DHS Report on Extremism long on extreme and short on report....

After the initial furor a few days ago about the release of a Government report on Right Wing extremism, fueled in no small part by Rush Limbaugh's segment about this, I felt it would be wise to see what was actually in the report. After all, it's easy to criticize and comment on something you have never seen, and the definition of the Conservative is the person who chooses to do for themselves and not to follow the pack (actually that's only one definition, and it's buried down three quarters of the way on the somewhat lengthy list of definitions....).

After doing some looking around I found the actual document readily available over at WIKILEAKS, which, it seems, might become a valuable site to visit more often. Time will tell. I went ahead and downloaded the relatively small PDF file and sat down to breeze through the document.

The first and most glaring thing that comes across is the American Recovery and Re-investment Act - sized vagueness of the report. This is not an internal memo from the DHS to, say, the President of the United States, wherein you might figure that a certain amount of short-hand could be used. After all, I do not bother when chatting with a co-worker to define in detail aspects of the product we work with, I expect them to know (my being perennially let down on this count notwithstanding...). No, this report is expected and says so to be distributed across the country to law enforcement officials as a guideline for dealing with Right Wing Extremists.

But it can't be bothered to define what Right Wing Extremism means. This is likely the single largest complaint in the entire document. It has NO UNDERSTANDING of its subject, and by refusing to declare the parameters opens itself up to Robin Williams-esque interpretative levels. This is why those that DID read it earlier in the week were quick to point out that regular everyday citizens doing the job of regular everyday questioning our beneficent and all-giving overlord, could easily be interpreted as Right Wing Extremists. Because of lack of definition.

The next thing is the magnificently questionable manner in which the authors decide that this decade is very similar to the 1990s, and use the economy as an example.

WHAAAAAAT?

Maybe I was in the wrong decade.... I seem to recall our problems lately having been the result of 25 years of Reagan-Era economics grinding to a halt in the span of a two year period immediately following the Democrats' taking control of the House and Congress. Clinton enjoyed a prosperous era fueled by two preceding presidents who actively sought to encourage free market values. His biggest concerns, apart from the re-usability of a blue dress and his good 'ol boy attitude toward things, was how the hell he was gonna get laid tomorrow night without the Ice Queen finding out.

This decade is just a little different in pretty much every single respect.

The next problem with this report is one that keeps coming up, and it keeps coming up on the side of the Left, not the right.

RACISM!

I'm not about to sanctify all Conservatives as completely disinterested in racial aspects, but seriously, I have yet to hear a single person object to hussein's skin color. Except for the Liberal Left, who spent much of the campaign last summer wringing their hands in fear that the Right would refuse to vote for a black (mulatto) man. The Left are the ones who have been vocally making the associations. And in fact while strenuously denying that race was a factor in the election all along, which the Right was, frankly, getting annoyed with hearing repeated ad nauseum as if we were campaigning on a racial platform.... it was the Left that began going on at length about the Historic nature of the presidency from Election day on through to this report.

Those guys are more scared of having a negro in office than we are.

Umm... was I not supposed to use that word?

The report then goes on to blame pending and restrictive gun-control as a reason for alarm that extremism may be rising. They cite the increase in purchases of guns for this. The fact that that is a free market model... a product on the marketplace is about to become scarce so people want to get their hands on it while it's still there. Intent is a whole lot different than procurement... or another way to put it would be... "Guns don't kill people, but we still have the constitutional right to bear arms.".

Anti-Semitic behavior is thrown in the mix as well. To be sure "blame the Jews" can be said to have been the prevailing sentiment at one time, but largely speaking that time was 1930s Germany. The only person currently displaying a public dislike for Jews in the United States is our president, who is distancing himself from Israel like a former lover finding out their partner has just been diagnosed with AIDS.

So once again, the authors are projecting their own Leftists fears into the report.

The historical election. I know,I already mentioned it, but so does the report. It continues to harp on the subject giving it far more credence than the Right does.

Illegal Immigration - Apart from the fact that that phrase has no legitimate meaning in the real world... you can not be an immigrant if you came here illegally... that just makes you an illegal alien... this may be the closest to resembling accuracy the report gets. But sincerely afraid of being portrayed as something less than spastically alarmist the report enjoyably goes on to spout it's most asinine phrase....

"Debates over appropriate immigration levels and enforcement policy
generally fall within the realm of protected political speech under the First Amendment,
but in some cases, anti-immigration or strident pro-enforcement fervor has been directed
against specific groups and has the potential to turn violent."

In other words, if you specifically do not like the flow of Mexicans, for example, into the US illegally, you risk illegal speak. Your rights as an American become are protected so long as you follow the report's path of massive vagueness.

I'm loving that the DHS is now empowered with determining that some speech is legal and some is not. Because I advocate tossing squatters out of the country does not mean I am going out into the street to burn down their government-bought homes... it just means I advocate tossing the bums out of the country. But I suppose I'm threatening to turn violent just now... or maybe I'll go read the gas meter like my wife just asked me to.

The political and social rise of other countries - This is an interesting one. There is a legitimate fear of the influence of foreign powers usurping control of the United States. We MIGHT feel a little better if we didn't serve under the yoke of a president who is handing those powers the reins to the country, but again, we see this as a political solution. No need to go shooting up a Taco Bell when we can just vote the idiots out of office. It';s cheaper and involves less jail time.

Disgruntled military vets - ummm... whatever. This one's been pretty well parsed already.

So in conclusion, the report goes way out of its way to give reasons for most Americans to be upset with the government, makes vague and ill-considered logical conclusions without benefit of context, It identifies with anything resembling specificity a grand total of 11 people involved in "Right Wing Extremism" over the past twenty some years, seeks to tarnish anybody who is concerned with the country's freedom as a potential source of concern, and ignores that many of the issues raised are in fact the same kinds of issues that generated the Constitution of the United States of America. Except for that negro president thing...

Oh yeah, and it also touched briefly on religion, but relegated it to "end-time" mythology, so it could just be referring to the Mayan calendar, which suggests hussein will be our president at the end of the world.

I'm Dr. Calamity and I approve this message.