
The story:
Militia group plans protest for Tuesday evening
Georgia Security Force III% will conduct a protest at 6 p.m. Tuesday evening. Henry County resident Chris Hill, Georgia Security Force III%’s commanding officer, said the group’s purpose is to “use the Second Amendment to protect the First Amendment.”
This weekend the group posted on social media that it would be in Covington protesting a proposed Newton County mosque Tuesday. The same group also posted a video on Facebook from the proposed mosque site Sunday, Sept. 11.
Following the militia's announcement, the BOC cancelled the Sept. 13 special called meeting, where staff members were expected to present changes to the county’s zoning ordinances. In a statement, District 3 Commissioner Nancy Schulz and District 2 Commissioner Lanier Sims both said they would vote to lift a moratorium that was placed on permits for places of worship after a 135-acre development to include a mosque and cemetery as made public.
The militia group planned to come to Newton County to protest against that decision.
“They need to let people who are denied a chance to raise their concerns, an outlet to do that,” Hill told The News. “[We want to] be there peacefully to voice opposition to the council.”Of course, this provided excellent fodder for the likes of CAIR to harvest support.
From the AJC.com write up:
“These armed bigots do not represent the people of Newton County, who are as warm and welcoming as other Georgians,” CAIR Georgia executive director Edward Ahmed Mitchell.
As of Tuesday afternoon, a spokesperson for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said Newton County had not invited the agency to get involved. A spokesperson for the local Sheriff’s Office confirmed the group was still under investigation.
The militia’s video, which was posted online over the weekend but has since been taken down, shows several members of the militia decrying Islam and allegedly trespassing on the Muslim congregation’s property to hang an American flag. The Newton County Sheriff’s Office has launched an investigation into the group.
“ …. A self-made video circulated on social media of a militia group from a neighboring county, [which] may have been trespassing on private property, and exhibiting harassing or violent behavior,” County Manager Lloyd Kerr wrote in a statement Tuesday. “Unfortunately in today’s society, uncivil threats or intentions must be taken seriously.”I will never hold it against anyone to use the tools they are given to address a grievance. That is a right enshrined from abridgment in the First Amendment of the Constitution. But if you are going to evoke the First Amendment, you cannot be selective or hypocritical in its use.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.We do not have the luxury to pick and choose what rights we reserve for one group over the other in a republic. That is the rule of law we hold dear. Jihadis and collectivist of any other stripe have that privilege and they lose the moral high ground every time because of it. When you are governed only by your emotion and popular opinion, its mercurial nature food for the mob. They are better than that. We are better than that.
I have made it no secret my personal views of Islamic Fascism. In Europe and the Middle East, the wars they wage are nothing more than another chapter in a millennia-and-a-half long war with the world. Do the citizens of Newton County have a right to be concerned about a mosque? Sure, they have the right. As self-appointed defenders of the faith, if the Georgia Security Force III% really wanted to look at this through a Christian/Western Society prism, we have brought the world kicking and screaming into the 5000 year leap through acts of good works and success. If the ideology of individual freedom is superior, and I believe it is, this mosque, or any other, is of no consequence in the market place of ideas. While having an armed protest when the meeting was cancelled is edgy and attention grabbing, preaching to an echo chamber is not compelling. It makes you, and us by extension of the name, look like every single negative stereotype an outsider can come up with.
Perhaps the most glaring problem I have with this is the apparent lack of adult supervision in this group. A meeting to discuss a mosque being built was cancelled. So as opposed to waiting until they could address their concerns to the county government, they decided to grab some attention by making it an armed protest. This is absolute narcissistic vanity on the part of their leadership and of no benefit to neither the members of the group or the good citizens of Newton County, Georgia. It accomplished absolutely nothing. They knew it and went along with it anyway. To have done this in the name of the III% is embarrassing and I cannot abide the misuse of the name.
I would go out on a limb and say that they are not familiar with the founding principles of the III% and are simply going along with a fad. If we want to wear out our welcome with the public, drive away current and future members, and hyperbole away our message of liberty, we only need to sit on our hands and say nothing. If we want to preserve or reclaim our rights and build the movement, we will need to pull in the same direction. A good first step is in policing bad behavior with those that call us ideological allies and friends.