Rick Santorum Sweeps Alabama And Mississippi: Leading up to Tuesday night, all of the polls and all of the med... http://t.co/26IsXoz5
Stuffed Suits article RSS feed
Share this page with your friends
Home 
News SC Politics The Cowards of Kershaw County
News SC Politics The Cowards of Kershaw County
|
28 July 2011
Recent sensationalist and very misleading news reports in South Carolina have caused a lot of trouble for a Kershaw County tea party movement activist. He has been bedeviled by Sheriff Jim Matthews who was elected to office in November of 2010.
Sheriff Matthews recently noticed that a law-abiding citizen of his county "liked" an article on Facebook that the sheriff didn't care for based, apparently, on the provocative title. The sheriff himself admitted that the article did not call for shooting police officers yet he started hysterically screaming bloody murder and put his deputies on high alert, ordering them to put on body armor to protect themselves from a group of about twenty peaceful men whose average age is somewhere around 65. Is this really what the Sheriff should be most concerned about?
In addition, he and others have purposely compared this independent group to known extremists groups in a manner such that, if the process were to be turned back on the sheriff, would go something like this:
There is some concern that Sheriff Jim Matthews might be linked to Nazi groups. Nazis are socialists who believe in a very powerful centralized government, a state directed economy (fascism) and a strong police state to enforce a very strict and complex system of laws. Nazis also blame certain ethnic or political groups for their problems and selectively persecute them while drumming up hysteria about the perceived "threat" coming from those individuals or groups.
In addition, the FBI says Nazis have committed murder, rape, vandalism, confiscation of property, unlawful imprisonment, kidnapping and other acts of violence against those with whom they disagree or believe to be responsible for societal problems.
“I don’t know if Sheriff Matthews is aligned with the Nazi movement,” one Kershaw citizen stated. "I don’t know if Jim Matthews is on the membership rolls, but he certainly seems to share the same beliefs.”
According to a report in the Camden Chronicle-Independent newspaper, several elected officials in Kershaw County had some very disturbing things to say. [Quotes are from the Camden Chronicle-Independent article, July 21, 2011 "Sheriff, chiefs warn officers after Web post"]
Coward #3:
Elgin Mayor Brad Hanley said while he knew the attitudes espoused by the Kershaw County Patriots was a growing problem within the U.S., he never expected anything so close to home.
“I’ve been aware this was becoming a bigger national problem,” Hanley said, “And the fact that it appears to be in our own backyard is disturbing.”
Personally, I'd love to have the people he's talking about in my backyard. These are people willing to step up and be responsible. Why doesn't the mayor appreciate citizens who are actually paying attention and why is he afraid of people who have read and actually understand the Constitution and the concept of unalienable rights that this country was founded on?
Coward #2:
Elgin’s Chief [of Police] Brown said he has alerted all his officers to use more caution after learning about the links. The Kershaw County Patriots group is known to hold its meetings inside the town of Elgin.
“It’s in the best interest for my officers to be very careful right now, because people with that opinion (that shooting cops is OK) can prove to be very dangerous. We take this very seriously,” Brown said.
"People with that opinion?" I suppose that's one way to isolate a group and falsely villify them. Hitler's propaganda machine compared Jews to rats getting into and gnawing away at everything they could. The Nazis spread lies and fear in order to make citizens hate and fear the targeted group of people.
Since there is nothing stating that the Kershaw County Patriots are advocating shooting policemen, Chief Brown either did not read the article or is lying. In either case, he is going along with what someone else told him to do.
Chief Brown and the other cowards are attacking responsible, patriotic South Carolinians who reject the socialist police and the welfare states being imposed on them. Calling them potential cop-killers is equally repugnant and is an obvious effort to dehumanize them before doing--what?
By impugning the character of a tea party group based on lies Chief Brown is spewing hate or propaganda in order to achieve a political purpose. He has to know that a group of responsible, political active, law-abiding, elderly men does not warrant the hysteria and fear he is foisting on the citizens of Elgin and Kershaw County. He apparently does not respect the people of his city and county enough to think they can't see through his idiocy.
Coward # 1:
Sheriff Jim Matthews, of course, is the number one coward of Kershaw County:
“The article in and of itself doesn’t advocate shooting an officer, but some who read it will get out of it what they want,” Matthews said. “Some warped individuals may get it in their mind that it’s OK to resist an officer to the point of shooting them.”
"“I don’t know if they’re aligned with the Sovereign Citizen movement,” Matthews said of the Kershaw County Patriots. I don’t know if they all have the same membership rolls, but they certainly seem to hang together.”
“They posted this on their Facebook page. I wouldn’t post it. They have the Constitutional right to do so, but there are times when you exercise your rights, you have to do so responsibly.”
Matthews categorized the Patriots’ posting of the links to the article and video as “irresponsible” and “hateful.”
“It makes you wonder what they are doing that they want to isolate themselves from any law enforcement intervention,” he said.
Matthews said he decided to alert his deputies to be extra careful because of the posts.
“I’ve made them aware that there is a group in this county that is reading stuff that says it’s OK to shoot a cop,” he said. “They always have to be careful, but when you get information like this, you need to be more vigilant. That article does suggest that, at certain times, it’s OK to shoot a cop.”
Note that the last quote (" . . . there is a group in this county that is reading stuff that says it’s OK to shoot a cop”) from the Sheriff contradicts what he said in the first quote ("The article in and of itself doesn’t advocate shooting an officer.") yet he's accusing others of being "warped individual[s]?" He then attempts to modify his statement as if he realizes he's contradicting himself.
I'm not sure Sheriff Matthews is the best arbiter of what free speech should be if he can't even make up his mind about what is going on with a single article. Perhaps he should find someone with a fifth grade reading level to explain it to him.
And who exactly is being hateful? It sounds very extreme and hateful for the chief law enforcement officer of Kershaw County to be fear mongering by sounding the alarm and telling his deputies to put on body armor--all in reaction to a single individual hitting the "like" button on Facebook.com. Yes, Jeff Mattox may have been referring to an intellectual, philosophical discussion somewhere far above discussing drapes or what they had for dinner. Mattox wasn't even rude: there was no vulgarity, no threats, no racist language, no slandering of other people--just a polite discussion of the facts.
Here's a clue for you, Sheriff Matthews: if there's nothing you can arrest him for, why don't you mind your own business. Such discussions are obviously nothing you care about and are well beyond your neanderthal level of understanding.
The bizarre, hysterical, and extreme actions and language used by Sheriff Jim Matthews against Mattox was inarguably intended to intimidate and step on the throat of a single law abiding citizen. If you live in Kershaw County, the question you have to ask is, "Who's next on Matthews' list?"
Comments
RSS feed for comments to this post