last night on hardball, chris matthews interviewed stewart rhodes, the founder of a group called the oath keepers, a group of military people, police officers, firefighters etc. who are pledging themselves not to obey orders that directly violate the constitution: for example, to disarm the american people or to round people up into concentration camps. now i do not really know anything about who these folks are or how many people are taking these pledges, etc. some of the items seem more reasonable or right to me than others.

but matthews was at his absolute worst in this interview. he just berated the guy as a crazy person, and went on and on, pointedly not allowing rhodes to respond. then he ended with "i'll defend to the death your right to say whatever you want," while pointedly not allowing rhodes to speak or listening to what he was saying. he portrayed the oath keepers as a an armed militia or vigilante group, whereas that does not appear to be the idea at all: they are saying what they won't use their weapons for, not threatening anyone as an armed force.

to the extent that he was able to respond, rhodes's positions were things that matthews, for one, would entirely support, except that even the mainstream left is just flatly, happily totalitarian at this moment, because they have the power. matthews is like: 'what are you taking about? concentration camps? do you really think that that can happen here?' rhodes: 'well it has happened here: remember when the u.s. government interned japanese americans? was that a good idea? maybe people shouldn't have participated. it can happen anywhere. glance at history' etc. matthews was like: what is the government you people are always talking about? there's congress or the executive, dems and repubs: there is no the american government. rhodes: 'well, who passed the patriot act? it was completely bipartisan. was that an abuse of government power? think about all the abuses of executive power during the bush/cheney administration.'

matthews just kept saying "crazy right-wingers"; rhodes just kept saying things that any leftist who is not an inyourface totalitarian should certainly agree with - things, i want to say, that are plainly true - without making a dent. and it's the exactly-right approach: obedience to evil orders is the source of the greatest disasters human beings have ever inflicted on each other. matthews waved even that off, saying that "everyone knows this 'ilegal orders' stuff: it's already built in." yeah sorta. but are you out of your mind?