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Yes. You are a potential terrorist

So you thought, "I'm not doing anything wrong. Why should I care about who they call a terrorist?" Well, you may not believe it, but you're likely a terror suspect in America's new paradigm of the Land of the Fear.

The government is casting a wide net over its citizens in its search for potential threats. Now, you don't need to actually commit a crime to be hauled away to a detention center and held without charges while you are tortured; you just need to appear suspicious by sympathizing with anti-government views to be labeled a domestic terrorist.

First, it's important to understand the official definition of domestic terrorism in the United States. The ACLU reports that a person is a domestic terrorist if they engage in any "act dangerous to human life" that "appears to be intended to (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping."

Although recent White House action plans claim to be targeting "violent extremism in all its forms," the government itself is clearly guilty of countless "acts dangerous to human life intended to coerce the civilian population, to influence the policy, and to affect the conduct of a government."  

ARE YOU A TERRORIST SYMPATHIZER?

What's most disturbing, is the government's expansion of guilty parties to "terrorist sympathizers."  This is where the net gets really large.  What exactly constitutes sympathizing with a terrorist? Is questioning the imperial foreign policy and the destruction of civil liberties, sympathizing with the enemy?  In the U.S., it seems that if you don't agree with the violence and coercion America commits, then you're an anti-American terrorist sympathizer, as evidenced by peace organizations being added to terror watch lists.

MILITIA MOVEMENT TERRORISTS

The Missouri Information Analysis Center identifies the warning signs of potentially violent anti-government ideology: militia groups, association with third-party political groups, enthusiasm for minor-party candidates such as Ron Paul or Bob Barr, hostility to immigration, and opposition to abortion. Brandishing a bumper-sticker was considered a dead giveaway.

RIGHT WING EXTREMIST TERRORISTS

The Department of Homeland Security warns that not just militia members but all right-wing extremists pose a threat. Right-wing extremists include anyone who doesn't see eye-to-eye with the Obama administration, and veterans. Especially veterans.

COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY TERRORISTS

The Virginia Fusion Center recently rolled out its own report warning that there were potential terrorists everywhere. It noted that areas with high levels of ethnic diversity gave terrorists the chance to blend into the crowd. It singled out state colleges and universities as "radicalization nodes," with particular attention paid to historically black colleges and Pat Robertson's Regent University. It also mentioned state prisons, anarchist extremists at VMI and William & Mary (Question: Is there such thing as an anarchist moderate?), Muslims at VCU, and environmentalists who protest energy companies.

NATURALLY, all this finger-pointing has upset the pinkos at the ACLU and the brownshirts in AMVETS and the 700 Club, who say the security agencies are casting too broad a net. Well, that is nonsense of the purest ray serene. If anything, the reports seem far too narrow in scope. All three have overlooked some other highly likely sources of radical terrorist node-ification. These include, but are not limited to . . .

TEA PARTY PROTESTERS, OCCUPIERS AND VETERAN TERRORISTS

Protest events that unite crowds of Americans are rife with anti-government agitation and criticism of the Obama administration. Preliminary reports also indicate the presence of veterans.

BOY SCOUT TERRORISTS

The Boy Scouts. Launched a century ago by a foreign imperialist warmonger (Britain's Robert Baden-Powell, a veteran of the Boer Wars), the Scouting movement is organized along paramilitary lines; individual cells, called "troops" -- or, for Cub Scouts, "packs" -- usually consist of a few to several dozen boys. Each troop has its own insignia, which are traded enthusiastically at annual events called "jamborees," where the indoctrination of America's youth into the Scouting ideology is particularly intense.

Disciplined and regimented, Scouts have infiltrated nearly every community in the United States under cover of teaching citizenship and virtue. However, from an early age Scouts receive training in weaponry (archery, rifle, shotgun); wilderness survival skills; camping; orienteering; first aid; rappelling; chemistry; and even aviation and atomic energy.

NEIGHBOURS AND EX's

That guy next door who's always eating Ramen noodles dry. That boy just ain't right. Then there's your ex who started acting supiciously just before your break-up.