(NaturalNews) The United States was founded upon certain important principles -- one of which guarantees its citizens the right to free speech.
In the past couple of decades or so -- particularly since 9/11 -- Americans have witnessed this right being increasingly eroded. Authorities have begun identifying ordinary citizens as "potential terrorists" merely for having strong views and opinions regarding a number of topics.
For instance, if you are concerned about illegal immigration or oppose abortion, you may be labeled as a threat. The federal government has expanded its definitions of "extremism" and "potential terrorism" to include a wide range of people and their views -- chances are that anyone reading this falls into at least one of these categories.
Michael Snyder of TheTruthWins.com has compiled a list of 72 types of people [1] classified in U.S. government documents as extremists or potential terrorists.
The documents include military training manuals [2] and memos [3]; terrorism training manuals for law enforcement [4]; guidelines from the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) [5] and other sources.
Some of the types of people listed as potential threats include:
Members of the Patriot Movement
Those opposed to Agenda 21
Those concerned about FEMA camps
Those who support gun rights
Those who oppose abortion
Those concerned about communism
Those opposed to the "New World Order"
Those who visit "extremist" websites or blogs
This is just a partial list -- in short, almost anyone who has deep-seated beliefs regarding almost any type of social, religious or political issue could be labeled as a potential terrorist by the government.
As Snyder observes:
At one time, the term "terrorist" was used very narrowly. The government applied that label to people like Osama bin Laden and other Islamic jihadists. But now the Obama administration is removing all references to Islam from terror training materials, and instead the term "terrorist" is being applied to large groups of American citizens. ...
The first step to persecuting any group of people is to demonize them. And right now large groups of peaceful, law-abiding citizens are being ruthlessly demonized.
It's obvious that the federal government takes these "threats" seriously -- even when disguising their concerns in a seemingly lighthearted manner. In a recent article published by TheBlaze [6], John Whitehead examines the use of the "zombie" metaphor by various government agencies in their training drills:
For years now, the government has been carrying out military training drills with zombies as the enemy. ...
The zombie exercises appear to be kitschy and fun--government agents running around trying to put down a zombie rebellion--but what if the zombies in the exercises are us, the citizenry, viewed by those in power as mindless, voracious, zombie hordes?
Whitehead notes that, by 2008, the government had compiled a list of more than 8 million names of Americans who are considered a threat to national security. The list is to be used "by the military in the event of a national catastrophe, a suspension of the Constitution or the imposition of martial law." [7]
As Whitehead points out, the government is pursuing a strategy for countering what it perceives as threats by first "detecting" and subsequently neutralizing them:
If there is any lesson to be learned, it is simply this: whether the threat to national security comes in the form of actual terrorists, imaginary zombies or disgruntled American citizens infected with dangerous ideas about freedom, the government's response to such threats remains the same: detect, deter and annihilate.
We are living in dangerous times -- at least for those of us who are determined to exercise our right to free speech.
