The dangers of conspiracy theory

We shouldn't castigate everyone who believes unusual things, because sometimes those unusual things turn out to be true. Besides, interesting people often display a weakness for the outre. Some people, alas, are "interesting" in the same sense that Lucifer is interesting.

Take Shawna Forde, whom I first learned about via Red Dragon. RD quotes a HeraldNet news story:

Shawna Forde believed organized criminals operating at the border between the U.S. and Mexico posed one of the greatest threats to the nation's security.

Drug traffickers. Human smugglers.

The Everett woman was convinced they were helping terrorists sneak radioactive "dirty bomb" materials into the U.S. She feared the federal government was in league with the United Nations and allowing what amounted to an illegal-immigrant invasion.

In a May 20 "border report" posted on the Web site of her Minutemen American Defense group, Forde warned readers that soon "you will walk out your door and think you were just transplanted into Mexico."

Forde spent much of the past three years scouring the Arizona desert for signs of criminals.

Now, she finds herself behind bars, the focus of a double murder investigation in Arizona with potential connections to a home invasion robbery in California and other crimes in Washington.

Forde and her troop decided to fund their anti-immigrant crusade by robbing people they considered drug peddlers, which is one of the stupider ways to earn extra cash ever devised. They chose to invade a home in Arivaca, Arizona, whose occupants (as far as I know) may not have had anything to do with the drug trade. But Raul Flores and his wife did have a 9 year old daughter named Brisenia. She was killed in the resultant shoot-out; so was Raul. The mother is in the hospital.

If you want to hear the 911 call, go here.

Forde, I am happy to report, was caught.

"This is a very unusual woman," said Clarence Dupnik, Pima County Sheriff. "I don't really know what goes on in her mind, but she is obviously a very evil person. If you look at her history closely, and you know what we know, she is, at best, a psychopath."

She may have engineered previous home invasion robberies in California and elsewhere.

RD adds the kicker:

Do you suppose Fox News or Michelle Malkin will condemn these animals? Maybe Lou Dobbs or Hannity will come out and condemn these animals for their crimes?

Doubt it!

As you can see from the date, these murders occurred May 30th. and not one National piece has been done to bring this crime to light! Not one word from Dobbs. Nothing from that idiot Malkin! Not a peep from the Fox News people. Not a word!

Yes, I'm running way late myself. But a comparison -- which should have been immediately obvious -- suddenly commandeered my thoughts:

The entire nation (correctly) focused both attention and rage on James von Brunn, the racist maniac who shot a security guard in the Holocaust Museum. Shawna Forde was another murderer motivated by racism. Are you learning about her for the first time here?