If you have never committed a crime or done anything that might be considered dangerous, you may still be considered a threat to national security. That is, if you are a Republican.
Two weeks ago, the Department of Homeland Security issued a report to law enforcement titled “Right-Wing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.”
According to the report, “right-wing extremists” include, but are not limited to, “groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.” In other words, if you are pro-life or favor strict immigration reform, you should not be surprised to find yourself on a government watch list alongside Bill Ayers.
If the report did not show that Republicans are being systematically targeted for being, well, conservative, it might actually be amusing. Sometimes the sheer stupidity of these things can make them funny, in a masochistic sense.
Unfortunately, the misconceived report shows the dangerous lengths to which this administration will go to have its way. It has already vowed to stop using the most effective means of information gathering about our enemies by restricting enhanced interrogation, which it ineptly calls “torture.” Now, Team Obama is turning on the American people ““ the people that disagree with it, anyway ““ and trying to create an intellectual bubble right out of George Orwell’s “1984.”
Even for one of the most left-wing administrations in American history, it has to be difficult to say the words “right-wing extremism” with a straight face. One only has to look at the kinds of people who are inciting violence to see that political extremism is far more common on the left.
Consider animal rights and same-sex marriage ““ two modern-day crusades in which members are mostly Democrats. Despite supposedly speaking from a place of compassion, many of the people associated with these movements employ tactics that fit a different description.
Since these subjects started getting national attention, there has been a lot of gratuitous violence perpetrated against people who disagree with the left ““ that is, those who do not support same-sex marriage and those who support animal testing.
Our own community has seen some of this itself. In the past year, radical animal rights activists have torched cars and committed other unspeakable acts of violence against the scientists who perform humane animal testing at UCLA facilities.
Not far away, people at churches such as pastor Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church and other havens of traditional values have also been harassed by extremists for their support of the man-woman definition of marriage. Such attacks have made many people fearful of expressing their views.
Violence certainly is the worst form of extremism, but it is not the only tool that liberal activists use that puts them in the category of “extremists” over and above the right wing. The left’s tendency to ignore any and all opinions besides their own or reject them out of hand is an even more common and perhaps more dangerous manifestation of this.
When an issue is genuinely contestable ““ abortion or same-sex marriage, for example ““ few people on the left are likely to admit that their opinion is anything but dogma. Even in the absence of evidence, many of them assume that the opposite viewpoint is either mean-spirited ““ as is the case with same-sex marriage and animal rights ““ or stupid (in regard to global warming).
When it comes to issues such as abortion and immigration, both subjects that are mentioned by the DHS report as potential inducements for conservative extremism, liberal activists rely very little on empirical evidence to back up their claims. Instead, they force their beliefs on others by attacking or discrediting those who oppose them. Their vision is assumed to be correct because ““ according to them ““ it is the vision that all “intelligent” people share. People who refuse to accept this are said to be ignorant and to need to be taught how to think.
This sort of intellectual high-handedness is textbook extremism, and it is exactly what our leaders have sunk to. By labeling people “right-wing extremists” simply because they disagree with them, the administration finds itself guilty of the very thing that it had sought to pin on its adversaries. This is hardly consonant with President Obama’s vow to create the most open and bipartisan administration that we have ever seen.
More importantly, however, the report shows that the administration is blissfully ignorant of the real dangers at work in America. By focusing all of its energies on rooting out substantive dissent, the administration is taking precious time away from the issues they really should be keeping an eye on, such as homegrown terrorism. Until our leaders sort out who our real enemies are, we all have to be on our best behavior and hope we aren’t charged with conspiracy to commit conservatism.
E-mail Pherson at apherson@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu