More on the Pitts death threats

In the entry I did on Leonard Pitts receiving death threats after a white supremacist posted his personal information on his website I remarked, "This should be illegal, as this is a standard harassment tactic of white supremacists and extremist groups."

Today, Dave Neiwert has blogged about this, and he adds

What's much harder to explain, exactly, is why White hasn't been charged with making threats against Pitts. It is difficult to read White's words and not comprehend them as an exhortation to violence and a threat against Pitts.This is not a free-speech issue. Threats and intimidation are crimes in every state, and a crime by its nature is not a form of protected speech. I'm not certain why authorities haven't taken White's threats seriously, but their inaction, unfortunately, speaks volumes. If this were George Will being threatened by a Nation of Islam figure, you know you'd have seen the perp walk already.

Additionally, Neiwert provides info on White's history of fomenting violence and a link to Atrios which has even more background on White.

And I added in the comments, here, some additional links further highlighting White's pattern of targeting individuals for elimination and the disgusting pride he is taking in the death threats that Pitts has received.

Also, a bit interesting, at least from a sociological point of view, "Whiteman" - a white nationalist commenter who frequents Orcinus - offers this bit of insight:

"White nationalists consider Bill White a gov't operative who gets away with illegal behaviour in the hopes that others will do the same, thinking they'll get away with it too."

I've encountered this before, having had a white nationalist tell me that the government has infiltrated and controls the KKK in order to make white nationalists look bad for propaganda purposes, and the government has also done the same with the militia movement; at which point said nationalist accused me of being a government operative.

Recall that when dealing with the extreme right-wing we are fully dealing with the paranoid mind.