Weeding the Garden

Over the last few months*, I have had the pleasure of starting a garden. It has not been nearly as easy a process as I thought it would be, but it has also been immensely more rewarding than I ever would have suspected. I am no green-thumb, and my goal was simple: Don't kill anything. I wish I could say that I succeeded, but an infestation of mites forced my hand with the snow peas, may they rest in peace, and I have been forced to replant.

Why am I talking about my garden? Because useful and convenient metaphors are at a premium these days, and it has taken months of labor, fighting fungi, unnamed diseases, worms, pests, weeds, and mother nature for the analogy to finally dawn on me. The Department of Homeland Security report on Rightwing Extremism** has caused quite a stir in the conservative community; one that I believe is both unnecessary and undesirable. The report does make mention of legitimate threats, and I am not the only one on the right to realize this. Charles at Little Green Footballs has been very good about keeping up with the many times that the DHS report on right-wing extremist threats has proved to be right. (He has also done an excellent job defending the realities of the report.) I, too, weighed in on this conversation some time back. And in light of recent events, it is time to write again.

The mainline conservative response to the issue has been abominable. Conservatives of every stripe are pretending that there are no weeds in the garden. Actually, the better analogy is this: There exist all manner of worms that lay dormant in the soil until a healthy plant begins to grow. As the plant grows and thrives in the fertile soil, the worms awake from their dormancy and begin to attack the plant, sucking the life from it. They leave tell-tale marks where they have chewed their way through the plant, weakening it. If not dealt with quickly, these worms may take down a green and fruitful plant, reducing it to a withered brown and yellow heap. If, on the other hand, the gardener is attentive to the signs, he can take swift action and poison the worms before they have a chance to do much damage.

So it is with the conservative movement. Much like a garden, it is host to all variety of plants, many that do not even get along very well with one another. The soil is fertile, we are all nourished by the ideas of the many men and women of genius that have come before us. However, there are, and always will be, weeds in the garden and worms in the soil. Alongside good men and good ideas, there are things of shame lurking in the garden of which we must be mindful. Let to run loose, the worms and weeds will destroy our garden, and if we are not attentive, they will do much damage before we even realize it.

The worms and the weeds are many, and one only has to look over the events of the last few weeks to see them in action: the murderer of Dr. Tiller and the murderer at the Holocaust Museum both flew the conservative flag. There are others still lurking, and all sensible conservatives who love life and liberty must band together to pull out these and lay them bare to the sun. Once they and their roots are exposed, they will wither and die. If we are to keep our garden safe, we must be as wary of threats from the outside as we are of threats from within. So, to the health of the garden of conservatism, please stop pretending that there are no weeds! Instead, let's all get down on our hands and knees and start weeding. As a gardener I can say with surety, it is soul-cleansing to tear out the bad, then watch it wither and die as the good grows, flourishes, and bears its fruit.

* I live in sunny Florida, where the last threat of a freeze happens in February, and temperatures are consistently in the 70s by March, when I began it. I'm sorry you live in , but remember that the price of admission to Eden includes geriatric New Yorkers, sweltering summers that last from April through October, incessant Mickey Mouse jokes, the occasional hurricane, and (recently added!) a housing market that rivals Nevada and SoCal for tops on the abysmal charts each month. Come join the fun!

** Pardon the HuffPo link; they have an uploaded copy of the original DHS report on this page, which is the only copy I've found. Reading through it, it is not nearly as inflammatory as it has been made out to be by the right.