Among the issues most commonly discussed are individuality, the rights of the individual, the limits of legitimate government, morality, history, economics, government policy, science, business, education, health care, energy, and man-made global warming evaluations. My posts are aimed at intelligent and rational individuals, whose comments are very welcome.

"No matter how vast your knowledge or how modest, it is your own mind that has to acquire it." Ayn Rand

"Observe that the 'haves' are those who have freedom, and that it is freedom that the 'have-nots' have not." Ayn Rand

"The virtue involved in helping those one loves is not 'selflessness' or 'sacrifice', but integrity." Ayn Rand

For "a human being, the question 'to be or not to be,' is the question 'to think or not to think.'" Ayn Rand

16 October 2009

The Missouri Domestic Terrorist Report

The Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC) issued a report in response to a request by the Department of Homeland Security in which they profiled as possible terrorists those individuals who were concerned about taxes, unemployment, illegal immigration, border security, gangs, abortion, gun restrictions, the high cost of living, the IRS, FEMA, and the Federal Reserve.  To this, MIAC added concerns about people who were attracted to gun shows, shortwave radios, action movies, movies with Rambo-like white action heroes, Tom Clancy novels, and Ron Paul, Bob Barr, or Chuck Baldwin.

Americans for Limited Government requested the report under the Missouri Sunshine Law and were told that the state of Missouri only had a draft version of the report, they did not know who had written it, and they had no documentation of the sources used for the report.  The report did directly cite the Southern Poverty Law Center and it lifted some information from the website of the Anti-Defamation League, which was not cited.  These two organizations also played a major role in the highly foolish Department of Homeland Security "rightwing extremism" report of several months ago as well.

Neither report is very reassuring with their inference that agents of the government view the exercise of free speech, use of the press, assembly, and petition of grievances guaranteed in the First Amendment with such suspicion, largely informed by the viewpoint of the far left.  As we can see on college campuses across the nation, where the left enjoys unchallenged power, there is no freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, or of petition in their docile domains.  We also see the very thin skin of the Obama administration already developing and their frequent put-downs of Fox News and conservative and libertarian radio commentators.  We hear Mark Lloyd, the Diversity Czar on the FCC, seeking taxes and fines to suppress our freedom of speech unless that speech furthers the aims of the left and who openly admires Hugo Chavez's suppression of freedom of speech, press, and assembly in Venezuela.  We hear Anita Dunn, White House Communications Director, telling us she admires greatly and thinks constantly about Mao, who killed tens of millions of dissenters and millions who were not even dissenters, but who he suspected might become dissenters.

It has become clear that the socialist left has declared itself an enemy of our First Amendment rights in addition to many of our other individual rights.  Americans who believe in the Constitution and the sovereign rights of the individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness must start taking this threat of the socialists and Marxists very seriously.

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