An Extremist Group of One

Shortly after the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks began to purge their political enemies. The Czarists, the aristocracy, and businessmen were obviously their first targets, but it wasn’t long before they turned on their former allies on the Left. First came the Socialist Revolutionaries and the Anarchists, then the Mensheviks, and then factions within the Bolsheviks themselves that threatened the dominance of Lenin, Stalin, and Trotsky.

To purge rivals whose ideology differed only marginally from one’s own required creative adaptations of political terminology to justify their liquidation. The Party hunted down “counter-revolutionaries”, “deviationists”, “right extremists”, “reactionaries”, and many other arcane neologisms coined especially for the occasion. In the 1930s, after the ascendancy of Fascism in Italy at the expense of the Communists, the term “fascist” came into vogue as the preferred designation for an enemy of the state. From then on the Bolsheviks pursued and destroyed “fascists” wherever they found them, and their ideological heirs are still doing the same thing today.

A similar process seems to be underway in the National Security State that is now administered by the Obama administration, with the preferred targets designated as “extremists” and “hate groups”. The pursuit of such “extremists” did not begin with the current administration — Homeland Security was, after all, the brainchild of the Bush administration — but under Janet Napolitano and Eric Holder it has reached a baroque elaboration that the Bush functionaries could only dream of.

In order to justify investigating and prosecuting Muslim terrorists — who really would kill people and blow up infrastructure if they were not obstructed — the feds are obliged to pursue at least as many infidels, in order to demonstrate that no “profiling” is taking place. With the hard Left currently holding the levers of power, this imperative guarantees an open season against “right-wing extremists” — which means virtually anyone who fails to support the full Socialist agenda.

After five years of diligent effort on the part of the nomenklatura who run the federal bureaucracy, we have reached the point that a patriotic American waving the flag on the Fourth of July is demonstrably an “extremist” — and maybe even a potential “terrorist”.

Last month we reported on the question put by ICLA to the official representative of the United States at the OSCE meeting in Vienna about the federal government’s use of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as a resource to determine which American organizations are “hate groups”. Readers may remember that the representative dodged the question. He affirmed only that the SPLC has the right of free expression under the First Amendment, and never addressed the issue of its use by the government to separate the ideological sheep from the extremist goats.

Confirmation of the current drift of official policy — in which no left-winger is ever an “extremist”, while every right-winger is at least suspected of being one — was reported on Thursday by Judicial Watch. Below are excerpts from their press release about Air Force training materials they uncovered via the Freedom of Information Act:

Judicial Watch: Defense Department Teaching Documents Suggest Mainstream Conservative Views “Extremist”

Defense Document Suggests Colonists Fighting British Rule were members of “extremist movement”

(Washington, DC) — Judicial Watch announced today that it has obtained educational materials from the Department of Defense (DOD) depicting conservative organizations as “hate groups” and advising students to be aware that “many extremists will talk of individual liberties, states’ rights, and how to make the world a better place.” The documents repeatedly cite the leftwing Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as a resource for identifying “hate groups.”

Judicial Watch obtained the documents in a response to a Freedom of Information Act request (FOIA) filed on April 8, 2013. The FOIA requested “Any and all records concerning, regarding, or related to the preparation and presentation of training materials on hate groups or hate crimes distributed or used by the Air Force.” Included in the 133 pages of lesson plans and PowerPoint slides provided by the Air Force is a January 2013 Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute “student guide” entitled “Extremism.” The document says that it is “for training purposes only” and “do not use on the job.” Highlights include:

  • The document defines extremists as “a person who advocates the use of force or violence; advocates supremacist causes based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or national origin; or otherwise engages to illegally deprive individuals or groups of their civil rights.”
  • A statement that “Nowadays, instead of dressing in sheets or publically espousing hate messages, many extremists will talk of individual liberties, states’ rights, and how to make the world a better place.”
  • “[W]hile not all extremist groups are hate groups, all hate groups are extremist groups.”
  • Under a section labeled “Extremist Ideologies” the document states, “In U.S. history, there are many examples of extremist ideologies and movements. The colonists who sought to free themselves from British rule and the Confederate states who sought to secede from the Northern states are just two examples.”
  • In this same section, the document lists the 9/11 attack under a category of “Historical events.”
  • “[A]ctive participation…with regard to extremist organizations is incompatible with military service and, is therefore prohibited.” [Emphasis in original]
  • The document details the “seven stages of hate” and sixteen “extremists’ traits.”
  • The SPLC is listed as a resource for information on hate groups and referenced several times throughout the guide.
  • Of the five organizations besides the SPLC listed as resources, one is an SPLC project (Teaching Tolerance) and one considers any politically or socially conservative movement to be a potential hate group (Political Research Associates).
  • Other than a mention of 9/11 and the Sudan, there is no discussion of Islamic extremism.

[…]

Though the document released today by Judicial Watch was obtained from the Air Force, it originated in a DOD office and is, therefore. thought likely to be used in other agency components.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I certainly qualify as an “extremist” under the above criteria.

I’m an Extremist Group of One.

32 thoughts on “An Extremist Group of One

    • Most US presidential administrations, and the current one especially with its media and pundit cronies, meet the criteria of being “extremist” given the “extremist” checklist.

      Character Assination:
      Attacks on Palin and others far too many to list, Alinskyism …check!

      Namecalling:
      “teabaggers” and too many to list …check!

      Irresponsive sweeping generalizations:
      Politician’s staple diet …check!

      Inadequate proof behind assertions:
      Green energy, health care reform, racial statistics and racism charges in general, climate change, “big oil” assertions, etc. check!

      Tendency to view opponents and critics as essentially evil:
      “deniers”, “bitter and clinging”, “racists”, “extremists”, “terrorists” …check!

      Dualism worldview: Collective vs the Individual, Nature vs Humans, People of Color vs Whites …check!

      Vagueness in logic: Unaffordable Health Care Act, bankrupt monetary policy, and many many others…check!

      Tendency to argue by intimidation: Pushing agenda through media by punishing journalists who don’t cooperate. Threat of drones on US citizens to name one. Labeling dissenters as “extremists” and therefore enemies of the state for another. Alinskyism ….check!

      Use of slogans, buzzwords, and thought-stopping clichés: Bridge to Tomorrow, Hope and Change, Quantitative Easing, Move On, Undocumented Worker, For the Children, If you have nothing to hide, why worry about surveillance?, Fair Share, Cop Killer Bullets, High Capacity Clip, Automatic Assault Rifle, Ammo Cache, Extremist, Teabagger, Wingnut, 1%, Phony Scandals, etc, etc, blah blah blah. Normal politician output. …check!

      Assumption of moral superiority over others: Marxist / Collectivist principles constantly espoused as “obviously” superior. Leveraging “white guilt” for slavery that ended over 100 years ago. Alinskyism. …check!

      Doomsday thinking: Mostly expressed via environmentalist avenues; global warming, ocean acidification, population explosion, and all the other chicken little babblings …check!

      Belief that it’s okay to do bad things in the service of a “good” cause: Fast and Furious, DHS/CIA surveillance, bypassing separations of powers by executive branch, rampant vote fraud, Alinskyism. …check!

      Tendency to personalize hostility: Leftists cheering at Charlton Heston’s, Margaret Thatcher’s, Ronald Reagan’s illnesses and deaths. Constant threats, belittlement, and menacing of conservative Blacks and conservative minorities by liberals. Multiple cases of leftish bloggers wishing horrible things on conservative individuals, well documented, etc. …check!

      Emphasis on emotional responses, less so on reasoning and logical analysis: Constant appeals to emotional tides sweeping the herd and a downplay of cool rational analysis. The aftermath of the Newtown, CT shooting a perfect example, but others are constantly rampant. The Travon Martin emotional bandwagon is still rolling. …check!

      Hypersensitivity and vigilance: Even mentioning the US Constitution gets lefty pols hackles up. The fact that this checklist for “extremists” exists is evidence of the hypervigilance. Bunker mentality as in buying up vast amounts of supplies, ammo, and paramilitarization of LE with domestic focus.

      Use of supernatural rationales for beliefs and actions: This one is suble, but exists. The left uses franken-science mixed with enviro-feelgoodness stirred in with collectivism as a sort of religion where dissenters are treated no different than heretics and adherents are forgiven of many other sins. The Fabian left believe they know where society is “supposed” to be going and that the needs of the many give them carte blanche and moral authority to cram it down everyone elses’ throats. Their appeal is to a doctrine centered around themselves, so they are God in the template. …check!

      Advocacy of double standards:
      One example will suffice; Trayvon Martin shooting vs. the Chris Lane shooting as portrayed by the media, and “handled” by leftwing pols and pundits. Too many others to list. …check!

  1. Baron, you are an Extremist Right Wing Hate Group of One. When someone is saying that it becomes ExtremistRightWingHateGroup. Other examples beside you include Tea Party members…

  2. I may have overlooked it, but I didn’t see any mention of “stockpiling toilet paper”.

    • I know people who stockpile incandescent light bulbs.

      [Not I, Prismsweetie. Since you’re leaving the 40 watt (and below) bulbs alone no problems here b/c. 60 watts hurt my fibro-eyesight]

      As for the various other privations…hmm. In St. Mary’s Home, toilet paper was considered an unnecessary luxury. It was the job of the Big Girls to show us Little Ones how to crinkle up the pieces of newspaper pieces with our hands until they were relatively soft. Of course, the ink would get all over our hands – which made sure we washed them thoroughly. Clever, those nuns.)

      OTOH, ’round here we don’t read newspapers any more, so the raw materials are not as readily available as they once were. Too bad, because in the fascinating future to which we seem headed many would finally find The New York Times useful.

      • ‘I know people who stockpile incandescent light bulbs.”

        LOL! I am one such extremist!

  3. > It will soon be time for “I am Spartacus.”

    Remember that all the people standing up and shouting “I am Spartacus” were crucified. And so was Spartacus himself. They tried open combat and lost.

    If we want to beat Islam at its “stealth infiltration” game, we have to master taqiyya too. Engaging in open combat will not work since our own “rule of law” goverments will not be on our side because they will be too bus protecting the vermin’s “human right” to infiltrate us.

    • You / we can’t beat Islam when our so-called “elected GoVs” , which they accuse others of dictatorship and fundamentalism, import Muslims in mass countless numbers. From Somalia, from Egypt from Eritrea, Pakistan, Chechnya, Dagestan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, … etc. These Muslims need places, mosques to train for future razzias. Like Badr, Uhud. You cannot force them to act as you wish when they are in large numbers. People take more pleasure in opposing, torturing, than cooperating and obeying. You have to know human nature since eternity it has been conflicts and wars. The kind, the just, the meek will not necessarily win.

    • “Beating Islam” is no longer the game; that’s passe. As the article above suggests, it’s no longer just Islam that’s fighting us, but a far, far more formidable opponent. Islam is simply catching a ride on a convenient carrier, like a flea on a dog. And this comment is being logged in some giant non-Islamic basement thousands of miles away. The taqiya you recommend is becoming increasingly more difficult and therefore needs rethinking.

      • Agreed, can you name the dog. We all need to identify who sits at the top of the pile of ordure
        causing ALL the problems.

  4. So I guess anyone who celebrates Independence Day is an extremist. Oh my, how far we have fallen.
    Hey Government, I am an extremist…..come and get me, you “fascist bastards!”

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  6. Southern Poverty Lie Center is the real hate group.

    A year ago, Floyd Corkins, a homosexual terrorist, entered Family Research Center’s office and shot Leonardo Johnson, the security guard. Despite his wounded left arm, Johnson helped others wrestle the real bigot to the ground until he was arrested. Corkins admitted he chose his target from SPLC’s lists of anti-gay, pro-family “hate” groups.

    • SPLC did indeed encourage Floyd Boy with their hate list ..oops, can’t say that since Floyd is black. Sort of black. So if he’s black man, then by Eric Holder’s rules he can’t be a racist.

      Thus, this isn’t a hate crime – but wait…the security guard was also black, so this *was* a hate crime, right?

      ummm…and FloydMan was gay, too, irrc, another untouchable group.

      He’s also obese, so maybe that makes him disabled??

      Well, Washington’s mayor gave the guard a medal and Floyd may already be serving his 45 years.

      The guy belongs in St. Elizabeth’s right next to the fellow who shot Reagan.

  7. Thanks Nick for the link! I can use it in my writings.

    Amazing document. Not a word about Islam or the Muslim Brotherhood even if those guys fulfill all 16 criterias for “extremism”.

    The document includes a list of 6 “Historical events”, starting with the Jewish Holocoust. The Sovjet Communists are not represented in the list. I mean it would be appropriate to start with Stalin’s extermination of 7 million Ukrainans in 1932-33. Just for the sake of proportions.

  8. *Remember that all the people standing up and shouting “I am Spartacus” were crucified. And so was Spartacus himself. They tried open combat and lost.*

    Absolutely right! I am afraid I was being pessimistic, because I agree with your assessment of comparative strength, and I do not see much evidence of an electoral solution. At least the rebel gladiators knew who the enemy was, and how unlikely their beating them. And the defense of “I am Spartacus” is the last resort of an oppressed people who will not go the last step and betray comrades and neighbors to save themselves.

    I viscerally agree with those who call for action, but how likely is that, and who will lead?

  9. As the defenders of human rights and dignity, we are necessarily committed to a defensive strategy. This may appear to have significant disadvantages, but it does not mean that we cannot choose our ground.

    In the United States, the right to assemble peaceably and petition the government for redress of grievances has sometimes been successfully combined with the right to keep and bear arms. Such protests play an increasing role in public opposition to the advance of totalitarianism, though the government-controlled media aggressively refuses to cover them accurately. The larger such a protest is, and the more clearly representing a pure call to respect the Constitution (particularly the Bill of Rights), the more likely it is to be successful. Most police are uncomfortable attempting to enforce tyranny when outnumbered by armed citizens.

    Actually assembling a protest that will be sufficiently armed to deter authoritarian aggression is a tricky proposition…at least it is tricky to assemble it somewhere that the government cannot simply ignore. But I would not suggest that it is remotely impossible. The real difficulty is getting people that hope to avoid violence to participate in an armed protest where there is a real risk of open conflict if the authorities resort to tyranny.

    That reluctance is overcome at the individual level, by people being willing to resist against even hopeless odds in the last defense of their individual freedom. Once people are willing to openly state their willingness to defy tyranny to the last, they are far more open to the idea of participating in an exercise of bearing arms in the defense of a free state by peaceably assembling and petitioning the government for redress of grievances.

    I am willing to stand alone against tyranny, whatever the outcome. That is what makes it possible for me to promise to stand beside those who will stand with me.

    • One of the issues involved is those with nothing left to lose, or considerably less, aka the lower classes are the most likely to participate. Ergo we see the EDL as a pioneer of Anti-Islamic protest emerging from the lower classes.

      The middle class however is more reluctant to participate, to be derided and demonized, ostracized from polite society, their careers ruined, their economic ruin, thus resulting in family suffering.

      Like Ned and Dympha here, who are not particularly wealthy. Ned spits on his reputation. He simply speaks his mind, and lets the chips fall where they may.

      Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose… – Janis Joplin

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXV_QjenbDw

      This is one reason why the US Founding Fathers were so extraordinary.

      • E.V. —

        One minor, but crucial, correction: I spit on the grave of my reputation.

        My reputation, such as it was, died under the jackboot heel of Charles Johnson almost six years ago.

        Any shreds that remained were gathered together and deep-sixed by Roger Simon, helped along later by Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller, and even later by all the media outlets (especially in Norway) that labeled Gates of Vienna as “a xenophobic hate site that acted as one of Breivik’s mentors”, or a variant thereof.

        Any hope I might have had of being a “respectable” writer has thus been completely eliminated. Fortunately, I never had much ambition in that direction, anyway.

        This is what I do, and this is what I will continue to do, until death or dementia intervenes, or until we become so impoverished that I have to give up and get a job stocking shelves at Food Lion.

        • Dear Baron,

          At the time of Breivik’s assault, I was living in Stockholm. According to my opinion, the massiv media exploitation of the event had no intention to deliver facts but to maximize their turnover by creating mass hysteria. In this context, Fjordman and Gates of Vienna were very small sitting ducks.

          My intention is to cheer you up with my following definition of “The Language of Violence”:

          1. When the language is used in a way that the victim of a crime is attacked at the same time as the comitter of the crime is defended (Definition of Crime: Violation of a law in a country.).

          2. Silence when it supports Violence according to 1.

        • I apologize for the poor muddled communication of your phraseology. Thanks for the correction.

          I still dont know exactly what happened back then. Between Roger Simon, Charles Johnson and you and PJMedia, Little Green Footballs, and GoV.

          Maybe one day somebody will write a good account of that.

          • It’s all pretty much in the public record, or I wouldn’t have brought it up. It’s not much fun to read about, though. I won’t be writing about it anytime soon, since to do so would only serve to highlight the divisiveness and fractiousness that have plagued our movement since day one. We don’t need any more of that.

            I just pointed it out as an explanation of how a reputation can be destroyed. The same thing is happening to Diana West right now — in fact, some of the same players are involved. They’re attempting to wreck her career as a writer, but they won’t succeed.

  10. @EscapeVelocity–Well said! What is worrisome is: Who is our EDL? Who in this country “speaks for” the poor and deprived and those who have little left to lose? And are any of those spokespeople even remotely interested in the Constitution, except to expand it into a socialist document and tighten the reins of government on those who disagree?

    Alternatively, if we do not have an EDL, who is our Geert Wilders to lead the middle class away from the pervasive propaganda of the day? And if/when one arises (again?), will anyone stand up to protect him or her against the deluge of dirt and venom that will be forthcoming?

    I do not enjoy these thoughts, and I agree that the Founding Fathers were extraordinary people in a fated time. Thus far, shunning and shaming are quite sufficient for the purposes of the power structure, both sides of the aisle. As someone has said, the Baron is a notable exception. He and Dymphna and their band of helpers are a vehicle for intelligent discourse and exploration of solutions.
    But the reaction of some Scandinavian journalists and politicians to this blog are an indicator that the establishment is ready to crush anyone who contradicts the party line.

    So where do we go from here?

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  13. In America, it is the individual states which have the potential to serve as a defense against the imposition of tyranny by the Federal government. I do not see the emergence of a unified national push-back because one of the things that is sadly apparent is that the nation itself cannot survive intact given the economic situation. The alleviating the debt burden of the Federal government has become a mathematical impossibility. Given that the actual power of the Federal government to impose unconstitutional mandates is entirely dependent on the dollar remaining acceptable as currency, the coming financial collapse will simply abolish any remaining national authority. This situation is more like what will happen to the E.U. than it is to what will happen to any given historical European nation.

    The states are not much like nations, they don’t have distinct nationalities or anything like the depth of independent history of the various nations of Europe. Nevertheless, it is at the state level that movements to preserve the heritage of Constitutional government must act. While they can and should engage in dialog across state boundaries, the reestablishment of the Constitution must ultimately come about in the form of re-ratification by the states rather than by somehow “preserving” the union. The latter task is simply not a realistic possibility, because the current Federal government is entirely tyrannical and holds no authority under the Constitution. There is thus nothing left at the national level worth preserving.

    The relation of the various state movements to the Federal government should be like the relation of the various European national movements to the E.U., characterized entirely by attacks on the illegitimacy and tyranny and not by efforts to “reform” the system so much as abolish it. Both are inevitably going to fall apart at the seams anyway, and possibly quite soon.

    At the very least, the Chinese will pull the plug on the dollar when Obama still has enough time left in office for the American response to be completely wrong in every possible way (I believe Beijing is aware that they cannot rationally hope for a worse national leader to exist, let alone be elected). And given the way things are going, the Chinese may well get their wish of not having to dirty their hands so obviously. The world economy is currently a collective delusion of continued elite control rather than a rational system of mutually beneficial wealth exchange. The producers are already starting to wake up to the reality. When they start seriously pulling out it is all over.

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