Understanding isn't necessary with these people, which may explain their propensity for being such people — as with those who have similar hatred of and willingness to slander and distort the truth about non-Christian “social conservatives,” as we're seeing in particular right now with Sarah Palin (whom these people are actually making more of a phenomenon and celebrity than social conservatives are).

I'm one of those who feels that loss of control, and have for several years, although I'm still clinging to the hope that this is a cycle which will eventually swing the other direction.

The Hummer thing was some eco-activist group in 2003 torched some hummers in a parking lot and the terrorist laws were used to prosecute them and in doing so a string of terror prosecutions of citizens followed and continues. Mostly eco terrorists for property destruction. It was a pretty big deal for the anti patriot act types and I fell into that group but it was pretty widely covered. As for the funding of killers this is just the way things tend to work, I look at the Army Of God and like organizations like the KKK of old and they took care of those and tried to protect those that followed their requests. These could all be isolated lone incidents but I think to believe that is either willfully ignoring those movements or just practicing wishful thinking. I should explain that though, I do not think they are near so extreme that we should be really freaked out but merely wary. The reason is technology as it continues to get faster which it will over the next decade at least the changes society will go through will cause major social disruption and groups that feel they are losing control may lash out in more and more extreme ways. In other words the FBI report(maybe it was secret service cant remember) was correct and this would be true no matter the party affiliation of the president or his skin color. Large segments of the population that have a great deal in common are feeling alienated while experiencing growing economic hardship and that will not be ending until they educate themselves away from a labor skill set. In short I blame the shift from an industrial to a digital economy much like the transition into the industrial.

I think the most benign cause of the phrase may just be someone that thought they could make a buck. Those that buy them on the other hand I have less good thoughts about but maybe your right and of course if it was a marketing decision green knows no boundaries.

Apparently, I'm out of the loop on a lot of this stuff, because I never heard about people burning Hummers, or how people reacted to it, or who funds killers, or the world being at war with Christians (Christian principles, maybe, but not Christians per se). Maybe that comes from living in rural areas and avoiding the main steam media.

Eco-activists are charged with terrorism for burning empty Hummers and abortion clinic killers that openly say they are part of a larger organization and speak much like christian AQ are “lone nuts”, well those lone nuts have been a constant drip drip stream and have been well funded by mostly the same groups from the beginning. From my point of view we do this kabuki dance for two reasons, we are in denial and do not wish to come to terms with the fact that we have a growing problem with religious extremists in our own country and because they are defended by one specific party that over the years has done a pretty good job convincing large amounts of them that the entire world is “at war with christians.” The second reason we wish to ignore it is because like a boiled frog it has ever so slowly gotten worse. Again please explain how you think anyone Christian would find a old testament curse funny? This is a primal wish, not a joke.

If that still doesn't make sense, watch the comedy channel and start fact-checking every joke.

adesnik — the evangelical Christians are doing a very good job of making that connection themselves, through exactly this sort of crap; historically, they've done a good job of it too. The “critics” are merely pointing out the violent language and insinuations they're using and saying that it's not cool, and could be extremely dangerous. We see in cases like the Tiller assassination that when extremely furvent religious believers (Christian or otherwise) start getting riled up by messages of violence from their fellow-believers and religious leaders, when they start feeling like God is on the side of violence — that's when one person takes it too far and things get ugly.

Yes, sir. It's totally a witch-crafty sort of thing. Of course, public prayer has always been very much like witchcraft anyway. In fact, when modern witches talk about casting their spells, they often describe what they're doing as being like praying, but not to the Christian God, and a little more active. But all the basic elements are still there.

I'm very glad that the Secret Service and FBI work around the clock to protect President Obama and investigate violent extremism. If they need more funding, they should get it. So let me be crystal clear: When I talk about extremism, I mean extreme rhetoric, not incitement to violence.

I understand your theory of the case: Enough t-shirts like this and other publicity stunts create a “muck of religious fundamentalism” that will give us our next Lee Harvey Oswald. I don't reject that theory out of hand. The right environment can push a certain type of person over the edge. I guess I just have a gut feeling that some critics are looking out for every possible chance to connect evangelical Christianity with violence, without ever really understanding what evangelicals are about.

Yes, a strange reaction for minimally observant New York Jew. But I remember when my own thoughts about evangelicals were based on little more than fear and stereotypes.

We can do without the excessive outrage and overreaction and excuse for more lefty tantrum-throwing.

“[S]urely everybody recalls the many calls for the death of Bush, right?”

That's different, of course. It is (was) acceptable, authentic, politically correct, “protected” …

I agree though the percentage is likely around 10% but once you cut out those there because they followed the wrong crowd you are likely talking about maybe 5% or less. Its still a huge number but not percentage wise.

I really think that estimate is much to high, vey9. Vehement, hostile opposition isn't the same thing at all. The “fringe” really is pretty small, I believe. Yes, they're scary to me too.

OTOH — and it pains me to introduce this equivalency “thing” here… but surely everybody recalls the many calls for the death of Bush, right? I think that was a loony-bin fringe as well.

What percentage does it take before they are no longer “extreme.” From my observation, I estimate the “fringe extremists” to be in the neighborhood of 20%. In a political election, that is significant, but not overwhelming, but when measuring the number of people interested in causing someone's death, the threat is much higher.