A few of my Facebook “friends” have joined a group called 304,059,724 Against Obama’s Healthcare Takeover. I was curious about the seemingly random number, so I clicked through.

What I found is hardly news, but it’s still disturbing. The Republican elected officials who claim that the bigoted hatred on display at this weekend’s protests in DC is just the view of a few “fringe” individuals are either in denial, out-of-touch, or flat out lying.

I collected a few screengrabs of the most eye-popping comments found on just this one page in the past hour, on one family-friendly, mainstream website. I’m sure the dark, conspiratorial corners of the web are much scarier. Melissa Harris-Lacewell’s proposition that this incipient movement represents a challenge to the legitimacy of the state may seem far-fetched… but I’m not so sure she’s wrong.