April 19, 2009 03:49 AM UTC

From your Friendly, Neighborhood Terror Threat

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• by: Yokel

I made a post on Friday that implied I felt I was on some sort of watch list, and was rather surprised to see a couple folks take me very, very seriously.

I know I’m not on a watch list.  Frankly, I’m not that interesting.

It was a throw-away snark regarding the broad scope of the recent DHS report, doubling as an excuse for not posting as much as I’d like.  After all, everyone can say “I’ve been kind of busy.”

But the report, and the focus of DHS’s inquiry, bug me a little, too.  Not in the melodramatic “Oh, they’re spying on me” way that we’ve all seen.  

There are real terror threats on the Left and the Right, from the ELF to the Michigan Militia.  Clearly they need watching (and before you say President Bush preferred watching one over the other, remember that the most-watched domestic group during his time was a religious sect in Texas).  But broadening the scope with language that could include essentially everyone?  Why would anyone charged with defending against such legitimate terror threats do that?

What DHS released is not intended to be an operational profile.  I know this for two reasons:

1) Profiling is wrong.  

2) We know about it.  

What concerns me is what it really could be – not a study of potential terror threats, but a political ploy to discredit entire groups of conservatives: pro-lifers, veterans, Tea-partiers, and any other such group.  

How does it go?  Oh yeah:

“Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” – Saul Alinsky

Clearly, a target has been picked, and by an entity of the actual government rather than merely a Press Secretary as was the case with the recent Limbaugh flap.  

I frankly could care less if I get pseudo-watchlisted.  I know it’s just a ploy to encourage someone to say something stupid.  

What worries me is that the cabinet is becoming so incredibly political, and that its reports are little more than agitprop.

I can’t wait to see how they “freeze” and “personalize” such threatening veterans.  I predict numerous studies emphasizing the mental instability brought on by PTSD.

Yeah, this is going to be fun.