Ralph Reed is the Born Again Christian with a boyish face who just missed going to jail a few years ago when investigations into Lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s Indian Casino scandal exposed Reed as an inveterate Washington insider whose lobbying efforts were just on the cusp illegal. They were certainly deceitful.
Reed got his start in the 80s as one of the prime shakers of the Christian Coalition breaking down the separation of Church and State. Here he is promising to “raze” the I.R.S. building in Washington D.C. at this week’s Faith And Freedom Conference. He talks of “killing” the I.R.S. and leaving the IRS building “in rubble” as a “monument to future generations” about the importance of liberty.
When asked if Jews should pay taxes Jesus said, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” Jesus believed in paying taxes, but apparently Ralph Reed knows better than Jesus.
Billow of smokes after a domestic terrorist flew his plane into an Austin, Texas IRS building in 2010.
Ralph is all smiles, but underneath it all Reed is sending out a dog whistle to his evangelical faithful to act against our government. Homeland Security should take note of this. We should all remember Andrew Joseph Stack III, 53, of north Austin, Texas who flew his single-engine fixed-wing Piper PA-28-236 into an I.R.S. building in Austin, Texas killing himself as well as several other IRS employees back in February of 2010. Stack left behind a screed attacking the IRS, especially the tax code, and said he had been left with no choice but to use his plane to set things right. This was an act of domestic terrorism, incited by right wing charlatans like Ralph Reed who demonize the I.R.S. to score political points and money.
Whether Ralph Reed was serious about “razing” the I.R.S. building is not the point. This is about the rising tide of careless speech from right wing demagogues who are energizing their violent base. Cloaking yourself in religion while waving a lit flame in front of a pile of gas soaked gun toting rags, like the pile of vile rags listening to Reed at the Faith and Freedom Conference, will lead to something really, really bad.
Imams have been questioned by the FBI for suggesting far less. Flip the script: Had Ralph Reed been a Muslim leader, not a Christian leader, he’d be put on a watch list and brought in for questioning. Instead he makes millions as a lobbyist wandering the very halls of congress he so wantonly incites his followers to attack.
The ultra right is ultra dangerous. Take two minutes to watch this and decide whether or not Reed should be brought in for questioning: