Bumper Stickers and Political Philosophy

David Codrea (@Codrea) has an interesting post up today about "right wing" bumper stickers and what the left wing hate group known as the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) wants law enforcement to do when seeing them or the conservative citizens that might display them.

Did SPLC just make it dangerous to have a ‘conservative’ bumper sticker? The Southern Poverty Law Center has produced a video, “’Sovereign Citizens’ and Law Enforcement: Understanding the Threat,” warning police that traffic stops involving “right wing” citizens could end up as deadly encounters.

I watched the video, and while the anti-right hate from SPLC peeks through once or twice, the basic information being offered to police officers is sound: Never treat a traffic stop as routine.

The truth is that there is a tiny segment of the extreme "right" that is so "out there" that they present a danger to law enforcement and citizens alike. I don't know why those of us who are law abiding citizens should deny this. In doing so we give SPLC a legitimacy they do not deserve. The criminals that killed the officers in the West Memphis incident needed to be put down, and they were.

The SPLC must jump on this as a validation of their agenda as they have very little else to do it for them. The best way to defuse this as an issue for them is the truth. The two shooters were criminals long before they shot the officers. We law abiding citizens abide by decent laws and abhor those who take their delusions to criminal levels as these two did.