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Cole Wilcox doesn't consider himself an activist.

The 25-year-old from Phoenix was compelled to show up at the Arizona capitol Saturday afternoon to protest against members of a neo-Nazi group who were there rallying against illegal immigration.

Members of the National Socialist Movement, a neo-Nazi group based out of Detroit, were met with a greater number of protesters.

J. T. Ready of Mesa, Arizona spoke at the America First Rally. He said the group was defending his country against invaders...

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Reporter: Do you consider yourself a National Socialist?

Ready: National Socialist? I am.

Reporter: Weren't Nazis considered National Socialists?

Ready: Well, there's a term that starts with an 'N' for calling black people too, uh, so I think that the 'N' term for National Socialists, calling them Nazis, is the same thing.

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Usually, this kind of small-potatoes wing-nut uprising isn't worthy of much attention. But I'm pointing it out for two reasons.

First: This a perfect example of how right-wing vigilantism, once permitted, quickly escalates. The Minutemen weren't uniformed, only casually armed, and careful to cloak their deep racism - though it tended to leak out at inopportune moments anyway. Now, because we enabled and tolerated that, we've got self-proclaimed Nazis down there in full battle dress, carrying military weapons and telling us quite openly that they're on a mission to cleanse the country of the brown scourge. If Arizona officials - already overwhelmed by a situation that they're getting no federal help in resolving - don't find a way to stop these guys, they're creating the conditions for the paramilitary right-wing scene on their border to become the national breeding ground for a full-on armed militia movement - a movement that could, in time, endanger the whole country.

Second: This is also the next step down the road for the state of Arizona as a whole. They've put the country on notice that they're just fine, thank you, with being the State of Hate -- and in doing so, opened the door to the whole national circus of haters. Ready and his National Socialists are out front of that parade, but you can bet that there's a long line of acts queuing up to come out to the desert and follow them. (Note to Gov. Jan Brewer: be careful what you wish for, for you will surely get it.)

The thing about far-right radicals is that they only get to take up as much space as we'll allow them to have. Arizona's governor and legislature have consciously chosen to make their state a free-fire zone for every flavor of right-wing crazy.

This is what we know about hate groups: they are an evil that can only flourish where good people do nothing. The State of Arizona is now issuing what amount to official engraved invitations to the country's far-right vigilantes, sovereign citizens, would-be fascists, self-styled "patriots" (we need to take that word back, seriously), and paranoid race warriors. They cannot be surprised when people like J. T. Ready and his New Saxons take them up on the offer.

If good people let that first instance go unremarked, and then keep looking away through the next and the next, before you know it you've got unabashed racists running your state and Nazi stormtrooper wannabes guarding your borders. It happens faster than you can even believe.

This is, as I've so often warned, how fascism infiltrates a democracy. Arizona is now as far down that road as any American state has ever gotten, and shows no signs of even wanting to turn back. But the rest of us still have the choice - and because the people of Arizona are no longer with us, we're going to have to be that much more watchful, and work that much harder to keep the infestation from spreading.

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J. T. Ready, Arizona's most prominent neo-Nazi and the one-time political protege of recalled state Senate President Russell Pearce, reportedly is dead by his own hand in what's described as a multiple murder-suicide in Gilbert that left four others slain, including a 2-year- old.

A one-time member of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement, Ready, 39, was a committed white supremacist, a former Republican precinct committeeman, and a failed candidate for the Mesa City Council.

Charismatic and articulate, he was once a rising star in Arizona's burgeoning, anti-Mexican nativist movement where his inflammatory rhetoric and radical political ideas were largely embraced.

In recent years, he took to patrolling the desert in search of illegal immigrants and cartel members with groups of neo-Nazis and white supremacists whom he led.

The most recent incarnation of these militias was U.S. Border Guard, whose patrols regularly ran across stranded or dead migrants and drug stashes in the an area of the desert on the border of Pinal and Maricopa counties called the Vekol Valley.

Perhaps the most controversial aspect of Ready was his relationship with ex-Senator Pearce [author of Arizona's "Zeigen Sie Mir Ihre Papiere" ("Show Me Your Papers") law, presently before the SCOTUS], who helped him join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and groomed him, according to Ready, for a possible run for the legislature.

He always prided himself on once being a Marine, though in reality he had been drummed out of the service after getting court-martialed twice. He was intelligent and wily, and I was always on my guard around him.

I'm not entirely surprised that his life ended this way, considering his love of firearms and his twisted political ideology. Many have wondered if he was involved in the recent shootings of two illegal immigrants in Eloy. But that, of course, is highly speculative.

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Interviewed by the local FOX-TV affiliate at that rally, J. T. Ready was asked:

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Reporter: Do you consider yourself a National Socialist?

Ready: National Socialist? I am.

Reporter: Weren't Nazis considered National Socialists?

Ready: Well, there's a term that starts with an 'N' for calling black people too, uh, so I think that the 'N' term for National Socialists, calling them Nazis, is the same thing.

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J. T. Ready and his pal, ex-Arizona State Senator Russell Pearce

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But Right-Wing anti-immigrant vigilantes and militia members and Tea Party members and anyone remotely connected with Right-Wing anti-immigrant vigilantes and militia members and the Tea Party are AMERICAN PATRIOTS and are NEVER domestic terrorists - correct?

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We're seeing it more and more. The Norway mass murderer was a nationalist who felt threatened because his previously Christian homogeneous society is being "invaded" by Muslims.

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ORIGINAL: slvemike4u

Sorry FD but I find it hard to get too worried by the assholes whom so clearly and publicly declare their idiocy.
The covert assholes are much more worrisome.

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I'm not entirely surprised that his life ended this way, considering his love of firearms and his twisted political ideology.

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ORIGINAL: SternSkipper

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We're seeing it more and more. The Norway mass murderer was a nationalist who felt threatened because his previously Christian homogeneous society is being "invaded" by Muslims.

I agree the tea Party's influence has gone global

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ORIGINAL: Fightdirecto

Since 1994, I have almost lost two family members to Right-wing extremists.

* My daughter just missed being at her doctor's offce to be shot by Right-Wing Anti-Abortion extremist/"vigilante" John Salvi becuase she was late for her appointment for her annual physical.

* Right-Wing anti-illegal immigrant "vigilantes" tried unsuccessfully to burn down my father's church in New Mexico because they believed (incorrectly) that his church was harboring illegal immigrants, because over 50% of his church members were Hispanics and because he had preached against anti-illegal immigrant "vigilantes" in his Sunday sermons.

So I don't "find it hard to get too worried by the assholes whom so clearly and publicly declare their idiocy" - I find it hard not to get worried that law enforcement has not cracked down on Right-Wing vigilantes with the same vigor they seem to have used with the Cleveland anarchists.

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ORIGINAL: Karmastic

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ORIGINAL: Fightdirecto
Since 1994, I have almost lost two family members to Right-wing extremists.
* My daughter just missed being at her doctor's offce to be shot by Right-Wing Anti-Abortion extremist/"vigilante" John Salvi becuase she was late for her appointment for her annual physical.
* Right-Wing anti-illegal immigrant "vigilantes" tried unsuccessfully to burn down my father's church in New Mexico because they believed (incorrectly) that his church was harboring illegal immigrants, because over 50% of his church members were Hispanics and because he had preached against anti-illegal immigrant "vigilantes" in his Sunday sermons.
So I don't "find it hard to get too worried by the assholes whom so clearly and publicly declare their idiocy" - I find it hard not to get worried that law enforcement has not cracked down on Right-Wing vigilantes with the same vigor they seem to have used with the Cleveland anarchists.

that's horrible, sorry to hear that! re the part i bolded - i'm not sure why this needed to be said. are you asking me if 'm worried? i sort of said i was when i said:

"...this isn't a radical sentiment by any means. I.e., we could be seeing a lot more of this"

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ORIGINAL: Fightdirecto
Actually I was referring to and quoting slvemike4u - though I believe he was being sincere and not slamming me personally.

But for me, it's personal: Right-wing vigilantes have tried to kill both my father and my daughter.

If I were a less civilized, more violent man, I'd take my guns to the U.S./Mexico border - and blow some Minuteman vigilantes away (I probably wouldn't try for a head shot - they don't have much in their heads except empty space. Gut shots would be better as they would suffer more before dying).

Since the local government, the state and the Federal government won't enforce the laws against Minuteman vigilantes, maybe I should take a page out of their Minuteman vigilante handbook and "fight the good, patriotic, American fight" against these criminal Minuteman vigilantes that law enforcement has so far failed to do, eh?

When I see efforts to assist such Minuteman vigilante criminals in their criminal behavior, or efforts to excuse them for their criminal acts rather than documenting those criminal acts and locking them up as they should be doing, I see "domestic enemies" as described in the oath I took when I joined the U. S. Army - Governor Brewer, ex-Arizona State Senate President Pearce, Jim Gilchrist, Shawna Forde - et. al. - everyone one of them a "domestic enemy" of my country and it's Constitution.

But, as I said, I am a civilized man who has renounced violence, except in self-defense.

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I don't think FD is in any way, shape, or form trying to claim that illegal immigration is good simply because the minutemen are against it. But the minutemen ARE NOT federal agents, they are not sanctioned to police our borders, they do not have the authority to kill people coming over the border, even if those people are coming over the border illegally. The minutemen are vigilantes and the last time I heard, that was illegal.