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Follow me on TwitterMemeorandum is currently headlined by a WaTi story concerning a Department of Homeland Security report which highlights right-wing extremism. This has caused, for some reason, many to think that the report is about them (see Michele Malkin, Don Surber and William Jacobson, for examples).
Page 2 of the report defines it object of concern as follows:
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.
Okay, so the two main elements of the definition are “hate-oriented” and “antigovernment.” Read the definition again before going forth with the post. Note, please, again “hate” and “antigovernment.”
For some reason, Don Surber thinks this is equivalent to “Or, are you now or have you ever been a member of the Republican Party?”
Surely, Don doesn’t think that the above is the platform of the GOP.
William Jacobson entitles his post: “The Constitution Is A Subversive Manifesto Per DHS” (and Glenn Reynolds approvingly links thereto) and states:
This definition is so broad as to include anyone who seeks to preserve the foundation of our federal-state constitutional distinction, under the 10th Amendment (“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people”), because such a person could be deemed to “reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority.”
Well, no. It is one thing to have political disagreements about how federalism ought to work. It is yet another to reject federal authority, or to be fundamentally antigovernment.
He also writes:
Similarly, the reference to “abortion or immigration” is purely political. Why pick those two subjects?
Well, that is pretty obvious as well. We have had examples of domestic terrorism aimed specifically at abortion clinics before, and ultrtanationalistic anti-immigration views are known quantities amongst hate groups and not just in the US, as Annie Lowrey notes at FP today.
The key phrase in the DHS definition is “dedicated to a single issue” (note single). It is quite normal for extremist groups, regardless of their ideological persuasion, to be especially focused on a narrow set of, if not a single, issue. The statement is not a blanket indictment of people who oppose abortion or who have specific views on immigration reform. Let’s use calm and basic reading comprehension skills, shall we? Read the whole definition and don’t key in on single words.
The notion that tough economic times and the election of a minority president might inflame the passions of hard-right hate groups should hardly be seen as controversial. Further, it should hardly shock anyone that these groups would have specific views on things like immigration, abortion and gun control. Noting that fact does not mean that DHS is out to get conservative bloggers, members of the GOP, or other mainstream conservatives.
For the record, the report does not mention bloggers, nor the Republican Party. Indeed, the word “conservative” isn’t in their either.
Note: a lot of bloggers are suggesting that this report is aimed at the Tea Party movements (see here and here). The fact that the Tea Parties, or really anything approximating them, is not mentioned in the report apparently is of no consequence.
My favorite response is from the always dramatic Pam Geller: “The report is the blueprint for Obama’s war on Conservatives and patriotic Americans.”
I keep thinking of those PSAs from when I was a kid about RIF (Reading Is Fundamental).
There are reasons that the current state of the Republican Party and the general public discourse that passes for conservative these days depresses me so…
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April 14th, 2024 at 12:33 pm
[...] Sadly, No!, American Power, Bob Cesca’s Awesome Blog!, Clayton Cramer’s BLOG, PoliBlog, Don Surber, The Liberty Papers, This ain’t Hell …, , Le·gal In·sur·rec· [...]
April 14th, 2024 at 1:48 pm
Re the post title: is today “reference a Carly Simon song day” in the ‘sphere? (see end of post)
April 14th, 2024 at 1:52 pm
Must be
April 14th, 2024 at 2:20 pm
[...] to my previous post, it is worth noting that Tea Party supporter A. J. Stata isn’t freaking about about the report [...]
April 14th, 2024 at 2:28 pm
Excellent post, Taylor. And funny, fitting title.
April 14th, 2024 at 2:58 pm
I think in the context of the whole report the footnote more clearly applies to potentially violent extremist groups; my gut feeling is that if someone had intended this to be made public, someone with half a brain would have fixed the footnote to make it appear less pejorative.
Probably more disturbing here is that this nine page document says nothing that anyone who reads Google News doesn’t already know or could figure out for themselves, yet for reasons I cannot fathom DHS thinks it is exempt from FOIA and contains “sensitive” and “for official use only” material.
April 14th, 2024 at 3:03 pm
Probably more disturbing here is that this nine page document says nothing that anyone who reads Google News doesn’t already know or could figure out for themselves, yet for reasons I cannot fathom DHS thinks it is exempt from FOIA and contains “sensitive” and “for official use only” material.
Indeed.
April 14th, 2024 at 3:54 pm
[...] Steven Taylor has the best title for a response on this issue: You’re so Vain, You Probably Think this Report is about You (or, so Paranoid…) [...]
April 14th, 2024 at 6:20 pm
So where do you stand regarding libertarians?
Also, remember that the quote is “reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority,” which is different from simply rejecting federal authority in toto. In other words, the quote — which may well be nothing more than sloppy writing — sounds a lot like worry over “political disagreements about how federalism ought to work” compared to worry about raving anarchists.
As far as I can tell, the big bugaboo is skinheads/neonazis. But those guys are dangerous all the time. It’s hard to believe a report was needed to announce this fact to the Department of Homeland Security, unless there were credible evidence that they were planning an attack:
Oh, and the nonpartisan report bought the partisan line that crazy people don’t kill people, only right wing gun-owning conspiracy nuts kill people (“The alleged gunman’s reaction reportedly was influenced by his racist ideology” [page 3, where can I find these reports outside of liberal blogs?]).
***
I think it’s silly to define “rightwing extremist groups” as groups that are mostly “hate oriented” (page 2, I guess this is in comparison to violent leftwing groups that are mostly love oriented) or “dedicated to a single issue” (page 2, the VFW is dedicated to a single issue, are they rightwing extremists? Based on their recent letter, possibly — http://ourvoice.legion.org/story/1543/legion-dhs-americans-are-not-enemy ).
***
Compared to the peaceniks in the UAW and AFL-CIO that supported said trade agreements. I don’t know where Obama stands on this issue, as his campaign speeches were critical of NAFTA and free trade agreements. For the record, I like free trade agreements, and think we need more of them.
April 14th, 2024 at 6:26 pm
Now that I’ve had my fun, I do find the following passage troubling:
I’ll chalk this up to sloppy writing, but if a politician started a sentence like this I would be very worried about the direction he was headed.
April 14th, 2024 at 6:34 pm
This sentence of mine might be too cheeky:
The point is that most violent groups are hate oriented in some way. Frankly, it’s hard to imagine any other possibility.
Which, by the way, is why I think hate crime legislation is silly. “You brutally murdered the victim and torched his house, but we think the motivation was a long-standing grudge and not outright hate.”
April 15th, 2024 at 12:29 am
I read the report, and it reads like a political science text describing “right-wing” extremism would read. I agree that there is a legitimate concern about the criminalization of certain political beliefs, but I, unlike Malkin and the other members of the hissy fit, am opposed to numerous aspects of the national surveillance state which are prone to abuse in the first place.
Everyone keeps picking that particular line from Pam Gellar. I find this curious, since I found this line to be even more absurd:
Hey, do you think Michelle Malkin is some kind of super-duper deep cover plant performing some kind of Sokal Hoax? Here’s what she said back in ’05 when it was disclosed that the FBI had been engaging in surveillance of non-violent groups
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/michelle/malkin072005.html3
This has to be some kind world record for hypocrisy.
April 15th, 2024 at 9:37 am
“Everyone keeps picking that particular line from Pam Gellar.”
I can’t understand why *anybody* would consider a line from Pam Gellar as somehow credible. Kinda goes along with the level of insanity, generally.
April 15th, 2024 at 3:36 pm
‘I can’t understand why *anybody* would consider a line from Pam Gellar as somehow credible.’
True that. I think the reasonable response for anyone who looks at her blog and see the shrieking hysterical insanity leaping off the page is to dismiss her as an outrageous kook.
Except last night she was one of the guests on Fox News’ “Red Eye” with Greg Gutfield. And she previously was granted an interview with UN ambassador John Bolton.
When kooks like Gellar are being promoted by a major news network and high level gov’t official we have a serious problem for the state of political discourse.
April 16th, 2024 at 8:38 am
[...] is amazing, by the way, that a lot of folks will get up in arms over the suggestion that the federal government is concerned about right-wing hate groups seem not [...]
April 17th, 2024 at 1:51 pm
[...] Or not. That one was debunked in a rare moment of actual journalism by Fox News, of all things. [...]
April 17th, 2024 at 2:24 pm
[...] DHS report that was the focus of so much discussion earlier in the week (and that I blogged about here and [...]
April 17th, 2024 at 9:01 pm
[...] L. Taylor at PoliBlog, however, thinks this is just scaremongering: The key phrase in the DHS definition is “dedicated to a single issue” (note single). It is [...]
April 21st, 2024 at 9:31 pm
[...] methods”? This is a rather odd position. It reminds me of the bizarre identification by some right-ward bloggers with the DHS’s memo about potential right-wing extremism (indeed, some have gone so far as to [...]
April 23rd, 2024 at 9:28 pm
[...] PoliBlog: A Rough Draft of my Thoughts » You’re so Vain, You Probably Think this Report is about … [...]