Michelle Goldberg posted earlier on this new report from the Department of Homeland Security that focuses on threats from right-wing extremists, and how it has Michelle Malkin in a predictable tizzy:
In Obama land, there are no coincidences. It is no coincidence that this report echoes Tea Party-bashing left-wing blogs (check this one out comparing the Tea Party movement to the Weather Underground!) and demonizes the very Americans who will be protesting in the thousands on Wednesday for the nationwide Tax Day Tea Party.
The report doesn't say a word about the tea parties. This is a complete fabrication. Unless of course, by "the very Americans who will be protesting" Malkin is arguing that the type of potentially violent extremists the report is focused on are the "very Americans" who will be at the tea parties. If that's the case, the report isn't "demonizing" them, Malkin is.
The report is focused on potentially violent threats, not people who are peaceably protesting the government. As Michelle points out, there is a reason to look at right wing extremists--they've been responsible for the most devastating homegrown attacks on American soil in recent years. I disagree with Goldberg though on this point--yes, the report is focused on potentially violent extremists, not staunch conservatives. But in the past, peaceful left-wing protesters were put in terrorist databases, so it's not as though Malkin has no reason to be concerned. It's just that the right has spent the last eight years arguing that the government should have unlimited powers to spy on its own citizens, and that the innocent have nothing to fear. Oops.
Historically, when the government has an unlimited license to spy on its citizens that power has led to abuse, the surveillance of people like Paul Robeson and Martin Luther King Jr. come to mind. The problem is that the right has just spent eight years arguing that there is no check on the executive branch when it comes to measures taken to "keeping the American people safe," and that if you're not guilty, there's nothing to worry about. They've argued that even reporting on the methods used undermines the government's ability to keep people safe, regardless of the legality of the government's methods. I don't think there's anything wrong with skepticism about what the government does with its authority, in fact I encourage it. But Malkin and her ideological comrades have been arguing for years that such skepticism is a form of treason.
Now of course, dissent is patriotic, and the government keeping tabs on non-violent, if enthusiastic, dissenters is a form of persecution. If only they had felt that way eight years ago, instead of mocking those who fight to protect all of our civil liberties--even theirs. Liberals, meanwhile, shouldn't be any less skeptical of government surveillance just because it's being pointed in the direction of their political rivals. It's certainly possible, even likely, that people who've done nothing wrong will get targeted as the government attempts to protect the country from homegrown right-wing extremists.
-- A. Serwer
