Saturday, January 19, 2013

Dangerous Ideas

On January 17th, the Washington Times published a story about a report issued by the U.S. Military Academy's Combating Terrorism Center. It is titled Challengers from the Sidelines: Understanding America's Violent Far-Right.

The paper say the report "lumps limited government activists with three movements it identifies as 'a racist/white supremacy movement, an anti-federalist movement and a fundamentalist movement.'"

Acording to the Washington Times

[The report] says anti-federalists "espouse strong convictions regarding the federal government, believing it to be corrupt and tyrannical, with a natural tendency to intrude on individuals' civil and constitutional rights. Finally, they support civil activism, individual freedoms, and self government. Extremists in the anti-federalist movement direct most their violence against the federal government and its proxies in law enforcement."

I have downloaded a copy of the report, but I have not read it yet. The CTC's blurb about the report says it offers "comprehensive look at the data." I am curious just what data they are talking about. I am not personally aware of an groups espousing "civil activism, individual freedoms, and self government" engaging in any violent behaviour. Maybe I've missed something.

Again, I have not read the report yet, but based on the Washing Times story I will make this preliminary observation: the truth is people who espouse "civil activism, individual freedoms, and self government" actually are a greater threat to a "corrupt and tyrannical" government, i.e., all governments, than groups like the KKK, the true wackjob militias, Christian Identity groups or White Nationalists--like the folks who are supposed to have shot up the Sikh temple last year--because those groups will never be more than a dangerous nuisance. The general public is never going to be persuaded by violent hate mongers from the right or the left, but ideas, like freedom and self-government have been known to go viral. Ideas have toppled governments in the past and they will do it again. If I were trying to control 300 million people, people like Ron Paul, Ernest Hancock, Larken Rose and the multitudes in whom they have planted seeds would scare the living bejeezuz out of me.

Anyway, I just downloaded the report. It is 148 pages long. It might take a little bit of time, but I expect it to be an interesting read.

The Washington Times story is here: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jan/17/west-point-center-cites-dangers-far-right-us/

The CTC's website is here: http://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/challengers-from-the-sidelines-understanding-americas-violent-far-right

The report can be downloaded directly from this link: http://www.ctc.usma.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/ChallengersFromtheSidelines.pdf

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