The Hutaree militia was hoping to kill police officers in preparation for the end of days:
Conventional militia organizations are racing to distance themselves from the Hutaree — the Christian-based militia whose members were charged yesterday with conspiring to kill law enforcement as part of their preparation for the coming battle with the Anti-Christ. But that may be a tall order.
Appearing on CNN this morning, Michael Lackomar, a member of the Southeast Michigan Volunteer Militia, called the Hutaree — also primarily based in Michigan — “really a fringe group outside of anything we do.”
“They’re more of a private army or a terrorist organization or really just a criminal organization,’ said Lackomar. He added that some of the Hutaree had sought refuge over the weekend with members of his group, who advised the Hutaree to turn themselves in.
But Mark Potok, the executive director of the Southern Poverty law Center, which tracks extremist groups, told TPMmuckraker that the Hutaree fit comfortably within the broader militia movement.
“The Hutaree were apparently ensconced right smack in the middle of the militia movement,” said Potok.
Potok explained that the more secular militia groups foresee an impending catastrophe in the form of the federal government confiscating weapons, imposing martial law, and herding those who resist into concentration camps. Ultimately, he said, they fear that the U.S. will be subsumed into a socialistic “One World Order,” under supra-national bodies like the U.N. or the EU.
Most militia members seem to have a foundation in Christian mythology which they then translate in violence against society, I think that trying to believe in things that are demonstratably false must lead people to violence.
This is sad, but I’m thinking that the atheist Maoists have you fully trumped when it comes to violence. The mythology of no God results in more death than in one God. At least if you look at the data.
At least recentely most terrorism is the work of religous groups. I have never heard of an atheist strapping a bomb to themselves; or planning to kill police in preparation for armameddon.
When you realize that this life is all you get, at least speaking for myself, you tend to take care of it.
And there is this:
Atheists, being a moderate proportion of the USA population (about 8-16%) are disproportionately less numerous in the prison population (0.21%)
Japan (the most atheistic nation in the G-8) has the lowest murder rate while the United States (the most Christian nation in the G-8) has the highest. Japan used to have much stronger religious faith, and a state religion, and guess what: Japan was remarkably aggressive and militaristic when “Shinto” was at its peak, and during WW2, when its Emperor was regarded as a God.
Louisiana, with America’s highest church attendance rate, has twice the national average murder rate.
Yes, but Maoist executions are estimated in the 50 million area, which is a murder rate in the 5-10% range, which beats any 2 religions combined. So as bad as religious zealots can be, they are not nearly as bad as atheists.
Maoist were more a political movement than a religous or a-religous movement, plus it was a while ago.
In terms of a percentage of population the crusades probably killed just as many people as the maoist.
No JR, not even close. It is hard to raise an army that is 10% of the population, given that the army must be provisioned by non-combatants. You are talking your ideology.
I am not really into Chinees history but a quick look at wikipedia makes me think that the famines and the unrest were caused by centuries of overpopulating the country and libertarian style fuedalism.
My guess is the only backlash against the religous class came from the aid that religous groups generally tend to give to thise in power. It is interesting that people in the U.S seem to want to make America resemble early nineteenth century China.
I guess you are right that I am espousing my idealogy that fuedalism doesn’t work even when you call it libertarianism.
If you find out more about actual Chinese (and world) history, you might need to adjust your priors, so you might not want to.
I’m surprised that you are implying that it was the religious that helped Obama gain office. I thought the atheists pulled for him around 5-to-1 over McCain, and the christians pulled more for McCain.
That is really interesting.
I challenge you to find any atheist that is advocating violence where you can go to any christianist tea bag rally and find those guys trying to intimidate. they are like growling dogs just a bite waiting to happen.
I was just out drinking with some violent atheists this week, in a bar with hot chicks even. No restraint whatsoever. So I think you’ve got the labels swapped.
Violent atheists with hot chicks sounds like a good name for a band 🙂