Latest posts  
July
07
  2:33:57 AM

Call them extremists and book ‘em

There’s a bill stealthily moving through Congress that would allow the nation’s Attorney General to classify pro-life Americans as terrorists. It was backed by impeached Florida judge — now a Democrat Party member of the House of Representatives — Rep. Alcee Hastings.

Even Republican congressmen willing to back the general idea of protecting citizens against “hate crimes” raised concerns about the language of this bill. Thank God they’re reading some of the things they’re voting on in there.

“While the amendment seeks to keep gang members and members of violent groups out of the military, the amendment by its language is much more broad.  Specifically, it confers upon the Attorney General the ability to categorize groups as hate groups, and this sounds an alarm for many of us because of the recent shocking and offensive report released by the Department of Homeland Security which labeled, arguably, a majority of Americans as “extremists.”

“I take extreme offense that the federal government — through a report issued under the authority of a Cabinet-level official — would dare to categorize people who are “dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition or abortion or immigration” as “right-wing extremists” and it begs the question of whether the Attorney General, under Mr. Hastings’ Amendment, can look to the Napolitano report to decide who is an extremist, or can make the same categorization of the majority of Americans as extremists who may then be kept from joining the military, or who may be discharged. 

“The desire to risk one’s life on foreign soil for one’s country may well be considered “extreme.”

Especially to some left wing extremists, to turn around some ideology here.

“I want to state unequivocally that I believe that it is not the intent of this Congress to label pro-lifers, federalism proponents, and pro-immigration enforcement groups and their affiliates as extremists under the bill.  My colleagues on the other side of the aisle should make a strong effort to assuage these concerns and make our intentions clear.  If the intent of this amendment is to go after citizens because of their political views and moral convictions, then the amendment is unconstitutional.”

Good call to Congress, to make their intentions clear. After all, isn’t Washington all about transparency now?



 
about this blog | Bookmark and Share

Search this blog

 Subscribe to Sheila's newsletter
rss Subscribe to Sheila's RSS feed

 Recent Posts
Dozens of Catholic institutions sue Obama
22 May 2012
Seeing the human face in mass media
15 May 2012
Motherhood
13 May 2012
First Lady fashion
11 May 2012
Obama’s unsurprising marriage epiphany
10 May 2012

 MercatorNet blogs
Population issues: Demography is Destiny
Family social policy: Family Edge
Style and culture: Tiger Print
News about bioethics: BioEdge
From the editors: Conniptions

 Archive
May 2012 | Apr 2012 | Mar 2012 | more >>

  From MercatorNet's home page

Sensing the sacred
25 May 2012
Is there a sense of the sacred that even the non-religious can share?

Could geoengineering save the planet?
25 May 2012
And who is thinking about the ethics of a technological quick fix?

A thought experiment about marriage
24 May 2012
A world in which sexual intimacy could not produce children would never have come up with the idea of marriage.

Australia’s lifeline: its precarious sea lanes
23 May 2012
Large, isolated and rich, Australia needs to cultivate a friendship with the US to survive in an dangerous world.

It’s only natural
22 May 2012
The bitterest debates today in the public square often turn on what is "natural". The Chinese sages had a lot…


 Tags
March for Life, Terri Schiavo, Japan earthquake, US politics, ACLU, Obama, environment, Bill O'Reilly, Pope Benedict XVI, informed consent,