Secret Service says number of threats against president 'overwhelming'

[Jackpine Radical]

31. I took it to mean the same thing you did.

And I think that's maybe how it was meant. Surely there are more threats pouring in than they can actually investigate, so they would have to prioritize, taking not of which ones are the most dangerous, directly or otherwise.

As an example of a not-very-dangerous threat, I might cite the example of a chronic schizophrenic somewhere on a locked ward, convinced that God wants him to kill the President.

Threats that become public, such as Twitter or other social-media threats, should be quite a few notches up on the priority scale. Even if the individuals making the threats are unlikely to carry out physical harm, they are poisoning the public discourse and countenancing a sick norm in which the notion of assassination becomes more acceptable.

Not knowing the circumstances of the present case, I'm in no position to judge whether the right action was taken. Neither is anybody on this bord, unless they have specific knowledge about the events and personalities.

But when it comes down to it, ya know, its the ones who harbor dark thoughts, brood in their basements, fill their heads with Beck, Liddy & Savage, and give no outward signal of their intentions that I worry about the most.