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« Trunk Show: The Sister Souljah Edition | Main | I Blame The Bush Tax Cuts » May 10, 2007Libertarians are Terrorists?Alabama blogger Chris Brunner says the Alabama Department of Homeland Security thinks libertarians are terrorists, judging from the content on the department's "domestic terrorism" web page. If you review Brunner's blog post and the state of Alabama's web page on domestic terrorism, you'll see that Alabama defines terrorists based on what they believe rather than what they do: Libertarians are terrorists because they are opposed to gun control and think the federal government is too large, oppressive, and non-constitutional. Other groups of various ideologies are terrorists because of what they believe about the government. That's the wrong way to define a terrorist. Muslims who believe Islam should rule the world aren't terrorists unless they strap on the suicide belt, plant bombs on buses, or hijack airliners and fly them into buildings. The libertarians I know aren't doing those kinds of things to further the libertarian agenda. They're not terrorists. They're Americans with a political point of view. If the government defines anyone who doesn't like the government as a terrorist, well, that means the government believes that pretty much every American is a terrorist at one time or another. It's a good thing that the Alabama Homeland Security folks don't have jurisdiction in Nashville, else they might have raided the big libertarian hoedown Tuesday night in Nashville. Posted in Campaign Season
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Homeland Security has tried to erase those pages from memory. But you can see photos of them here: www.freestudents.blogspot.com. Make copies and spread them around so they can't pretend they didn't exist. Posted by: CLS at May 10, 2007 9:48 PM"in ways sometimes subtle and sometimes obvious, government seems increasingly suspicious of its citizens and Americans as a result are coming under an increasing amount of surveillance." Posted by: Rick Forman at May 11, 2007 12:19 PMAlabama: last in education, first in dildo legislation. Posted by: Bubba T. Rex at May 11, 2007 12:38 PMJust one more example of bureaucratic idiocy. I don't know why anyone would expect anything else. Posted by: JorgXMcKie at May 11, 2007 12:41 PMJust to clarify CLS' comment - this is Alabama's State Homeland Security department, not the Federal one, like Bill said. It's best to be very clear on the Interwebs. The Wayback Machine cache of the page suggests a more, er, nuanced reading, however. (It appears to be identical to CLS' screenshot.) It states explicitly that few people with such beliefs are criminals; it does not say that "libertarians are terrorists". "Terrorists" there refers not to anyone who believes government is too large, but "some on the extreme fringe that are convinced that the Government has been subverted and that their freedoms must be aggressively defended to the point of attacks on our governing institutions." Actual physical attacks on governing institutions seems like a reasonable definition of terrorist in this context and in no way refers to "libertarians" as a group. Tempest, Teapot. Mountain, Molehill. Posted by: Sigivald at May 11, 2007 12:57 PMPost a comment
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