Liberal Fascism

Rod Dreher has a post on a map someone ran up that "mashes" the Prop 8 donor list with Google. I've spent a few minutes seeing who in Fresno donated to protect marriage in Fresno, and I spotted a basketball coach and the HR manager of the local Whole Foods.

I'd be worried if I was either of those two guys, but, pretty clearly, the Whole Foods HR guy has the courage of his convictions.

Dreher writes:

Here is a Google map that allows you to find your way to the homes of people who donated money to Prop 8 in California. It's damn creepy, is what it is. What could possibly be the use of this kind of information, presented in this way? It's intended to intimidate people into not participating in politics by donating money. Do that, and you'll end up on some activist group's map, with hotheads being able to find your street address on their iPhones.

If I were any of these people, I'd be scared right now -- especially if I lived in San Francisco. And given the attacks made on Prop 8 supporters, I doubt very much I would ever give another dime to any campaign that would get me on some gay activist hate map.

The thing is, I don't believe that donors to political campaigns should be anonymous. It's just never occurred to me that people would take that information and use it in such a way as to pose a public threat to private people.

Ditto, particularly that last point.

It was not all that long ago that the Ninth Circuit upheld a RICO damage award against the "Nuremberg File", which used to list abortion providers as "wanted" posters, and cross out the names of any who had been killed or died. The Court upheld the award on the basis that the format constituted a "true threat" - the website actually threatened the abortion providers - although the site actually contained no explicit threat.

How is that different from this?

Apart from the politics, that is.