Right-wing thugs and their cheerleaders

What do you do if you’re a right-wing thug and you want to get a Jewish family to drop a lawsuit against a school district that practices blatant religious discrimination?

You publish their address and phone number on the Internet, of course. This makes it so much easier for your fellow faceless thugs to find and harass the family.

Such is the logic of Nedd Kareiva of StoptheACLU.org [no linky love here for the thug]. The Dobrich family is the target of anti-Semitic slurs and harassment by the good Christian people of the Indian River School District in Delaware. Kareiva lives in Chicago, so going to the Dobrich’s house to personally scream obscenities at them was a little impractical for him. He did the next best thing… he made certain anyone who wants to harass the family will have no trouble finding them.

Mike the Mad Biologist has a pithy comment on Kareiva and his fellow mouth-breathers:

Think about what Karieva said. He sees absolutely nothing wrong with laying the groundwork that led to an American family fleeing their home because of their religious beliefs. It’s Bosnia on the Delmarva.

And note that I said American. We’ll hear some — or maybe much — bloviating from the Right that will refer to the Dobrich family as Jewish, not American. That’s intentional. If they’re Jews, then they’re the other. Maybe they sort of had it coming. Don’t let them play that game: Americans were forced to flee their home by other Americans as a result of religious persecution.

The usual crew of right-wing hatemongers have lined up in support of Kareiva the bigot. First in line is Kareiva’s lapdog, Jay “rope + tree + ACLU lawyer = pinata” Stephenson. Stephenson claims that Kareiva is being "smeared" by those who are reporting his actions. How, exactly, is Kareiva being smeared? Kareiva himself says he is "pleased that we had an effect in this case". Note this carefully: Kareiva is admitting that his actions helped intimidate the Dobriches.

Jay shovels several loads of manure into his post:

Stop the ACLU.com and Stoptheaclu.org are two seperate things.

Horseshit! Jay describes StoptheACLU.com as the “official blog” of the Stop the ACLU Coalition.

First, we reject any and all race/religion/ethnicity-based personal attacks on anyone, with special protection due children.

Horseshit! Jay is defending the publication of the home address and phone number of a Jewish family with children.

Second, we reject physical violence on individuals and incitement of the same.

Horseshit! As already noted, Jay has in the past advocated the murder of ACLU lawyers.

And our good friend, Justin H. at the laughably-named RightontheRight.com, chimes in with his own distinctively slimy brand of equine excrement:

Nedd Kareiva of the Stop the ACLU Coalition (different from the blog, but I’ll get to that) is now revealing information about the plaintiff’s filing lawsuits with the support of the ACLU. This is a program designed to expose the so-called victims who are often just activists or political hacks.

Horseshit! What is Kareiva exposing the Dobriches to?, Why, to threats and intimidation, of course! And Justin approves of this tactic.

Because of recent events, the idiots at Daily Kos are now attacking both the Coalition and the blog, which I of course contribute to. They’re two different entities…

Still horseshit! StoptheACLU.com is the self-proclaimed “official blog” of Kareiva’s organization.

All this outrage is because one family targeted by Nedd’s new campaign is Jewish.

Oooo! Big ol’ stinky pile of horseshit! The ONLY family targeted Kareiva is Jewish.

I am not angry in any way about Nedd’s new program.

Of course it doesn’t bother Justin that a Jewish family is being targetted for harassment. They’re Jews, after all! Why should a good Christian hatemonger like Justin give a damn what happens to them? Deliberately exposing a family with children to threats and intimidation is EXACTLY the sort of tactic we expect Justin and his fellow hatemongers to applaud.

Stop the ACLU is telling people not to harass the family…

This one is a special pile of horseshit! Both Justin and Kareiva knows the family has been harrassed in the past. Kareiva posted the address in order to make it possible for his fellow bigots to harrass them again. Kareiva’s insincere disclaimer that “under no circumstances should you threaten” the Dobriches is the same tactic once used by the mob. “Nice fam’ly ya got dere, Mr. Dobrich… be a shame ta see anyt’ing happen ta dem…”

Someone needs to know who these people are…

Pure, putrid horseshit! The court and the defendants know who they are. What business is it of anyone else… especially a gutless bigot in Chicago? Say what you mean, Justin: “Someone needs to know who these people are”... so they can be driven out of another home. We know exactly how you feel in this matter, Justin.

Justin crapped out some more of his asinine apologia for Kareiva’s thuggery in an email to me:

Nedd isn’t doing this for the purpose of painting a target on them. You have no reason to believe that is his motivation, and considering that Nedd is a caring half-Jewish Christian, it’s not in his nature. This has less to do with the family than it has to do with the ACLU, and the mostly anonymous people they back. Nedd is not a hater, and he never has done anything to prove himself one, and to assume otherwise is mere speculation.

Wrong on all counts, hateboy.

1. Kareiva did paint a target on the Dobriches, and had to have known he would be doing exactly that. Why else would he add the phony warning about not harrassing the family?
2. Kareiva is a “caring half-Jewish Christian”? Handy factoid to have surface just now, but so what? I don’t give a rat’s ass what you think his nature is. Kareiva’s actions have proven he doesn’t give a damn about the safety of a Jewish family who have dared challenge the Christian bigots of Delaware. He is deliberately making it easier for the bigots to target the family.
3. This has everything to do with the family. That’s who Kareiva wants others to harass.
4. Printing the name and address of a family with an ostentatious warning not to harass and threaten them is the very definition of a “hater”.

Jay and Justin are only two of the many wingers who see nothing wrong with trying to intimidate the Dobriches into dropping their suit. These are the kind of thugs who are intellectually incapable of understanding the concept of freedom of religion, not to mention the importance of keeping the state out of people’s religious lives. They will not stop until the American democracy is trampled under the heel of a “Christian” theocracy. Their willingness to support the harassment of those who dare stand up for the principles upon which America was founded should serve as a chilling reminder to us all — hatred and bigotry are alive in America, and must be fought at every turn.