The Domestic Terrorist
in the mirror

Friday, February 09, 2007

By Mike Tuggle

Fed up with the threat of immigrant gangs?  Ready to do something about the downward pull on wages caused by the uncontrolled influx of cheap foreign labor? 

Then you’re a terrorist.

Think I’m joking?  That charge is the latest weapon the Open Borders gang is using to silence those who want to limit or stop immigration.  Here’s how it works: 1 - Opposition to Open Borders is racist.  2 - Neo-Nazis and Klansmen are racists 3 - Therefore, anyone who opposes Open Borders is linked to Neo-Nazis and Klansmen. 

Here, for example, is what Socialist Worker says about citizens who volunteer to patrol the US-Mexican border:

Anti-immigrant vigilante groups like the border-patrolling Minuteman Project and the California’s Save Our State (SOS) are on the march--spurred by the anti-immigrant backlash following September 11 and emboldened by the latest round of political assaults on immigrant rights. Though the press has largely ignored it, many of those joining these groups are former (and sometimes current) members of the right-wing militia movement. Neo-Nazi thugs and KKK members also turn out to lend their support.

Don’t make the mistake of dismissing this as the ravings of a Marxist fringe group.  For starters, Marxist thought has become mainstream.  If you object to government-enforced equality, or to multiculturalism, or open borders, you’re the one who’s now in the fringe.  President Bush also condemned the Minuteman Project as the work of “vigilantes.” And the Southern Poverty Law Center, which the corporate press reveres as an unquestionable source for scary quotes about rampaging white supremacists, condemns all immigration reform groups as breeding-grounds of racism:

Most of these groups regularly work together, and their leaders frequently hold cross-memberships in several organizations at once. Some of the groups have clear ties to openly racist organizations, and even some of those that don’t still espouse thinly disguised bigotry.

It gets worse.  Even if you do nothing but read about immigration control, and want nothing more than to preserve your culture from being overrun by illegal aliens, you’re still a Nazi—at least, in the eyes of the SPLC.  In its review of Pat Buchanan’s latest book, entitled Hawking Racism, the SPLC literally brands the book as Nazi propaganda:

To put it plainly, State of Emergency is a white nationalist tract. The thesis is that America must retain a white majority to survive as a nation. It is rooted in a blood-and-soil nationalism that is more blood than soil. The echoes of Nazi ideology are clear and chilling.

While whipping up war fever to invade Iraq, the Neocon journal Foreign Affairs openly speculated that homegrown extremists would soon ally with al Qaeda.  Jessica Stern, a lecturer at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, wrote:

Focusing on economic and social alienation may help explain why such a surprising array of groups has proved willing to join forces with al Qaeda. Some white supremacists and extremist Christians applaud al Qaeda’s rejectionist goals and may eventually contribute to al Qaeda missions. ... Leaderless resisters drawn from the ranks of white supremacists or other groups are not currently capable of carrying out massive attacks on their own, but they may be if they join forces with al Qaeda.

How typical of the globalist, cosmopolitan elite—white supremacists, “extremist Christians,” al-Qaeda—they’re all the same. 

And this recent editorial from The Cavalier Daily, the student newspaper of the University of Virginia, goes so far as to advocate using the USA PATRIOT Act against suspected “domestic terrorists” who intimidate minorities:

The USA Patriot Act defines the term “domestic terrorism” as “acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State,” and those acts which “intimidate or coerce a civilian population.” The new law provides legal justification to authorities in prosecuting Klansmen as terrorists. Klansmen, moreover, have a history of systematically intimidating civilians with planned marches in minority neighborhoods. Yet, they have escaped punishment due to the protection entitled to them by the First Amendment. But now, the Patriot Act might justify a government-led closure of KKK chapters. After all, the KKK’s marches and fiery rhetoric, while expressing heinous opinions, inspire terror amongst innocent minorities. According to the Patriot Act, this sufficiently fulfills the legal definition of domestic terrorism.

Talk about a slippery slope.  If Latinos claim they’re intimidated by border security and immigration reform activists, could the PATRIOT Act come to their rescue?  If membership in the Klan is indistinguishable from joining the Federation for American Immigration Reform, you could end up in jail for speaking out against illegal immigration. 

Remember, it doesn’t take much these days to get you in trouble.  Consider the case of Brandon Mayfield. He had “links” to terrorist groups. What were these links? He advertised in a publication owned by a man who “may have had ties” to known terror groups. Mayfield’s wife once made a telephone call to a charity with “suspected terrorist ties.” And he once represented a man in a child custody case who later pleaded guilty to conspiring to help al-Qaeda and the Taliban fight U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Finally, as the Neocon Frontpage Mag pointed out, “He also fits the profile of a domestic terrorist through his status as a Muslim convert and former member of the US armed forces.” Right—anyone who once served in the US armed forces should be suspected of being a terrorist.  Why, wasn’t Timothy McVeigh a veteran of the First Gulf War?  Who could ask for more proof than that?  After all, these days, the government claims to treat a one percent chance of a threat as a certainty.

So, when the FBI (mistakenly) id’d Mayfields’s fingerprints from evidence gathered at the Madrid commuter train bombing, they figured they had their man. Thanks to the USA PATRIOT Act, FBI agents broke into Mayfield’s home and conducted a secret search—a so-called “sneak and peak” search that old-fashioned “original intent” conservatives would condemn as a violation of the 4th amendment. In Mayfield’s home, FBI agents found even more “proof” of Mayfield’s complicity in the Madrid terrorist bombing—documents written in Spanish! Aha! (Of course, it turned out to be his kid’s Spanish homework.) Later, the FBI again entered the Mayfield home, leaving a footprint on the rug. The family called the police, but nothing was done. Finally, the Feds arrested Mayfield and kept him in jail for weeks without allowing access to an attorney or informing him of the charges against him. When the FBI finally realized its mistake, it freed Mayfield and apologized. Oopsies!  Our bad.

Yes, this is what we’ve come to.  The First Amendment doesn’t apply if you say the wrong things about immigrants.  The prohibition against illegal searches has been defined to the absurd point where it doesn’t mean anything anymore. Heck, any provision in the Bill of Rights that gets in the way of the War on Terror has been invalidated. 

We’ve argued before that our traditional rights, a product of Western, Christian culture, depend on that culture to survive, and that multiculturalism would gradually erode our liberties.  We were wrong – but only about the timing. 

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