

Well, it seems that the Big Voices of the Republican Party don’t Really believe in that old saying, from the vile manner in which they are calling Cheehan a traitor and unAmerican. In other words, they are NOT tolerating her peaceful anti-war speech. They are suggesting she is the enemy of America BECAUSE of her peace-related speach.

That is a fascism by the Big Voices of the Republican Party, carrying the water for the Bush Administration

See the article below for another round of ass-kicking performed by the interesting libertarians of LewRockwell.com. Libertarians don’t like the totalitarianism of the Republican Party.

To What Is Cindy a Threat? by Butler Shaffer

. . .
She has been referred to as a “crackpot,” an “America hater,” a “tragedy slut,” a “media whore,” an “anti-Semite,” and a “traitor,” by various conservative talk-show hosts or websites. One allegedly Christian website went so far as to say that “traitors deserve firing squads.” One can buy T-shirts reading “Sheehan is Nuts,” or read a seemingly endless flow of non-sequiturs having nothing to do with her stated position. She has been condemned as a “Leftist,” and for her association with Michael Moore. With the same sense of irrelevance that permeates both Congress and the media, Republican congressman Duncan Hunter observed that some of her supporters looked like “aging hippies.” Nor does one have to wait long, on any Reich-wing talk show, to hear the refrain that offers their unassailable response to all dissenting views: “if you don’t like it here, why don’t you go to Africa or Asia?”

At her Camp Casey site, over five hundred crosses bearing the names of soldiers killed in Iraq were knocked over by one of Cindy’s critics in a pickup truck; an act that received little criticism from the allegedly Christian war defenders. A neighbor of George Bush twice fired his shotgun into the air in the presence of Cindy’s supporters; an act which, had it been engaged in by any of the antiwar people, would have resulted in massive arrests and Bill O’Reilly bellowing accusations of “terrorism” and Cindy’s ties to Al Qaeda!

. . .

What explains these ferocious and slanderous attacks? Cindy is but one lone woman. Unlike President Bush, she does not claim to speak or act on behalf of 275,000,000 people, but only for herself. Relatives of other dead soldiers have criticized this woman, saying “she doesn’t speak for us.” But I am unaware of any statement made by Cindy purporting to speak for anyone but herself. She only seeks an answer to her personal question: “why did my son die?”

Cindy Sheehan does constitute a threat, not to America, but to the totalitarian forces that insist on crushing the spirit of peace and liberty in order that they might dominate the American people. History is awash with examples of men and women eagerly cooperating with those who would subjugate and destroy them. As Pastor Niemoller’s words so eloquently remind us, cristalnacht was neither the first nor last instance of people turning upon – rather than coming to the defense of – their neighbors when under attack by the state.

. . .
Let us also not forget the “butterfly effect” and the power of local, decentralized action. If wars can be started by nineteen men, armed with nothing more than box-cutter knives, perhaps peace can be precipitated by a lone woman standing alongside a road in Texas, demanding that a president be accountable for his actions. Don’t think for a moment that the established order is unaware of and not fearful of just such a possibility.