The Biggest Threat America Faces: BUTTERFLIES!

What do Qanon, butterflies, and child sex trafficking have in common?

A South Texas butterfly sanctuary will close indefinitely due to safety concerns after it was repeatedly targeted by right-wing conspiracy theorists who baselessly accused it of aiding human traffickers.

“[The] Board has decided to close the center, but continue to pay staff, for the immediate future,” National Butterfly Center Director Marianna Treviño-Wright told HuffPost on Tuesday….

The sanctuary closed from Friday to Sunday for the duration of the We Stand America border security rally nearby, headlined by QAnon conspiracy theorists and supporters of former President Donald Trump. Treviño-Wright said she received a warning from an acquaintance involved with Republican politics to be “armed at all times or out of town” during the rally because she and the park would be a target for its attendees.

Seldom has the late George Carlin’s dictum, “Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups,” been proven so correct as it has with the conspiracy theory tying the National Butterfly Center to human trafficking. If you thought the conspiracy theory accusing a DC pizzeria of sex trafficking underage children out of its non-existent basement was weird, here’s your sign.

In a whisper campaign that amounts to nothing if not stochastic terrorism, The National Butterfly Center is believed to be the nexus of cooperation with human traffickers who smuggle children across the border. The National Butterfly Center is also on land interfering with private efforts to build a border wall, which began while Donald Trump was President.

Of course, the fact that the butterfly center first sued the Trump Administration in 2017, claiming that the border wall would destroy crucial butterfly habitat, has NOTHING to do with the current hysteria. I’m sure they’re separate and unrelated issues.

Right. Yeah, sure. Youbetcha.

The center alleges that workers began work surveying their land and cutting down trees on their property without permission.

It later sued We Build the Wall, a nonprofit led by Bannon that raised more than $25 million with online fundraisers. The lawsuit accuses the organization and its founder, Brian Kolfage, of defaming the butterfly center and Treviño-Wright, and opening them up to “targeted harassment,” among other allegations about its efforts to construct the wall in Texas near the nature preserve.

Of course, like any good conspiracy theory, it’s long on cheap emotionalism and short on evidence- as in NO evidence to support their claims. Not that a shortage of proof has ever stopped QAnon types before. They’re ALL about saving the children regardless of the cost, even to the truth. And they’ll do whatever they believe needs to be done to achieve that goal- even if they can’t produce evidence proving that the problem they decry exists.

We Build The Wall, founded by Brian Kolfage and led by Steve Bannon, raised $25 million online toward constructing the private section of the wall. At least that was the plan; in August 2020, the US Justice Department indicted Kolfage and Bannon for allegedly using We Build The Wall donations for personal expenses.

Who could have seen THAT coming??

Not that a wee bit o’ legal trouble will stop conspiracy theorists from doing what conspiracy theorists do. It’s their lifeblood, their raison d’ etre.

Attendees of the We Stand America rally were also pictured at a section of the border over the weekend, toting flags and singing “Amazing Grace.” At least one man was carrying an assault rifle. According to the event page, it included a “caravan” to the border.

A week prior to the rally, a right-wing congressional candidate from Virginia, Kimberly Lowe, had visited the center, shooting videos for social media and accusing staff of being “OK with children being trafficked and raped.”….

A Republican congressional candidate from South Carolina, Lynz Piper-Loomis, posted a video of herself and Women Fighting for America founder Christie Hutcherson near the sign, saying they could see no evidence of a “threat” against the center.

And they seemed to suggest the perceived threat was against the butterflies, not the people at the park.

“We need to protect the butterflies. I agree with that. So Biden, why don’t you build the wall to protect the butterflies?” asked Hutcherson, who attended the Jan. 6, 2021 rally that preceded the Capitol riot and is described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as “a far-right religious zealot” who participates in border vigilante activities.

“Why are you more concerned about butterflies, than you are [about] little children who are being trafficked?” she added, claiming that human traffickers “use the butterfly land.”

The beautiful thing about the Far-Right is the belief that their unquestionably morally superior convictions bestow upon them the absolute right to threaten the physical safety of those not enlightened enough to share them. If this means trespassing on private property while armed, so be it. When you believe you’re on a mission from God, everything is possible, and anything goes. The laws of man don’t apply to those doing God’s work.

The problem with people like this is that they refuse to believe that alternate viewpoints might be equally valid. They’re convinced that they, and ONLY they, know the truth and that those who don’t share their beliefs are ignorant, “less than,” and unworthy of consideration.

Many of these folks are the worst sort of religious zealot- inflexible, self-righteous, totally convinced of their rectitude, and unwilling to entertain opposing viewpoints. In many cases, they’re willing to kill and, if necessary, die for their beliefs. Whether those beliefs have any factual basis is beside the point.

The truth is out there. It’s just nowhere near these masterminds.