Numerous claims have been made about the administration of President Joe Biden weaponizing federal agencies to do what is done in dictatorships – silence political opposition by threatening those who dare disagree with the dictator’s agenda. The latest example of federal agencies doing this comes to us courtesy of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
DHS is charged with responsibility to improve domestic security. Its responsibility in this regard comes in a number of areas as its website explains, including “customs, border, and immigration enforcement, emergency response to natural and manmade disasters, antiterrorism work, and cybersecurity.” While DHS cannot be accused of taking its border and immigration enforcement responsibilities seriously, it now identifies potential terrorist threats by looking through rose-colored leftist glasses.
Interestingly, the method DHS has adopted is very similar to one the media naively relies upon. The media accept this group, which claims to be “the premier U.S. organization monitoring the activities of domestic hate groups and antigovernment hard right extremists,” at its word. It is known as the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Without doing their own homework, members of the media simply look at SPLC’s list of hate groups as a bible, disregarding the organization’s leftist bias.
However, despite the hundreds of hate groups SPLC identifies by their dominant orientation (e.g., neo-Nazi, anti-government, etc.), a quick look at its list is telling. For example, while identifying Christian and Catholic groups, there is no mention of a religious group whose leaders deliver hateful sermons about non-Muslims and especially Jews in mosques across America. Also, while listing radical white racist groups, nowhere on the list does Black Lives Matter (BLM) appear despite BLM’s lack of affection for whites. Meanwhile, a group calling itself White Lives Matter, apparently by definition, is deemed hateful by SPLC.
Interesting too, SPLC seems to excuse the extremism of groups like BLM, ignoring the fact that hate is hate. It states, “The black nationalist movement is a reaction to centuries of institutionalized white supremacy in America. Black nationalists believe the answer to white racism is to form separate institutions. …” SPLC added in October 2020, it would no longer use the “Black Separatism” category “to foster a more accurate understanding of violent extremism and to avoid creating a false equivalency between Black Separatism and White supremacist extremism.”
But, just like the media’s reliance upon SPLC, despite its strong left-leaning bias, as the go-to source to identify hate groups, DHS now is doing the same. In fact, it has partnered with a group that arguably is even further left than SPLC. That group is the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START).
DHS decided there was a need for assistance in identifying potential domestic terrorist groups, leading to the establishment of the START program. It operates under the agency’s Science and Technology Directorate. As the START website explains, the program “is a university-based research and education center composed of an international network of scholars committed to the scientific study of the causes and human consequences of terrorism in the United States and around the world.” Headquartered at the University of Maryland, “START supports the research efforts of leading social scientists at more than 50 academic and research institutions, each of whom is conducting original investigations into fundamental questions about terrorism.”
Again, we see the employment of a faulty vehicle equipped with a strong tendency to pull to the left, looking to intimidate opposition to Biden’s agenda. This was recently reflected by START’s findings published under “Profiles of Individual Radicalization in the United States.” Accordingly, it was unsurprising that pro-life groups were targeted as potential terrorists – groups like “Students for Life (SLF)” which was so categorized for being anti-abortion.
As SLF received a terrorist label, left-leaning groups like BLM, Antifa and Jane’s Revenge – which have been involved in looting, rioting, and burning of property across the country – are not on START’s list. Also not making the list was the leftist group Planned Parenthood. Could this be simply because they all embrace a liberal agenda?
What DHS has done is no different than what Attorney General Merrick Garland has done in partnering the Department of Justice (DOJ) with a liberal school board. When the latter advised DOJ it considered parents who opposed masks and the teaching of Critical Race Theory in their schools as a threat, these parents also received the label of “domestic terrorists.”
DOJ’s censuring of conservatives probably made it easier for DHS, along with START’s help, to include organizations like “Christian Action Group,” “Citizens for Constitutional Freedom,” and the “Tea Party” on its list, despite their collective opposition to violence.
As the Biden administration has now weaponized yet another group for the purpose of silencing its political opponents, it is time to stop START.
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