Evil Comes to Florida

With the Republican National Convention just one week away and both political parties posturing for the final countdown to November 6, 2012 the heat is rising. Evil has reared its ugly head this past week. From the shooting at the Family Research Council (FRC) to the vandalism of a billboard in Venice, Florida evil is ever present. Floyd Lee Corkins was the shooter at the FRC offices. He was there not as a crazed gunman but as a political opponent of the ideas and ideals of the FRC.

Corkins entered the FRC office building with fifteen bags of Chick-Fil-A and multiple hand guns to send a clear message of terror to anyone who opposes the gay lifestyle. The idea was to shoot at least fifteen people and symbolically leave a Chick-Fil-A bag next to each body. This act of domestic terror was preceded by a vandal spray painting a hate-filled message on a Chick-Fil-A store in Frederick, Maryland.

On Friday, August 17, 2012 a billboard was erected by the local Republican party in Venice, Florida with a simple message: “Repeal Obama”. On Sunday, August 19th that sign was discovered vandalized. Many people are fearful, given the events at the Family Research Council, that violence may follow. The target may be just fifty miles North of Venice in Tampa, the city hosting the Republican National Convention.

Barbara Vaughn a citizen of Sarasota County noted in an email, “Whoever the perpetrators are, they’re not just kids up to no good.  This was a carefully planned effort requiring tools, equipment and at least 3-4 people.  Somebody paid for the tools and equipment and I suspect the vandals were paid to do it.”

Joe Gruters, Chairman of the Republican Party of Sarasota, stated, “People can think what they want about what is on the sign but these type of actions have no place in America especially in Sarasota, Florida. Countless Americans have sacrificed their lives to protect our rights including our 1st Amendment right of free speech and I call on democrat leaders and President Obama to condemn this senseless act. I am very disappointed.”

Residents and businesses in Tampa are waiting to see if violence follows vandalism at the Republican National Convention. In 2008 a plot was uncovered to bomb the convention. Several groups led by the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) plan protests. An SDS group calling themselves the Weather Underground conducted terrorist attacks, including the bombing of the Pentagon, during the 1960s.  The Occupy movement also plans protests. The Occupy the RNC official website uses warlike phrases and refers to the “Weather Underground”.  The question is: Will the protesters become violent or even deadly?

CNN’s Erick Erickson notes in his column “Evil Preaches Tolerance“, “Evil preaches tolerance until it is dominant. Then it tries to silence good. There is nothing new under the sun and what we are seeing here is nothing new, just a change. Tolerance has been redefined to mean accept and it is no longer enough to have values. The values must be the correct values.”

The Republican National Convention will take place in Tampa, Florida from August 27-30, 2012.

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