Okay, immigrant-bashing Kansas secretary of state Kris Kobach hasn't compared the protesters who gathered outside his front door on Saturday to Hitler -- but he's come close. Yesterday he imagined shooting them, as he told Fox News:
The secretary of state is a staunch supporter of the Second Amendment -- and he said the incident at his home is an example of why Americans should bear arms.Subsequently, he was interviewed by Glenn Beck, and he and Beck agreed that the protesters were comparable to the Klan:
"If we had been in the home and not been armed, I would have felt very afraid -- because it took the police 15 minutes to show up," he said. "It's important we recognize there's a reason we have the Second Amendment. There are situations like this where you have a mob and you do need to be able to protect yourself."
He said had they been home and the mob had gotten out of hand, his family would have been in "grave jeopardy."
"The Second Amendment is the private property owner's last resort," he said.
Beck show[ed] a video of the protest and ask[ed], "What’s the difference between that and the Klan coming to Martin Luther King’s house?"Want to see what was so intimidating? This is what was so intimidating:
"This is not just domestic terrorism, this is civil rights stuff," he added. "This isn't America. This is old-style South kind of tactics."
... Beck finally got on the phone with Kobach, who agreed with him about the demonstrators: "They're just not wearing white cloaks, but this is exactly KKK type of intimidation."
Video streaming by Ustream
People standing in the rain under umbrellas and chanting. Speakers making speeches. Children milling about. All asking to be treated like human beings in this country. Doing so by leaving shoes outside Kobach's door:
The immigration reform advocates crowded the street and driveway outside Kobach's home and lined up pair after pair of black shoes at his doorstep.Yeah, just like the Klan.
The shoes, protestors said, represented families who had been torn apart through deportations since 2008.
(Via Talking Points Memo and Salon.)