I recently received an email calling for Christians to be up in arms about the new DHS report. I'm not going to go into much detail about the report, it is available on the web. What follows is my response to the email I received.
I just wanted to respond to this email real quick and throw my 2 cents on the table. I wasn't offended by this report when I first heard about it and I am still not offended after looking at ACLJ (American Center for Law and Justice) website. The reason that I'm not offended even though I am a christian conservative who is pro-life, is that I don't see where I fall into this report.
First off, this report is just a warning for law enforcement to be aware of a possibility. Which I think is very good, they should be aware of a possible threat no matter where it could come from. I think if the Bush admin would have put out a report like this after his second election pertaining to the extreme leftest, it would have been good, if they felt the threat was possible.
Second, the report says, as ACLJ quotes, that a right-wing extremist that could be dangerous is someone who is hate-orientated and opposed to the authority of the elected government. So you would need to meet that criteria first in order to be counted in this definition, most christian conservatives are not hate-orientated and opposed to the rightful ruling of government, so I don't believe they have anything to worry about under this report and I don't think that DHS has them in mind. I think this includes the type of people who blow up abortion clinics or attend rallies to raise support to overthrow the government. What the report then says is that someone that falls under the first criteria may come from a group that is extreme about a particular issue, such as abortion or immigration. Not everyone who has a strong belief against one these issues is to be considered a possible terrorist threat, it is the extreme, hate-orientates, over-throw the government type.
However, there is one thing that did (at first) bother me in this report, the mentioning of US war veterans. I thought it showed a lack of respect for our veterans and the sacrifices that they make. I know that some veterans come home and are unable to cope with life outside of war and can have breakdowns that are violent. When reading the report I did take note that the emphasis is not so much on the veterans themselves as it is on the desire of terrorist groups desire to exploit veterans and there training. Also, this report does list much historical support for the possible dangers they are concerned about. It seems that veterans that are upset about this report, could find it helpful to see this report has a helpful warning to them to be aware of domestic terror groups wanting to exploit them and their training.
This is just my opinion, as you shared yours. Maybe there is an underlying evilness that I'm not seeing, but I don't see this as threatening to me.
It's a dance . . .
14 years ago
