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Political opposition is not a hate crime

Examiner Editorial
July 10, 2009

Attorney General Eric Holder talks with Deputy Attorney General for Legislative affairs Judith Applebaum on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, June 25, 2009, prior to his testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on hate crimes legislation. (AP Photo/Harry Hamburg)

What's wrong with this picture? The federal government spends billions on homeland security, but apparently can't stop foreigners from illegally crossing the border or overstaying their visas. The Obama administration wants to bring violent terrorists captured overseas to the mainland and close the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay. Yet in the latest bizarre twist, legislation quietly making its way through Congress would give the White House power to categorize political opponents as hate groups and even send Americans to detention centers on abandoned military bases.

Rep. Alcee Hastings - the impeached Florida judge Nancy Pelosi tried to install as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee until her own party members rebelled - introduced an amendment to the defense authorization bill that gives Attorney General Eric Holder sole discretion to label groups that oppose government policy on guns, abortion, immigration, states' rights, or a host of other issues. In a June 25 speech on the House floor, Rep. Trent Franks, R-AZ, blasted the idea: "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.'"

Another Hastings bill (HR 645) authorizes $360 million in 2009 and 2010 to set up "not fewer than six national emergency centers on military installations" capable of housing "a large number of individuals affected by an emergency or major disaster." But Section 2 (b) 4 allows the Secretary of Homeland Security to use the camps "to meet other appropriate needs" - none of which are specified. This is the kind of blank check that Congress should never, ever sign.

It's not paranoid to be extremely wary of legislation that would give two unelected government officials power to legally declare someone a "domestic terrorist" and send them to a government-run camp. After all, the federal government has done exactly this sort of thing before. During World War II, more than 120,000 law-abiding Japanese Americans were rounded up by the government and confined for four years in ten internment camps surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards. Joy Kogawa chronicled the trauma her family experienced firsthand under FDR's executive order: "Families were made to move in two hours. Abandoned everything, leaving pets and possessions at gun point..."

It was wrong then, and it would be doubly wrong now should members of Congress somehow fail to learn from past mistakes.



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Reader Comments

All comments on this page are subject to our Terms of Use and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Examiner or its staff. Comment box is limited to 250 words.

depaz

Jul 10, 2009

The lunatics are clearly running the asylum. . . . .

 

tim maguire

Jul 10, 2009

Wasn't this what liberals were warning GWB would do? Yet another example of liberal projection.

 

aposematic

Jul 10, 2009

The first detainee will undoubtedly be Dick Cheney followed by Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, and all the rest of the Conervative commentators and radio hosts.

Then Obama and his controlled media will have no outlets to tell the truth about Obama's lies, more lies, all the time lies.

 

LindaQ

Jul 10, 2009

The left accused Bush of tearing up the Constitution. This is WAY beyond anything Bush did. How do we stop this?

 

buck

Jul 10, 2009

I wish the senators would have asked Holder,"So, basically, this hate crime legislation discriminates against white people, because white people discriminated in the past?"

What country do I live in again? Zimbabwe?

 

satya

Jul 10, 2009

The lunatics are writing articles like this one. And seriously, this sentence

"Rep. Alcee Hastings... introduced an amendment to the defense authorization bill that gives Attorney General Eric Holder sole discretion to label groups that oppose government policy on guns, abortion, immigration, states' rights"

needs a direct object. Gives AG Eric Holder sole discretion to label groups WHAT? Your writing is as awful as your deranged paranoid ideas.

 

g55rumpy

Jul 10, 2009

Will Rogers said"When I tell a joke people laugh.When Congress tells a joke, it`s a law."

 

Darrell

Jul 10, 2009

If anything will precipitate a new America civil war, it is this. I've long said that the Police State will come from the Left, not the Right.

 

Rob Crawford

Jul 10, 2009

Interesting tack, satya -- pick a valid grammatical error and ignore the point of the story.

Now, what do you think of Holder being given the power to label groups as "domestic terrorists" based on the advocacy of specific issues?

 

Zelsdorf Ragshaft III

Jul 10, 2009

This sort of thing is right out of Saul Alinsky's teachings. They forgot one of Mao's saying about power. It comes from the barrel of a gun and we have hundereds of millions of them.

 

Icarus

Jul 10, 2009

Alcee Hastings - the former Federal Judge who was impeached by Congress for corruption and perjury. What is this guy even doing in the House. He should be tared & featherd, and rode out of town on a rail.

 

Bill N

Jul 10, 2009

Satya,
It is *your* English that is faulty. No direct object is necessary in your quote. If I take a piece of paper and stick it on a box have I not "labeled that box?" If I do the same to several boxes have I not "labeled them all?" If I plan to label only the boxes that contain people who oppose the government, why can I not say that I plan to "label all those who oppose the government?" Now, isn't this argument childish? It's proof that you have no *valid* argument to put forward.

 

Drake

Jul 10, 2009

Satya's just following the standard talking points of the left. Divert, obfuscate, mock.

 

Jack

Jul 10, 2009

Fascism has arrived in America. Soon it will have its concentration camps for conservatives and other undesirables.

 

shamus

Jul 10, 2009

re: Satya

Seriously, if you're going to nitpick the grammar while ignoring the huge fascist prep work being done by the Dem Congress, you must nitpick correctly.

To whom was the labelling done?
"Groups that oppose".

Therefore, Atty Gen Holder is the subject, 'label' the predicate, and 'groups that oppose' the direct object.

You can mull all this over when you're walking the yard as a resident of the prison camp - read Natan Sharanksy's Fear No Evil, or Chol Hwan Kang's Aquariums of Pyongyang.

It's the useful idiots - the true believers - that are the first to go. And they remain useful idiots while they rot in the camps.

What's funny is you Libs & Dems thought Bush was fascist. Now you're starting to see what the word means.

 

smokehouse

Jul 10, 2009

satya, if you're going to be a tin hat liberal, learn English. And don't forget to pay your Obama taxes that will wash away your income.

 

Jul 10, 2009

Remember Bill Ayers? Obama's radical terrorist pal that said there would be at least 20 million Americans that would have to be killed in the take over? The process has begun!

 

Jul 10, 2009


People are looking at their own history! Nothing new, just a the new generation's smiley-faced dictator puppet. In 1966 and named after Columbia University sociologists Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, the "Cloward-Piven Strategy" seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse... Anyone that knows the history of ACORN and have read Rules for Radicals know exactly what the far, far left is up to and if not they should!

Gangsta Chicago-style Thugacracy as Chicago on the Potomac. The Chicago graft machine is at work in both the White House and Congress. The government (mob) making an offer that can not be refused...

See: http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6967

 

JamesJ

Jul 10, 2009

"The brothers are in charge now."
John Street, after inaugurated as Philadelphia mayor

 

Jul 10, 2009

Facist Nazi Dictatorship in the making!

 

Greg

Jul 10, 2009

aposematic

Jul 10, 2009

The first detainee will undoubtedly be Dick Cheney followed by Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, and all the rest of the Conervative commentators and radio hosts.

Then Obama and his controlled media will have no outlets to tell the truth about Obama's lies, more lies, all the time lies.
****************
The first detainees:

Oh if only it was true)

 

Constitution First

Jul 10, 2009

satya, Are you paying attention? What is the article about? Hate speech. What is he going to label them? portrayers of hate speech. DUH! Instead of picking apart his syntax, why don't you counter his premiss? Could it be you have nothing significant to counter with? Don't look now, but your sword just drooped.

 

Commonsense

Jul 10, 2009

Take heart folks. Obammie and the rest of his lunatic lib dumocrat herd can't hide what they really represent much longer. Prepare for 2010!

 

Dave

Jul 10, 2009

Obama is going exactly what Hitler did in Germany. Obama rigged the last election with Acorn. He has almost completely taken over the MSM. He has rigged the next election with 5 billion stimilus dollars to Acorn 18 months before the next election. Now he is setting up concentration camps for what he considers extremests (undesirables). I guess as a Muslim he will go after the Jews and then the Christians. I guess this follows the rationing of health care that will only be for desirables. All socialist movements have a desired citizen. Hitler had his Arian race, who will be the chosen people this time?

 

Track-A-'Crat

Jul 10, 2009

Never forget that Alcee Hastings also said this, possibly the most stupid thing in the history of ever:

http://trackacrat.com/2009/02/28/winner-of-the-award-for-incoherence/

 

Anon

Jul 10, 2009

It's weird how you can write a ~400 word editorial about an amendment to ban members of "hate groups" from the military without mentioning that it's an amendment to ban members of "hate groups" from the military. Even weirder how you include the term "hate crime" (a term never used in the amendment) in the headline and use a picture of Eric Holder at a hearing on hate crimes legislation. It's *almost* as if you want people to think this has something to do with hate crime legislation, rather than who can join the army. Really, if I didn't know better, I'd swear you didn't want your readers to understand what's actually going on.

Sad, too, since this would have been the perfect time to talk about Obama's secret goal of an all-homosexual army and how that will affect our families.

 

America Is Under Fascist Assault

Jul 10, 2009

http://economictrendsjournal.com/blog/impeach-obama-and-remove-the-fascists-bureaucrats/

 

Obama's Nazi Debt Camp, America!

Jul 10, 2009

Obama has dug this country into a budget deficit of more than five times that as 2008.
Comrade President Obama: You have run out of other people's money and enslaved our children and grand children.

 

rmark

Jul 10, 2009

"During World War II, more than 120,000 law-abiding Japanese Americans were rounded up by the government and confined for four years in ten internment camps surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards."

or maybe not

http://www.internmentarchives.com/

 

smchudej

Jul 10, 2009

Illegally imprisoning American CITIZENS is exactly what Obama had in in his mandate to set up the CHUMP Mortgage Crisis Program--if you are not a registered Democrat--Watch out!
See details here:
http://www.velveetaelvis.com/Breaking_News_.html

 

StewartIII

Jul 10, 2009

The lock-up-your-opponents bills of 2009?
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/07/10/the-lock-up-your-opponents-bills-of-2009/

 

Keep Obama in his homeland and stay the hell out of mine!

Jul 10, 2009

Obama wants hate? He got it with this and his insults to American. Obama: Stay in Africa your country and stay the hell out of mine! Robbers and looters!POSER PRESIDENT SENT BILLIONS TO HAMAS. WHY?

 

BHO-must-fail

Jul 10, 2009

I can think of several people who we should round up and place in these encampments: BHO, JoeB, Pelosi, Reid, Boxer, Feinstein, Leahy, Murtha, Waxman, etc......

 

Kralizec

Jul 11, 2009

When it's come to the point that an official seems intent on robbing, terrifying, imprisoning, or murdering his opponents, it seems good for the gloves to come off. The time and manner in which one makes an example is a matter of prudence, but "before it's too late" is probably a good rule.

 

geron

Jul 11, 2009

They always said it could not happen here, but is has. Fascists have taken control of the federal government.

http://tyrannysentinel.blogspot.com

 

DLR

Jul 11, 2009

It's good to see only a couple of people don't get it when I scanned the comments. Those would be satya and anon. It's amazing to see comments such as satya made speaking only to a possible grammatical error while bypassing the meat of the subject and anon's naivete' on the matter. I don't care if it is about keeping "radicals" out of the military. Tha's only a first step to gradually moving into the domestic terrorist arena. They move gradually in small steps feeding you a spoonful at a time. Next their "terrorists" will be labeled because they complained on a wesite such as this. Grow up!!!

 

cmblake6

Jul 11, 2009

"When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

 

Laughing!

Jul 12, 2009

Should be pretty easy to fill the holding camps (political prisons) once Sotomayor is confirmed. I'm sure she'll back arrest and detention without charge of anyone opposing her agenda.

 

Intellgence Report Media

Jul 12, 2009

If anything were to start a war against the powers in Washington DC..This will be it!..There is no doubt in this writers mind that Obama and the socialist democrats want to totally control the people of this country...People really need to watch what goes on with Obama and his minions...eveidence so far shows that socialist democrats want to overthrow our way of government and instill their own sick twisted ways on the american people...This is very dangerous and needs to be stopped!!

 

Gen. Early,CSA

Jul 12, 2009

I for one will not go quietly into the night.

 

SEZME66

Jul 12, 2009

this is what many pundits warned about prior to the election. our only hope now is to toss incumbent democrats a.k.a. liberals in the next two elections and hope the chips fall in the right direction!

 

Spook

Jul 13, 2009

It's time all freedom loving Americans read the book, "Unintended Consequences" by John Ross. It provides a viable alternative to firefights in the streets to return our REPUBLIC to the tenets and principles the founding fathers envisioned.

Read the book, then reflect on how you might be able to contribute to the cause if we're ultimately given no other choice.

Nex ut Tyrannus and their supporters.

 

Laughing Liberal

Jul 14, 2009

Wow, this one really got the loonies riled up didn't it? Everyone put on your tinfoil hats and man the barricades! The black helicopters from the UN are here to take our guns away and put us in re-education camps!

Hilarious

 

status quo has to go

Jul 14, 2009

Laughing Liberal, it is indeed obvious that you are blind to what is taking place in front of your eyes. Maybe the sound of the U.N. choppers might just persuade your thoughts. Till then, I for one am doing what I can to stop this quagmire. I hope there are some of Mr. Obamas goons keeping an eye on these sites because I am so sick and tired of all of this crap. It started along time ago, way before anyone is willing to recognize, try with President Lincoln. Don't believe me, do the research. The only thing is, the wicked have found their scapegoat. It stops with him. Anyone willing to sellout what America was founded on is nothing less than a rotting piece of flesh to me. Any of the hypocrits, bigots, anti-American sacks of crap want MY freedom, be man enough to personally try and take it! For all of you that don't understand plain English, that means leave your hired hands at home. You have made these threats to Liberty, you surrender to the consequences.

 

www.myspace.com/LaraStarr420

Jul 16, 2009

This is what Ive been talking about everyday for over a year. Author Naomi Wolf has broken their plans into 10 Steps for closing an open society and the creation of these camps is one of them. You have to do something with the coming uprising. They know that the constitution states we have the duty to throw a tyrannous government out and put a republic back into place. Im all for it and Im sure that because of it, Im a domestic terrorist too. People need to start waking up before it's too late and people like me end up rotting in one of these camps.

 

juliet

Jul 19, 2009

Facism with a smilling face. So since I am sending , letters to my congrssmen & senators I belong to a hate group. But it was GWB & his group that is making us more facist then ever it the articulate gentman & his gang from the left go figure

 

DAnnara

Aug 8, 2009

Welcome to the USSA. And so many said it could not happen here.

 

Zack

Aug 21, 2009

Wow... just wow. This is MAYBE being put through by congress, and so it automatically has to be Obama being a socialist and a Nazi (which are two things on two different specturms). Wake up people. The president doesn't do everything around the country. If it were like that the U.S. would have got nothing done when Bush kept taking breaks every time something bad happened.

 

wbonney21

Aug 23, 2009

If You are against President Barack Obama, then You are in fact against the United States Of America.plain&simple.after 8 years of GWB and his cronies, America needs all the help She can get. God bless President Obama and the USA.

 


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