Demonizing gun owners who believe in the founders' intent of the Second Amendment is nothing new for our government. I've been following such attempts for years, including media attempts to dismiss us as "vermin."
Back in 2001, KeepAndBearArms.com exposed a flyer created by the Phoenix branch of the FBI. One of the triggers for heightened scrutiny?
"If you encounter any of the following, Call the Joint Terrorism Task Force":
"defenders of the US Constitution against federal government and the UN"
I referred to this brochure in my April 2008 "Rights Watch" column for Guns Magazine, "Homegrown Terrorists," and used that to call reader attention to the state of Alabama's Homeland Security website warning against Americans who believe:
"Gun Control = Enslavement; Constitution has been subverted; The US has lost its sovereignty..."
This despite a rather candid admission of reality:
"Few people involved in this self styled 'Patriot Movement' are criminals."
Well, I'm sure there are at least some government agents provocateur trying to instigate violence.
More recently, I shared with WarOnGuns readers an email I sent to the Missouri Information Analysis Center asking to have my name added to their watch list, as their criteria for Americans warranting heightened government scrutiny included, among other things, support for libertarian/conservative candidates and ideals. Mine was but one voice added to an increasingly alert network of our countrymen who are keeping their eye on the ball, but in this case, there were enough of us sounding an alarm.
The result of the public outcry?
The report was retracted.
The MIAC director was reassigned.
The special interests behind putting propaganda into policy were exposed.
You'd think by now this would be the end of this smear campaign. You'd be wrong. They're just warming up.
Over the weekend, sources sent me a Homeland Security report intended for law enforcement cognizance titled "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment."
My immediate impressions, sent to some colleagues via email:
Pick a conservative topic and we are lumped in with the skinheads who are being egged on by the provocateurs. Life for the unborn, border security, destructive international trade policy, losing one's job or home due to the economic downturn--all are apparently cause for scrutiny. Encryption of communications is also singled out as a threat. There's no mention that "New World Order" rhetoric originated with the establishment pushing for it. Of particular interest, the singling out of veterans. And note the acknowledgment of further govt. interest in "gun control."
WorldNetDaily has since given us an excellent overview. I urge you to read it.
And I urge you to think about what this all means.
------------
Survival workshop
If you live anywhere near the Cincinnati, OH area, Buckeye Firearms Association is presenting a full-day "intense" training class conducted by the author of "On Killing," Lt. Col. Dave Grossman.
Click here to find out how you can attend this Oct. 3, 2009 class. Oct. 3? This is only April...
You don't think there will be others competing to attend...?
Check out other Gun Rights Examiners:
- Atlanta: Mainstream media misleads on the gun permit issue
- Austin: Gun control and saving Captain Phillips (Part 1)
- Boston: Massachusetts: Gun Control in a State of failure
- Charlotte: Myths of armed self-defense: 'If I only had'...the truth
- Cleveland: Summit County backs off on employee gun ban proposal
- DC: 6 Va. Democrats flip flop & vote to limit military members to 1 handgun a year
- Denver: Why we can't close the "gun show loophole"
- Los Angeles: Is the Anti-gun personality backing down or being brought down?
- Milwaukee: Vote today for Constitutional justice- Vote Koschnick
- Minneapolis: A Cowboy's Easter
- Seattle: Feinstein: 'I'll pick the time and place, no question about that'
- St. Louis: 'Gun show loophole' the number one federal priority for the citizen disarmament lobby?
- Wisconsin: New judge in town
Comments
It would be interesting to see the GRE folks contact their local sheriffs city pds etc and see if they have received the DHS lette and what they intend to do about it.
Than post results.
If this weren't so insane, it would be laughable. Will the left now change the reference "right wing terrorist" to "right wing contingency?"
David, remember the family that was attacked by a swat team because the father was a into supporting the US Constitution. His kid hurt himself doing something dumb as kids to and the father being an Army medic felt it was no big deal and took care of his son himself. The swat team full autos kicked their way into the home and removed the kid to the ER. Only to have the ER doc's say the kid was just fine.
Criminals are the only ones who would look at a lawful citizen who supported the US Constitution. At least their being honest about whom they are and how they feel about the laws of the land.
Nevertheless, the gov of Texas is now on the list. You can't make this stuff up.
I downloaded this Homeland Security document for careful reading. I came across a note of great interest to me with my being a red skinned girl.
"The information is provided to...tribal counterterrorism and law enforcement
officials...."
Huh? White right wing extremists on our tribal lands? American Indians becoming right wing extremists?
I also note there is a complete absence of mention of black extremist groups, brown extremist groups, a complete absence Muslim extremist groups, a complete absence of any mention of extremist groups whose skin color is other than white.
This document reflects a racist agenda and not a white racist agenda.
What I read in this document is those folks at Homeland Security are collectively about as smart as a bucket of rocks.
Okpulot Taha
Choctaw Nation
These sorts of smear campaigns are engineered for two reasons: first, for the raw demonization aspect, which obviously serves to muster the useful idiots, but also as pre-emptive plausible deniability.
History teaches us that disarmers are not asking--not ever. They will continue their forcible coercion campaign against the peaceable (ah, the irony) as long as they draw breath. (It's not fair to say "until they get their way", because the complete failure of tens of thousands of their laws is well understood, and even where they have "succeeded", they must keep going because the problem certainly has not gone away.)
Problem is, this is rather a "cold dead hands" sort of philosophy (another irony!) and at some point even the peaceable will start to push back. And we all understand the dynamic of the school-gym bully poking and prodding his victim until that latter gets so fed up he lays the bully out in hot blood. The "authorities" always notice the party that returns fire, not the instigator--at best, *both* get punished since the masses certainly didn't see nothin. (You go just as far with that metaphor as you like. It works.)
Enter the tool of pre-emptive plausible deniability. What if the bully establishes a "paper trail" before the incident in the gym, calling into question the victim or "his type"? The trail doesn't even have to be noticed, much less vetted and confirmed, before the incident in the gym--it simply has to be there, waiting. Then: poke-poke-poke-poke-poke-poke-poke-poke-SMACK. And suddenly the bully wins not only the point on appearances, but now he's prescient too.
Some people believe the smear campaigns are carefully crafted, and others believe they are just a happy accident for the disarmers, a chance product of the crusader mentality that happens to work famously when the crusade has no legs of its own. It probably doesn't matter which it is (I figure it's likely both)--the effect is there, and what is not arguable is that the disarmers capitalize on it every chance they can get.
And so we get, from government, that "domestic terrorists" are people who want to constrain their government to the limits of its charter document. This must be no surprise--I'm pretty certain that King George didn't take too kindly to Jefferson, Paine, Coxe, Henry, and "their kind" either.
David is right. As bad as this is, it's just the warmup. From this we'll get more Only Ones, more targeted attacks on privacy, and the like, but what will really move us toward "armbands for everyone" is a good gym incident or two that can prove to everyone what hotheads those constitutionalists really are. The fact that any such will be reaction rather than instigation will be swept under the rug, like it always is.
Now what do you suppose the chances are that we'll get just such an incident in the fairly near future, impossibly well-timed for maximum effect? Naw, that's never happened before...
I have submitted a Freedom of Information request to Homeland Security to discover further information about this document.
Should FOIA information be received, I will forward a copy to David Codrea who can write up an article on this information, if worthwhile. There is no guarantee information will be sent.
Readers are invited to submit your own FOIA requests. Guidelines are found here:
www.state.gov/documents/organization/108241.pdf
Based upon my past FOIA requests, there are four items which must be included.
1. Give specific details about whatever information you request. I used the title and date of publication of this document to narrow this down.
2. Request a fee waiver pursuant to 22 CFR 171.17 and include an explanation this information will be shared with the public to inform our public.
3. Agree to pay up to $25.00 for information. Be careful, fees can be hundreds of dollars. Ask to be notified, first, if fees are high.
4. State you are an American citizen, legally entitled to make a FOIA request, then include your full name, address and telephone number.
DHS email addresses for FOIA requests are here:
www.dhs.gov/xfoia/Copy_of_editorial_0318.shtm
Look for:
Catherine M. Papoi - Department of Homeland Security Headquarters & Privacy Office
Quinton Mason - Assistant Secretary Office of Intelligence & Analysis (source of the document)
This is wording included in my request to help assure any and all information is sent to me:
---
I am requesting you provide names and government contact information for the author or authors of this document. I am requesting you provide any and all background information employed to compile this document including statistical data, reference sources, field observations and any other documents which substantiate and support this document.
With my being an American Indian, I am highly interested in information related to your sending this document to "tribal counterterrorism" law enforcement agencies. Please do include any information which
supports concerns related to American Indians.
---
My past experience is FOIA documents take about 30 to 60 days to arrive in your mailbox.
Do not be afraid to send in an FOIA request.
Worst which can happen is you will be taken into custody by men wearing expensive suits, who talk into their sleeves, then you will shipped off to Gitmo for engaging dialog.
Best which will happen is you will receive documents with lots of broad black lines covering important words.
An FOIA request is an important tool if you truly want to learn what is going on within our government. Never be afraid to make an FOIA request; knowledge is power.
Okpulot Taha
Choctaw Nation
How many categories do you belong in David?
I fit nice,y in 4 of them. I am feeling better about myself now.
They also want to turn Constitutionalists into conspiracy theorists and paranoids.
Continual demonization of the group you are seeking to marginalize, discredit and destroy is straight out of Alinsky's communist political hand book.
Our gov't has some folks who know history and fancy themselves as the 2009 equivalent of the divine monarchs of the 1776 era. The Declaration of Independence and Constitution backed by armed peasants, put an end to King Geo. and they don't want it to happen to them, hence their disdain for current lovers of the US Constitution. Don't worry they'll get it right this time, after all they're smarter.
I'm sure we will find that we have Janet Napolitano to thank directly for this piece of slime. Those who have been following Janet's career will recognize this one off her favorite playlist. When she was the US Attorney in Phoenix, she made a name for herself by taking a bunch of slackers who liked to go out into the desert and play with big fireworks and rebranding them into the fearsome and threatening "Viper Militia." Janet Napolitano was bad news for Arizona, and she will be more bad news in DHS.
I have never read such a frightening document from the Federal government.
From the group that abhors the terms terrorist and war on terror they seem to have little trouble labeling millions as extremists.
From the same group who could care less and actually supports people and drugs coming north but now has mobilized against guns and cash going south.
This line is very troubling. "Federal efforts to influence domestic public opinion must be
conducted in an overt and transparent manner.."
This tells me they are actively engaging in HATE SPEECH condoned by and produced by our own government.
"A recent example of the potential violence associated with a rise in rightwing
extremism may be found in the shooting deaths of three police officers in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on 4 April 2009. The alleged gunman’s reaction
reportedly was influenced by his racist ideology and belief in antigovernment
conspiracy theories related to gun confiscations, citizen detention camps, and a
Jewish-controlled “one world government.”"
If this guy had a Merriam Webster Dictionary in his house can we blame Webster?
"Rightwing extremists are harnessing this historical election as a recruitment
tool. Many rightwing extremists are antagonistic toward the new presidential
administration and its perceived stance on a range of issues, including immigration and
citizenship, the expansion of social programs to minorities, and restrictions on firearms ownership and use."
We thought Joe the Plumber was in trouble for simply asking a question? According to this document, anyone who disagrees with this president is an extremist. That folks is reminiscent of old Russia or Nazi Germany.
I guess the fact I am writing against this document, I am a right wing extremist.
I am very happy to know I an people like me are perceived as more of a threat than man caused disasters and our overseas contingency operation.
This gives me chills up and down my spine!
They equate Constitutionalists with terrorists simply because those of us that understand what the Constitution really means, and how badly the Government have overreached it, are a true threat to their ability to act like our "betters".
They realize that if enough people wake up to this, they'll either be voted out of office or it will come to blows in a way unfavorable to them.
In the mean time, I'll gladly be labeled a Right Wing Extremist due to my mistrust of the Federal Government, my propensity to speak out in favor of limited Federal power, States Rights, and in opposition to our membership in the U.N. While I'm at it, I'll be flying my Original Navy Jack out in front of the house until I can order the Gadsden flag (in time for July 4th, naturally).
Let 'em choke on it.
III
Oh gosh, I am so very confused. I cannot decide if I am a right wing extremist or a left wing extremist. Seems no matter which way I turn, Obama and DHS believe me to be a dangerous extremist.
Here is the DHS left wing extremist report:
www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/Leftwing_Extremist_Threat.pdf
Rather fascinating. Right wingers are portrayed as gun toting near illiterates and left wingers are portrayed as well educated computer geeks.
More interesting is the left wing extremist report does not mention Bill Ayers, The Weathermen nor other extremist groups such as the Black Panthers and the Symbionese Liberation Army.
I am a gun owner. I am a computer geek. I attend tax protests. I support abortion. I am a hawk. I am an environmentalist.
This is so stressful. I cannot decide which type of extremist I am. I so much want to fit in with our American society.
Maybe I will stick with being an American Indian; we do not fit in at all.
Okpulot Taha
Choctaw Nation
Okpulot Taha, may you never find out exactly what kind of extremist you are. Keep the malignant bastards* guessing.
__________________
* Thank you again, William Norman Grigg, for introducing me to such a wholly appropriate and mellifluous term.
"You Americans are so gullible. No, you won't accept Communism outright, but we'll keep feeding you small doses of Socialism until you'll finally wake up and find you already have Communism. We won't have to fight you. We'll so weaken your economy until you'll fall like overripe fruit into our hands." - Nikita Khrushchev
Dear Okpulot Taha:
Your most recent post was very insightful. I suppose that in a general sense, what I like least about these developments is their sheer ability to polarize Americans, and foment the worst in us (across the spectrum).
Finding common ground takes courage, while finding difference is easy and usually based on fear. We can certainly strive for courage, and for the sober truth.
We are dealing with a vile bunch in this administration. Great column man.
Carl in Chicago masturbates my bloated ego, "Your most recent post was very insightful. I suppose that in a general sense, what I like least about these developments is their sheer ability to polarize Americans, and foment the worst in us...."
Do you know arrows easily slice right through Kevlar vests? Those bullet proof vests easily stop bullets and similar projectiles but are completely defenseless against bow shot arrows.
I am quite the expert with my traditional style bow and arrows, enough so I am confident I could have put an arrow right through the heads of those pirates our Navy Seals so adequately dispensed of. However, I would need my husband and our daughter to help to take out three all at once.
Ever try to kill a coyote with a bow and arrow? Quite the challenge. Killing coyotes with a traditional bow is highly dependent upon stealth and ability to move in close rather than depend on a scope and rifle from hundreds of yards out. Those boys who shoot coyotes with scoped rifles are sissy boys.
Do not take me wrong, I am a fierce defender of Mother Nature and her creatures. I love animals and work hard to protect animals along with all of Mother Nature. I am a hard core animal rights tree hugger, a Homeland Security classified leftist extremist.
Odd though, because I am basically a conservative, oh, a right wing extremist.
Few years back, I killed seven coyotes with my bow and arrows over a course of two years. Each a clean merciful kill; straight through the heart. Reason for this is our local coyote population exploded and coyotes began starving to death, a horrible way to die. Coyotes became diseased, mangy, gaunt and so hungry those coyotes took to leaping over fences and taking households pets, along with snatching up babies in public parks.
I retired each kill arrow I used to honor those coyotes. Each kill arrow reminds me of this great sadness I feel for having to kill coyotes. Nashoba Holba, "Coyote", is my medicine animal.
I culled our local coyote packs by taking out only female coyotes. How about that? Close enough to distinguish female from male and close enough for a precision heart shot, each a shot of great regret through my own heart.
Today, our local coyote packs are smaller but very healthy; no longer starving and dying horrific deaths, and avoiding human contact.
With all these well written informative reports from Homeland Security about extremists, seems to me Homeland Security has missed the most dangerous and most radical of extremists: American Indians armed with bows and arrows.
Okpulot Taha
Choctaw Nation
Kevin Wilmeth writes, "Okpulot Taha, may you never find out exactly what kind of extremist you are."
Your comments are very much in tune with comments of Carl in Chicago.
Obama, just like Bush, is polarizing our country. Obama is not so much responsible for those stringless yo-yos over in the Department of Homeland Security, but the buck stops on Obama's desk.
Reality is most of us Americans, maybe a majority of us Americans, are neither liberal nor conservative. We tend to be realistic, tend to give and take to benefit our nation. Very few of us like higher taxes but we are quick to lend a charitable hand to others, especially other nations. Lots of us own guns but we are very hesitant to take a life. We want jobs for all of us and we want to protect our environment. We are responsible, we are willing to give and take, we are reasonable, we want all American families to enjoy moderately comfortable lives free of fear.
We respect diversity in opinion. Without diversity in opinion, our democracy is doomed.
Those Homeland Security reports are not diversity in opinion. Those reports are divisive, are polarizing, are written to herd us like cattle into a common group. Those reports are designed to render Americans into bovines headed for the big slaughter house.
A hazard of our being tolerant, our being accepting, our being quick to give trust, a hazard is we are also gullible. Our government, not just Obama, our government for decades has been and is working at rendering us mindless minions, sans opinionated thinking.
This is dangerous. This is a threat to our nation.
Okpulot Taha
Choctaw Nation
Okpulot ---
I'm going to disappoint Kevin (and possibly Carl) by 'spilling the beans':
You are an 'individualist extremist' (the very best kind). I enjoy reading your words and hope to have you at my back (facing out) should the need ever arise.
Frank In Florida quips, "I'm going to disappoint Kevin (and possibly Carl) by 'spilling the beans'..."
You are a right smart boy! As a reward I will send you ten pounds of government commodity cheese to mix with your spilled beans.
I have some good American Indian recipes for fried bread using government commodity flour. Fried cheese and bean sandwiches, mmm... good!
Each of us, Frank, have our own viewpoints and each of us make the best of what we have. If left alone by our government, we do just fine all on our own. When government interferes with our thinking, interferes with our earning a living, then and only then do we have problems in life.
I cannot think of a single aspect of our lives, from food to fun, which is not touched somehow by government interference.
We are individuals and we are individual families, just as we are an individual nation. Yes, we all need to be "individualist extremists" as you write.
If there was a way to address our entire government, municipal, state and federal, all at once, I would say, "Get the hell out of our lives."
Oh yeah, happy tax day! You only need to work five more days to break even on your taxes. In five days you will begin earning money, this year, money which you and your family get to keep.
Okpulot Taha
Choctaw Nation
I know it's late, but I just wanted to let you guys know that something is finally being done about the flyer: http://tinyurl.com/29tulz9
So rest easy, the FBI is on the case.
Then i suppose they would have consitred the founding fathers as terrorists becuase they signed the U.S. CONSTITUTION? need any more reasons to get ourselves out of this wretched UNITED NATIONS evicted them from ameerica and bulldoze the entire area and turn it into a bird refudge
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