Don’t look now
It seems that not only being a gun nut, constitutionalist, or libertarian warrants a second look as you might be a potential terrorist, but also being gay does too:
The Alabama Department of Homeland Security has taken down a Web site it operated that included gay rights and anti-war organizations in a list of groups that could include terrorists.
The Web site identified different types of terrorists, and included a list of groups it believed could spawn terrorists. The list also included environmentalists, animal rights advocates and abortion opponents.
And this may well be enough to get you put on the terrorist watchlist and, if the Lautenberg bill passes, you lose your right to own a firearm, which is fine with the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Ownership.
In other news, I see this made the Washington Post. But I recall no mention of the other groups as potential terrorists making the press. That was all reported via blogs. What media bias against guns?
Anyway, if I were Jeff, I might pay extra attention to any unidentified vehicles I see around my place since he belongs to all those groups.
Via the NITwit.
May 30th, 2007 at 10:21 am
[…] the Constitution, am a small “L” libertarian, and. . . I’m gay, I might also be a terrorist. Of course, in Alabama, just believing that the Earth is round and not the center of the universe is […]
May 30th, 2007 at 11:00 am
[…] Say Uncle reports: It seems that not only being a gun nut, constitutionalist, or libertarian warrants a second look that you might be a potential terrorist, but also being gay does too. […]
May 30th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
Like the previous versions of this, I don’t see the problem.
Some members of such organisations have historically been “terrorists” by the definition of “committing violent felonies to influence policy or intimidate”.
Earth First! is a domestic terrorist organisation, for instance.
I would personally be shocked if there were no fringe members of radical gay organisations who fit the bill, just as in other fringes of radical organisations.
Gay fanatics are just as capable of terrorism as any other fanatics, are they not?
(Note that nobody’s calling the Sierra Club terrorists, nor the Humane Society, nor the NRA, nor as near as I can tell any mainstream Gay Rights organisation.
See why this “if you’re gay/an environmentalist/a gun lover you might be a terrorist!!!” spin is unsupportable?)
Given that the site is down and nobody seems to be quoting it at length verbatim, or giving us the URL to see if it’s on the Wayback Machine, I can’t say if the detailed text might somehow be offensive in its overbroad reach or incorrect… but given the previous versions in Penn., I doubt it.
Is there any interpretation of the response here that isn’t just overreaction and looking-for-persecution?
May 30th, 2007 at 8:18 pm
The measure is not how it is being used in the moment, but in what degree it may lend itself to abuse by dishonorable men. For it is inevitable that dishonorable men will at some time hold sway.