Krikorian: Americans must push back hard (DHS report, SPLC)
National Review Online
the corner
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
No Longer a Joke [Mark Krikorian]
When the SPLC and the ADL and La Raza hyperventilated about "extremism" among supporters of immigration enforcement, it was hard to take seriously because those organizations are themselves hard to take seriously. The SPLC's designation of the Federation for American Immigration Reform a "hate group" was so silly that even ordinary liberal reporters scoffed.
But now with these groups helping set government policy, things have changed, and we have the "rightwing extremism" report that Jonah linked to (the pdf of the report is here). In today's Washington Times, Mark Potok of the odious Southern Poverty Law Center crowed that "Basically, the report tracks fairly closely with what we have been saying for some time now. They mention us a couple of times, though not by name." Now that the FBI has finally cut off ties with CAIR, it's outrageous that a government agency is citing the SPLC (referred to in the report as "a prominent civil rights organization"), a racket that even those on the Left denounce as a fraud.
This comes on the heels of a Missouri state government report for state law-enforcement agencies (since retracted) to watch out for supporters of Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin, and Bob Barr and those displaying anti-immigration or anti-abortion materials.
Now, I'm not the black-helicopter type and even these outrages don't mean we're approaching the end of democracy; Stacy McCain is still joking when he writes that "Mark Krikorian, David Boaz, and Antonin Scalia are urged to turn themselves in at the nearest FEMA detention center." But this is an unmistakable step toward not just delegitimizing dissent but actually criminalizing it, and Americans of whatever party need to push back, hard.
Conservative elites (myself sometimes included) tend to scoff at grassroots enthusiams; but this is an issue that elites and grassroots need to fight together. I wasn't going to go to a Tea Party event tomorrow because I'm not the protesting type. But I sure am now; there's one around the corner in front of the Treasury building. Find your local gathering here.
As Michelle says, I will not submit.
04/14 03:11 PM
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