No, it isn’t. In any case, for Og’s sake, don’t you want the FBI or DHS or some law enforcement agency at least keeping an eye on anyone who stockpiles an arsenal?! That’s just common sense!
What constitutes an arsenal? Does this term have a definition in law?
I’ve already noted all the conditional, suppositious, and subjunctive weasel words. Much of the “supporting evidence” is talk about the 1990s.
The smear against returning veterans is based on an undisclosed FBI report that “some” veterans (undisclosed how many) had joined “extremist groups” (undisclosed if this means NRA, groups patrolling to report illegal immigrants, KKK), and on a report from the SPLC (who has every vested interest in fanning the flames of a VRWKKKC) that “large numbers” of extremists and racists were training in the military [HTF would they know?]." Certainly there’s no cite from, say, the DoD or the various military CIS branches, who might be in a better position to provide such information if it existed).
What Mr. Moto said, and under no f’ing circumstance, no I don’t.
Certainly, a lot of the outrage is just standard political pushback. To the extent that some of the offense on the right is genuine, however, I think one of the reasons may be that the summary is written some places to sound more inclusive than it presumably means to be. I.e., saying that “right-wing extremists are concerned with {the economic downturn}{immigration}” is being read as “everyone on the right who is concerned with those issues is an extremist.” The report goes on to say how some groups are using those economic or immigration-related fears to galvanize their particular hatred, but it’s not clear that the more general observations were necessary.
To wit: “Rightwing extremist chatter on the Internet continues to focus on the economy, the perceived loss of U.S. jobs in the manufacturing and construction sectors, and home foreclosures.” I mean, I’m sure that’s true, but that also describes any news outlet.
Or: “Rightwing extremists were concerned during the 1990s with the perception that illegal immigrants were taking away American jobs through their willingness to work at significantly lower wages. They also opposed free trade agreements, arguing that these arrangements resulted in Americans losing jobs to countries such as Mexico.” But a lot of people opposed NAFTA for that reason.
And this statement seems open to misinterpretation: “It [Rightwing extremism] may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.” Are they saying that some anti-abortion or anti-immigration groups are included in the definition, or are they saying that some single-issue groups are included, and anti-abortion and anti-immigration groupsin general are examples of that sort of single-issue groups? In other words, do they consider all pro-life groups to be rightwing extremists? In my view, that’s not what they’re saying, but I think that passage could have been more clearly written.
Remember that the current report is just a summary. I haven’t read the other report, but perhaps that explains some of the differences you’re seeing.
Is there a law that requires a legal definition? Whose rights are being abrogated?
It’s funny that those who had no problem with warrantless wiretapping, suspension of Habeas Corpus, and basically unlimited spying on anyone with a vaguely Arabic name or olive complexion now suddenly have a problem with the feds keeping a wary on White Supremacist groups.
Show me a right that’s being abridged.
It’s not a “smear” if it’s true.
Not everyone in a housing project is a drug dealer, but there are a disproportionate number of drug dealers in certain housing projects. If the police decide to patrol these projects more heavily in order to watch for dealers, that’s completely unobjectionable.
Not everyone who stockpiles guns and ammunition is a dangerous wingnut, but there are a disproportionate number of dangerous wingnuts among weapons stockpilers. If the FBI decides to keep an eye on these groups to watch for the wingnuts, as long as they’re not violating fourth amendment protections, that should also be completely unobjectionable.
(Similarly, if they decide to take down license plate numbers at Earth First! gatherings in order to try to track down Animal Liberation Front arsonists, who would object?)
First, as-applied policies that have a constraining effect on a right found to be consititutionally sacrosanct are subject to strict scrutiny. Liberals better hope they are, because that’s the rationale for invalidating, say, parental notification laws for abortion on the grounds that they have a “chilling effect” on exercise of that “fundamental right.”
The right then is the right of the people to keep and bear arms without worrying that the government’s complying a naughty list of who has “too many.” Does it win at the Supreme Court? Maybe/not. But the analysis is by no means far out there constitutionally or on policy grounds.
FTR, I didn’t support any of GWB’s conduct in the aspects you mention, though at least as to the non-citizen “combatants” I had incrementally less of a problem then here, where those being scrutinized are citizens.
Absolutely not. The gov’t has no more just cause to “keep an eye” on a citizen for stockpiling legally available weapons than it does to “keep an eye” on a citizen who stockpiles a personal library of books, even if the ideas expressed in the books could be “dangerous” or “radical”.
A political movement is like a pyramid. The more people there are who make up the base, the higher into the stratosphere of extermism the few people who make up the tip are going to be.
The 60s counterculture/anti-war movement was very large and sure enough, it produced some terrorists. The 90s pro-gun/anti-government movement was perhaps a bit smaller, but the sides of the pyramid were perhaps a bit steeper as it produced not just McVeigh/Nichols, but also the Viper Milita and a few others.
What the DHS is doing is also 100% lawful. And they don’t need to be equal in threat level on a man-for-man basis. Small potential x large numbers = significant potential.
The smear is in implying we’ve got a big potential problem because tens of thousands of veterans are returning, and odds are that will lead to a big influx of recruits, based on some non-specific report that a plurality of veterans got involved with some unspecified “extremist groups” (which as others noted, under the verbiage of the report could potentially include FAIR or NRL). And also in passing along SPLC’s unsourced and unqualified implication that “large numbers” of supremacists, etc. had joined the military with the specific goal of “obtaining military training.” That’d make me look askance at the average GI in the airport if I thought it was true, because reported in an official DHS warning, which is kind of scummy vis a vis guys over there getting shot at right now.
Why the hell does there need to be a definition in law? No one is being prosecuted under the law for having an arsenal. Let the investigators use their professional judgement as to who warrants a little extra scrutiny.
It’s not like they’re scrutinizing which books they’re checking out from the library.:rolleyes:
No matter who holds them or why, automatic weapons and ammo are more immediately dangerous than books.
Of course they have cause!
Try it this way.
Free Speech is a Constitutionally protected right and one of the most cherished rights we possess.
If some group engages in hate speech and advocating violence (of course always staying just this side of inciting to riot or other utterances that go just a bit too far and become illegal) the government will start keeping an eye on them. They have done so for ages.
Makes perfect sense to me.
Where do you see a reference to “automatic weapons?” Those are illegal (except when they’re legal, if you obtain a federal machine gun license), and no one here has a problem (well, I don’t) with that “reasonable restriction.”
That’s precisely the sort of bogus elision that I’m worried about. “They’re ‘stockpiling’ [buying and keeping/using] guns and ammo” gets corrupted into “they have automatic weapons.”
And I see that (putting aside calling you out on the bogosity of this report supporting any “automatic weapon” possession or “stockpiling”) and raise you Das Kapital. I say (others say) it led to ca. 85-100 million deaths over the past 150 years.
Not a book banner – but the comparison is not as simple as you imply.
A smear is unfair criticism designed to make people dislike the target or not support them politically. That’s not what’s happeneing here.
The point is not to get people to profile veterans the way we do Muslims, it’s to track the development of a potentially violent extremist movement starting while it’s still in its infancy.
I don’t see where in the report it states that.
You can toss my name on the pile, but I want a panini out it.