Fri, May 1, 2009 at 12:55:21 pm
Here we go again. Now everyone’s screaming about a DHS memo that was actually recalled “within minutes” of being released, defining a “lexicon” of domestic extremists of all types: Who You Calling an Extremist?
This time the lefties can start yelling too.
Here’s the memo. (PDF)
I can see absolutely nothing wrong with this memo. It’s an even-handed look at a whole range of extremist groups, including animal rights activists, environmental terrorist gangs, anarchists, black bloc, black nationalists, Aztlan, Christian Identity weirdos, neo-Nazis, etc.
Right, left, and everything else on the politico-anarchist spectrum.
But Ed Morrissey’s calling it a “broad-ranging assault on political thought.”
Which (I’m sorry to say, Ed) ... is completely off the rails.
UPDATE at 5/1/09 1:25:15 pm:
Ed says:
But doesn’t this list seem a little … incomplete? And is Jewish extremism really more of a threat than Muslim extremism? Here in the Twin Cities, we haven’t seen Jewish immigrants suddenly disappear and conduct suicide bombings in Somalia. Isn’t DHS just a wee bit curious about that?
The very first paragraph of the memo states:
This product provides definitions for key terms and phrases that often appear in DHS analysis that addresses the nature and scope of the threat that domestic, non-Islamic extremism poses to the United States.