Obama DHS Considers Conservatives to be Potential Terrorists

A newly uncovered Obama administration document suggests that conservatives and libertarians should be placed on a U.S. government watch list.

The Department of Homeland Security report entitled “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment,” suggests that those who support gun rights, enforcement of immigration laws, and low taxes are likely to become engaged in terrorist activities against or within the United States.

Amazingly, it draws on the so-called research of the radical left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center, but more about that in a moment.

The DHS paper, made available to law-enforcement personnel across the nation, lumps Ku Klux Klansmen and violent militias together with good government types and members of the Federalist Society. It claims that huge tracts of the nation that didn’t vote Democratic in the last election are seething with hatred and intolerance.

Blogger Stephen Gordon of the Liberty Papers uncovered the new DHS threat-assessment report. (The paper is available at the preceding link.) He notes that “all it takes to fit the terrorist profile is to have general anti-government feelings or prefer local/state government to federal control over everything.”

This attack on American values appears to be part of a broader push by the left to stigmatize and marginalize right-wing thought. It dovetails with the left’s campaign to silence conservative talk radio by imposing the Fairness Doctrine or so-called localism, which would allow ACORN and MoveOn.org activists to dictate the content of local broadcasting.

Without identifying the Southern Poverty Law Center by name, the report cites from the Center’s 2006 report that claimed “large numbers of potentially violent neo-Nazis, skinheads, and other white supremacists are now learning the art of warfare in the [U.S.] armed forces.”

Relying on data from the paranoid conspiracy theorists of the radical left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center is a risky endeavor.

The SPLC has accused the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the influential conservative think tank, of ties to racism, in part because it has employed a well-known conservative intellectual, writer Dinesh D’Souza, as its John M. Olin Fellow.

Articles published by the SPLC have claimed that the immensely popular film, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, was “little more than a glorified vision of white patriarchy,” and that the “Harry Potter” book series, which uses the term “half-blood” in a discussion of how characters acquire magical powers, was racist.

Another item crusades against certain kinds of Halloween costumes. It warns that if little girls dress up as princesses for trick or treating they will acquire incorrect ideas about beauty: “Too often, beautiful at Halloween means white, blonde, princess masks. What statement does your Halloween costume make about what constitutes beauty — and about who is beautiful and who isn’t?”

This is political correctness on steroids.

And Americans are supposed to trust the SPLC’s assessment of extremist threats?