Shut up or, inshallah, we'll sue

Of course, lawsuits against hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan or Fred Phelps Westboro Baptist Church have also been effective in shutting down extremist organizations by going after their funding sources. In a competition to see which group more mainstream, arguably Americans Against Hate is as dubious as CAIR and arguably CAIR has better credentials. I know you love your whackjob alarmist groups, but defending this outfit to score points against CAIR is dubious at best.

I'll keep beating this drum as long as Rod continues to overlook the terrorists that are already here in favor of the terrorists that might be here soon.

http://www.cq.com/public/20050325_homeland.html

"The conspirators behind the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, which killed 168 people and wounded more than 500, were inspired by radical right-wing movements. Eric Rudolph, the man charged with carrying out the 1996 Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta, which killed one woman and injured more than 100, was a member of the radical anti-abortion group Army of God. Initially, Rudolph was the object of a massive North Carolina manhunt in connection with a Birmingham, Ala., abortion-clinic bombing that killed a police officer and seriously maimed a nurse.

Another Army of God member, James Kopp, was convicted in the 1998 shooting of a doctor who performed abortions.

Individuals affiliated with such groups have also been involved in many smaller terrorist acts, including mailing hundreds of bogus anthrax letters to abortion clinics, and in plots to obtain and use conventional, chemical and nuclear weapons against civilians. In 2003, for instance, a Texas man prosecutors say was a white supremacist and anti-government radical pleaded guilty to charges of possessing a weapon of mass destruction. Authorities had discovered enough sodium cyanide bombs to kill hundreds of people; machine guns and several hundred thousand rounds of ammunition; 60 pipe bombs; and remote-control explosive devices disguised as briefcases in a storage space he rented. The man, William J. Krar, was sentenced to 11 years in federal prison."

How long, Rod, before you turn your mighty pen to the problems of Christian terrorists already here? How long before you turn your efforts to fighting folks in YOUR religion who terrorize Americans?

Who finances AAH? CAIR gets a lot of money from the Middle East. I've never heard of AAH until this, and if that group had asked me, I would have said, "Do you really want to take a stand against Muslim Family Day at Six Flags? Please reconsider." CAIR is certainly extremist, but it is quite mainstream, or at least is treated that way by the news media. Anyway, as foul as I find the Fred Phelps crazies to be, I am bothered by the recent lawsuit filed by the father of a dead soldier, accusing the Phelps loons of causing him emotional distress. I think we should all be wary of attempts by anybody to squelch speech by turning to the courts. Like I said, defamation is not protected by the First Amendment, but just because someone claims to have been defamed doesn't mean that they have been. It could well be a lawsuit designed to intimidate critics.

I agree that protesting "Muslim Family Day" at an amusement park seems to violate good sense in terms of "picking one's battles." Unless they required the park's female employees to wear headscarves that day...

But, I think transparency about who these groups such as ICNA and CAIR are funded by, whether they have links to disreputable or extremsist groups, and whether they have "a hidden agenda" is perfectly legitimate. If a group has terrorist ties no matter how mainstream it pretends to be, that needs to be brought to light.

So, let me get this straight. People who don't like us but have enough money to sue our mouths shut in our courts and win so they can further plot our demise. Hmm.

Where did you get the idea that media organizations fear lawsuits from writing about the HLF? CAIR sued a gadfly organization with links to far-right anti-Muslim groups. They didn't sue the NYT or the Dallas Morning News.