Evolution of a Political Story: Jules Manson

Apparently, a man named Jules Manson posted a message on his Facebook page this morning calling (in racist language) for the assassination of the president and his family.

This is bad, stupid, and not incidentally a felony. He took the message down, but of course it was preserved.  What has not been preserved is the truth, in various headlines now appearing, of who he is.

Who is this fellow? He’s a (failed?) engineer living in a trailer park complaining because the trailer park owner increased the rent. He describes himself as having been a Republican and a Democrat in the past, but is no longer a member of a political party — but calls himself Libertarian and a “constitutional conservative.”

He ran for a very minor office several months ago, campaigning to be elected to the Carson city council. That attempt failed. While his Facebook page has been taken down, I looked at his website used for the campaign. In his main posts about his positions, he lists the rent and utilities issues among the main things that caused him to try to run for office. At no point does he mention the Tea Party, and he doesn’t like either of the two main parties out there.

I read all the comments to his website — there were very few. Other than his brother, there was one approving, one disapproving (noting the inconsistency of being a conservative and being for rent control), and one calling him a fraud.

He describes his campaign work and political activity, and does not (that I could see) mention the Tea Party at all.

Lots of people try for city council and don’t make it. That’s no big deal. But after his ugly post this morning, he appeared in the news. Do they describe him as a local guy living in a trailer park? At first, but then, as his action could be made to make others look bad, he was promoted.

He became “a failed politician.”

Then he was a “Ron Paul supporter”: Ron Paul Supporter Jules Manson Calls For Obama Assassination

Then he became: “Tea Party Darling Jules Manson Calls for Assassination of Obama and Family”

Then he evolved and was promoted further, to “Tea Party Leader.”

The interesting thing is that the Tea Party groups throw out racists quickly whenever they appear, and would not have tolerated someone speaking the way this fellow did this morning. Anyone can show up at a Tea Party gathering, of course, but I saw no evidence that this fellow had done that. Politically, he’s rather confused.

According to past comments, he was “pointedly anti-Tea Party.”

So, maybe he was a religious nut and could be blamed on the Religious Right? Ah, not exactly. The same Jules Manson was the editor of “SupportAtheism.com” and apparently has been ranting about race for a long time. He is a follower, it seems, of various leftist conspiracies.

But the key question is this: Does the Tea Party promote or tolerate racism? The answer, of course, is no — as has been demonstrated by the attempts of the Left to infiltrate the Tea Party to hold up racist signs, and getting booted for their trouble.

So, this “Tea Party leader” “right-wing” “religious nut” “Republican” “politician” seems to be absolutely none of the above, unless you stretch the notion of “politician” to mean “I ran for city council one time.”

You will likely see a lot of this fellow’s idiot comment this morning, but some background, I thought, might be useful.

UPDATE (Combined material from the next post):

The current editor of SupportAtheism.com notes that Jules Manson was removed from that organization for similar racist behavior.

But he also complains that characterizing Manson as “Tea Party” is wrong:

Greetins Mr. Mo,

FYI, Jules was removed from his association with SupportAtheism.com and the affiliated Atheist months ago due to similar racist behavior.

We have a zero tolerance policy for racism in our community.

But, also I can say from knowing Jules a bit in a professional capacity and reviewing some of his submissions that were political – that he was his own weird extreme kind of libertarian – as far as I know – and granted I removed him and blocked him months ago – he does not identify as a Tea Party member, and in fact spoke derisively of them.

His behavior is reprehensible and perhaps deserves the level of pushback he is getting – but unless he has changed in the last few months- the attempt to paint him as a Tea Party enthusiast is dishonest and short sighted. If anything Jules identifies as a libertarian of an individualistic variety.

I despise the Tea Party, am disgusted by Jules’ behavior, and find hardcore Libertarians to be as guilty of starry eyed idealistic magical thinking as some theists – but I am a big fan of honesty and getting the facts straight.

Best Wishes,

Jacob Kramer
Senior Editor and Co-Founder.
SupportAtheism.com

The reply to this statement is that Kramer is wrong, basically because if the man hates Obama, he must be part of the Tea Party whether he likes the Tea Party or not. Similarly, if the Tea Party ever expressed support for him, then he is a Tea Party member. Leftist logic, I suppose: a poor structure built upon a false premise. Using that same process, you could … never mind.

There is more back-and-forth, but the man with the facts is ignored by the person with the feeling that he MUST be a Tea Party guy.  The proof?  This image, apparently:

Since this indicates that he’s affiliated with GreeneWave (a blog that seems to assert that Pat Tillman was assassinated by the Bush Administration) and SupportAtheism, he must be part of the the conservative, generally Christian Tea Party.

And this militant atheist Bush-hating conspiracy-mongering racist who wants rent control and price controls is nothing to do with the Left, no sir!  (In fact, he’s all over the place, politically; he was described as “his own unique kind of libertarian” by the SupportAtheism editor.
UPDATE: The site that broke this story originally is called the “Democrat Examiner” — and apparently, Jules Manson is also a columnist there.  Manson has now appeared and apologized for his comment:

Once you have taken the position that anyone should be imprisoned for careless emotionally driven remarks that had no real substance, you deserve what your government has become. All I can really say is to be careful what you wish for because setting such a precedence can come back to bite you. I have felt deeply regretful and apologized for my past mistakes. Can you do the same? (Jules Manson at the Democrat Examiner website)

The original comment was in extremely bad taste, unarguably racist and inciting in nature … but was more of a rhetorical than direct threat, it seems to me.  We’ll see what happens. Most of the people on the Democrat Examiner site are calling for him to go to jail, not realizing that his positions are closer to their than would be comfortable.

UPDATE (12/20/2011): Marmoe spotted an actual article on the Democrat Examiner site (now scrubbed, but preserved here) showing that Jules Manson was a columnist for the site.  So there is an “internal feud” aspect to this story that might have its own story, though it can hardly be to blame for Manson’s original intemperate idiocy.

===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle