Obama Receives Spike in Death Threats

Texas Fred reports on a story from the AP that says Barack Obama has received more death threats than any other President-elect in U.S. history.

It should be noted that ALL Presidents-elect receive these threats after a Presidential election. It comes with the territory.

But what is curious is the fact that Obama has received more than anyone else.

Now let me be very clear about this. Only a nutcase would personally threaten a United States President, Barack Obama included. Such a thing is simply over the top, and 99.99% of Americans, including me, would never even think about participating in such a brazen act.

To be sure, the 56 million Americans who voted against Barack Obama have been very emotional, sometimes heated, in our outrage that someone with Obama's political ideology could actually get elected to the White House.

We can expect the heated debate to continue.

But personal threats?

Deranged and unstable persons can often be pushed over the edge by forceful rhetoric. And the widespread fear of Obama and a Democratic majority in Congress may well have pushed the most unstable among us over the edge to the point of doing something stupid.

In the New Testament, for example, Jesus uses vivid and stunning imagery to describe the importance of avoiding placing oneself in a position to be tempted to do wrong. He said, 'If your hand offends you, cut it off. Better for your hand to burn in hell than your entire body. And if your eye offends you, gouge it out, for better to go to heaven blind than for the whole body to burn in hell.'

The imagery is metaphor, that is, not to be taken literally.

But the emotionally disturbed have been known to read those statements of Jesus and proceed to mutilate themselves, as if doing so will keep them from sin.

Those of us who are Jeffersonian libertarians have often stated that we would never fire the first shot against forces of tyranny who seek to rob us of our rights and property. Tyrannical government will always have to make the first move.

But we will not hesitate to defend ourselves against the forces of anti-freedom who wish to rob us of our guns, our property, our freedom to speak our minds, including engaging in heated political debate, our right to worship as we please, print what we please as citizen journalists, and to assemble to discuss our shared values.

These are clear rights given to all human beings by God and enumerated in and protected by the Constitution of the United States.

But as patriots who love our country and who wish to see ALL human beings free, we would never initiate any harm to anyone unless in self-defense and in response to an overt threat to our lives and liberties.

I write this today in order to differentiate us and what we are about from those who are intent on doing harm to others unprovoked. Strict Constitutionalists believe that murder is evil. We are guided by clear-cut principles, moral principles, that allow killing only under certain specified conditions, self-defense being the primary condition.