4/14/09

The Department of Homeland Security...

lists people opposed to abortion as potential "right wing extremists".

From page 2 of their recent report.

Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.

Some time ago I spoke of how social and political conservatives eager to give the last President sweeping powers in the name of fighting "terrorism" were placing themselves in danger because Presidents, and their vision of what the word "terrorist" means can change and the power we thought we gave the President to fight one kind of person can easily be applied at home to people and groups unpopular with whatever Administration is in power.

Well, it looks like that has happened. We were willing to give a person our civil rights for the illusion of safety and now the table has turned.



1 comment:

William Harrington said...

Its scary times. For a while now I've been seeing incremental steps to accomplish subtly what the soviets tried to accomplish with brute force. My feeling is that those with a statist agenda would accomplish their goal without waking religious people up (The church that the Soviets had to deal with was newly awakened, freed from czarist control and resurgent). It looks very much as though believers and traditionalists have been awakened so I expect we will begin to see blunter tactics, like the list of right wing extremists. Ah well, rejoice and be exceedingly glad, even if things do get bad. We can't show Christ to the world if we are asleep and if it takes this kind of stuff to wake us up, then it is a blessing.