Hardliner Heels

There seems to be a certain segment of society containing people who will always demand the most serious punishment for transgressors of the law and the most serious consequences for those whose lifestyles and politics differ from theirs.

After the horrific attack on the World Trade Centers, the Pentagon, and Flight 93 on September 11, 2001, these people came out of the woodwork, with some even clamoring for the United States to drop nuclear bombs on unfriendly predominantly Muslim countries. This was Ann Coulter's "shining" moment, when she actually said, "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." In this climate, desperate fear called for desperate measures, and our sad national chapter of detainee torture ensued.

Another "emergence" of this viciousness occurred during the 2008 presidential campaign when John McCain and/or Sarah Palin would be speaking to a crowd of supporters and, when reference was made to opponent Barack Obama, someone in the crowd would yell out "traitor!", or worse, "kill him!"

And now we have the case of the abortion physician who was murdered within his own church in Kansas. How many of these hardliners publicly denounce the murder but privately approve?

So we don't have to go to totalitarian or authoritarian countries like Iran or North Korea to discern a mean-spirited segment of the population who make a pointed effort to impose their intolerance on the rest of society. The vicious "do-gooders" abound here as well. We may think we live in a free society, and maybe compared to most other countries, we do. But I believe that, should our personal freedoms we cherish so become restricted, it will much more likely be due to homegrown, all-American hardliners than to any foreign threat.