Dylan Hales

April 17, 2009

According to a threat assessment released by the wholly unnecessary Department of Homeland Security, 

“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.”

While the term conservative was bastardized long ago by the very movement that shares its name, it now looks as if conservative principles may in fact be on the verge of outright criminalization by the national government.

If the intention of this report was to document a pattern of behavior for profiling purposes, it is now the official policy of the United States government that those that look toward decentralism as a political goal are in fact potential terrorists.  Following this line of thinking to its logical conclusion, someone who regards the massive devolution of state power as a political, social and moral necessity might be a candidate for extraordinary rendition, Bill Kauffman is akin to Osama Bin Laden and anyone who bitches about school consolidation proposals is dangerously close to committing treason.

Of course none of this should surprise anyone.  An extra-Constitutional department, fully staffed by bureaucrats desperate to justify their own jobs, is not going to look kindly upon Constitutional restraints or rhetoric.  Furthermore a federal government overflowing with diversity mandates and sensitivity training is not exactly fertile ground for those that actually regard the term “National Interest” as something more than a hollow platitude. 

By the same token, “movement” figures seeking to latch themselves onto the budding Tea Party movement, ought to ask themselves if their perpetual defense of the President responsible for the very Department that now regards them as an American Al Qaeda was worth it.