It's apparent I can presume disagreement with any given piece I encounter on the Huffington Post, and today is no exception - since Sam Stein has given his sober, reflective thumbs-up to Attorney General Eric Holder's troublingly nebulous speech yesterday.

Hailing Holder's references to recent violence in Wichita and Washington, D.C., Stein wrote:

The brief speech - roughly seven minutes in length - was one of the sharpest denunciations of violent extremism since the recent spate of murders began.

I would've phrased it "since the recent spate of murders occurred", since there's no indication the violence marks the beginning of a nationwide Honkie Jackass Insurrection, except, evidently, in the minds of liberal-minded bloggers like Sam Stein. And, truthfully, how much grit is required - in this country, in these times - to denounce violent extremism?

In the speech, to the Washington Lawyers' Committee conference yesterday, Holder rightly committed DoJ resources to countering violence and intimidation at abortion clinics across the country. Religious fanatics for decades have made life living hell for providers guiding women through one of the most critical - and conflicted - decisions of their lives; there are few such clinics in this country not surrounded by throngs of these frothy absolutists.

"Neither our respect for the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech nor our clearest hope for common ground can justify the violence that we saw in Kansas," Holder said. "We will not tolerate murder or the threat of violence masquerading as political activism. Let me be clear, the Justice Department will use every tool at its disposal to protect the rights ensured under our constitution and we will do all that we can to deter violence against reproductive health care providers and prosecute those who use such violence to the fullest extent of the law."

OK. Fine. All well and good. There's so much here I like! But... "First Amendment guarantee of free speech"? What's that reference doing in here? What's planned? Re-establishment of Bush-era "free-speech" zones, off where protestors are quarantined, sight unseen? I wouldn't mind that for the abortion clinic harangers (don't these people have jobs?) And that's exactly what troubles me: That reaction comprises my default definition of "hate speech" - any speech I don't like.

Sooo... How deep does Holder intend this implied crackdown to go? Maybe some on the Left will get their dream-come-true - and hate crimes law will mission-creep to include "hate speech" bans. And "clearest hope for common ground" not justifying violence... wonder what he meant by that. Holder's statement is disturbing to the degree his promise of action is so obscure, unclear as to what action it will entail - or what is the exact motivation.

In the wake of these tragedies, we've seen isolated attacks by demented individuals conflated with a nonexistent, white-extremist race war. And we've seen some alarming reaction, not all as stridently dumb as U.S. News & World Report's Bonnie Erbe, calling for curbs on our long-treasured First Amendment privileges of free and open exchange of ideas:

It's not enough to prosecute these murders as murders. They are hate-motivated crimes and each of these men had been under some sort of police surveillance prior to their actions. Isn't it time we started rounding up promoters of hate before they kill?

No, Bonnie, you blighted ninny, it's not time to do that, at all. I found myself in the jarring position of agreeing with the Wall Street Journal's James Taranto (always an iffy predicament, at best), when he writes:

It's not clear if Erbe counts (Jeremiah) Wright among those who should be "rounded up." Vile as his worldview is, there is no reason to think he has violent tendencies. Maybe her mention of him simply is a tangent designed to show that she deplores left-wing as well as right-wing bigotry. If so, that is to her credit.

...As far as we remember, even after 9/11 no one seriously suggested that "hate speech" against the U.S. government should be a crime. It took an attack on a much smaller scale to bring that un-American idea into the open.

For Erbe, there's the matter of "speech that beckons" - prevails upon the soft-headed and foolish to commit violent acts. There may be some truth in that. We honestly don't know what may provoke killers to bloom; in 1930s Hamburg, a serial killer who thought himself a vampire was inspired by the then-new Disney film, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." And it's not wise to shout "fire" in a crowded theatre - although no one really lives in crowded theatres.

But are these latest shootings, as awful and repellant as they are, harbingers of some vast Right-wing offensive? Is hate crime such a crisis in this country that we would diminish or out-right junk one of the premiere rights that has defined us - unfettered free speech? 

Old-school civil rights stand-by, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, has released its report this week, "Confronting the New Faces of Hate: Hate Crimes in America 2009" that's long on specious statistics citing ever-increasing rates of hate crimes, especially against illegal immigants, but its text is short on citations of actual, serious crimes that rate crisis-level status in a country of 300-plus million. In a telling passage:

These data almost certainly understate the true number of hate crimes committed in our nation. Victims may be fearful of authorities and thus may not report these crimes. Some local authorities may not accurately classify these violent incidents as hate crimes and thus fail to report them to the federal government.

There's an alternative to that appraisal: These crimes are not hate crimes. But the mere suggestion of burgeoning crypto-Klans was enough for the Washington Post; without bothering to look into the report's figures itself, the newspaper headlined its story on the LCCREF report with "Immigration Debate Tied to Rise in Hate Crimes". Case closed. 

There's a pragmatic reason for all these fire-bells in the night: This week the Senate has indicated it may act on House-passed enhancement of federal hate crimes legislation, a move supported by Holder. Hate crimes bills have become sacred stuff for the liberal-Left, and even to suggest such criminalization of thought might be unnecessary - and unwise - courts accusations of racism. Even Fox News has given the bill a very fair wrap.

Six years ago, this country, believing spurious claims and dubious arguments, fabrications and distortions, needlessly made war on a country and stumbled into what has been called the "greatest strategic disaster in this nation's history". Fair appraisal of the Iraq War.

Next time we "go large", we make war, we blow huge amounts of money, or crap on our own Constitution - let's make sure we're doing it out of necessity. Let's make sure the facts are straight. Let's make sure there really is a crisis of hate crimes that should impel us to institute obnoxious "hate speech" laws. Manufactured hysteria is never, ever a sound impetus.

This country's history of racism and ethnic conflict is shameful and bloody. It should be approached with a lot more care than that shown lately by the Right - and the Left.