It stands to reason that a report on right wing extremism must define what a “right wing” issue is in order to define how it can become taken to an extreme. However, that does not mean that the report condemns or labels as suspect ring wingers as a whole.

Of course we shouldn’t ignore those issues, but what many people objected to was the broadness of the criteria. And, I do actually understand what “anti-government” means, but there was also a portion of the memo that discussed people that prefer state/local govt. over the Fed and those are the people I was referring to. People that want no government are extremists, but just having a problem with the fact that the fed has become far more involved in our lives than it was ever intended to doesn’t automatically mean you’re going to go bomb a building.

John,
Believe me, I do understand the difference between myself and bomb throwers, so don’t get “disturbed” on my account. Your point about Reagan is exactly why a lot of conservatives got pissed.It’s just what I was talking about. Yes, this memo is supposed to be about extremism, but the broodness of the definition it gives for that extremism in some potions did make a lot of people feel that even someone like Reagan (or the average conservative) might be looked at a bit more closely based on the “guidlines” laid out in the memo.

A lot of people that replied to this article seemed confused about why exactly Fox News contributors & conservatives were so offended by this memo. I replied with why I thought they were offended. Now, their reasons may not make sense to you, but they make sense to them.

The report is about extremism. There are plenty of non-extremists who built their career on being against federal government, for local control, anti-abortion, etc. Hmm….Ronald Reagan comes to mind. Despite my disagreements with President Reagan, I would not put him in the same category with some paranoid guy participating in mock war games in the Tennessee woods and planning attacks on abortion clinics and gay bars as a lead in to an all out military conflict with the central government.

These people exist. It would be foolhardy for the government not to pay attention to these folks. They have proven themselves to be very dangerous. Many people have already died.

I find it disturbing that you can’t seem to see how obviously different you are from the likes of Timothy McVeigh and Eric Rudolph. Shocking as it may sound, the average American liberal can also easily tell the difference between the psycho-extremist who scares them and the very conservative individual that they simply disagree with.

The second category is anti-government. The third is those that “May” belong to single issue groups. Are you saying that anti-government, people who DON’T WANT ANY GOVERNMENT WHATSOEVER are not suspect?

You seem to not understand what anti-government means. It doesn’t mean simply disagreeing with an issue, a law, the dominant political party, a politician, a process of government, or the president. Anti-government means exactly that: someone who feels that we should not have any government whatsoever. Last I checked Libertarians and Republicans aren’t anti-government, and if Newt Gingrich is anti-government, he’s chosen the wrong profession.

The implication that combat veterans are more likely to be swayed to the cause of violent, “right-wing” groups simply because they happen to BE combat veterans is insulting.

Again, that’s not exactly what the memo says. It says that right wing groups may be interested in swaying them, first and foremost. It does not say they will be easily swayed, it says they will be targeted for recruitment, and says other issues that combat vets care about may be used to sway them.

Kristie, I’m going to go out on a limb and assume you’ve never been in combat, and that no one in your family ever has been in combat.
My father and grandfather have both been in combat, and from personal experience I know that my father was NOT himself when he returned from Operation Desert Storm/Shield. It took several years for him to come to terms with what he had been through. Without the support of my mother, my brother, and myself, he might not have ever recovered. Had a right-wing extremist group tried to recruit him at the time, he was in such a state that he might have been swayed. That’s what war does to people, it mindf*cks them.

Recognizing that war is hell on someone emotionally, mentally, and physically is NOT AN INSULT.

The memo is several pages long and warns us of exactly the kind of problems we have faced with the man who shot up that UCC church, the murder of Dr. Tiller, and the shooting at the Holocause Memorial — even Fox News is admitting they were too quick to trash the report.

I suggest you actually read the whole memo.

Actually, the report did not say that combat/military veterans were more likely to be _swayed_ and should thus be monitored; it pointed out the fact that right-wing extremists were more likely to _court_ (read target) those people.

Being in the military did not automatically make you an extremist, but you were more likely to be targeted for recruitment by extremists.
Unfortunately, it makes a warped kind of sense that you would target those with the training you might want should you desire to do harm.

Please do not take my word for it though; read the entire report here: http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/rightwing.pdf
Please take careful note of page 4, bullet 2 where the speak of the returning veterans.
Page 5, the section regarding “disgruntled” veterans is not malevolent in nature but an acknowledge of fact that some veterans may return and be none too happy with the US and would be prime recruitment material; it does _not_ say all veterans should be monitored.

You know, there was once something to be said for a populace reading/researching the source documents themselves rather than relaying on entertaining news commentary.

I don’t think that Fox News per se considers itself any of the things you listed, but there are a lot of people that have strong feelings about how much power the fed should have, are primarily politically focussed on abortion, immigration or some other “single issue” or have served in the miltary that don’t deserve to have aspersions cast upon their character simply for those views. And no one should be looked on as a potential terrorist simply based on some of their political views, right, left or middle of the road.

Yes, we should be watching hate groups and yes we should be aware of the potential for violence that exists in the current political/ideological climate, but where does watching hate groups stop and the potential harrassment of innocent citizens begin? The majority of Americans would never consider comitting an act of terrorism even those that have right-leaning political beliefs, but the tone of this memo seems to suggest that anyone with right-leaning views is a potential threat and that is a completely specious assessment.That was my point.

So to turn it around for a second, let’s look at it another way….

Do you think that Fox news considers itself:

-primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups)

-dedicated to a single issue

If so, I believe we do have reason to watch Fox news, and anyone else who considers themselves to embody most or all of those characteristics.

Of course single sections such as “rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority” and “dedicated to a single issue” aren’t in and of themselves causes for alarm. I don’t think the document says otherwise. But single sections such as being a hate group and rejecting our government entirely — well, yes, I think those are causes for concern, and even moreso when combined with other factors listed.

What Fox did was bad journalism, harping on the single issue section and the supposed knock at states rights, which isn’t at all what that paragraph is saying, not when you read the rest of the document and think about it critically.

The same criteria could easily apply to left-wing extremists, btw.

My question is, why would Fox, Malkin, and Newt toss their hat into the ring with people being watched because they are primarily hate oriented or people who reject our government entirely? Are Malkin and Newt interested in overthrowing our government and discriminating against minorities?

The memo said in part:” Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.”

That 2nd part is a pretty broad definition of “rightwing extremeism” alright! I have strong feelings about illegal immigration,I’d favor state/local govt over the fed anyday of the week, I think I should be able to buy a gun if I want one and I vote libertarian frequently. Does that mean that I’m someone that should be put on a watch list? I also support a woman’s right to choose and full (state/federal) rights for the GLBT community. Does that mean I get a pass because I’m not “that” right wing?

Yes, there are a lot of people out there that do horrible things in the name of uber-conservative political/religious beliefs such as the cases mentioned in the main article, but lumping anyone that has “anti-government feelings” in with psychos that shoot abortion doctors or bomb govt. buildings seems, to a lot of people pretty extreme and unfair.

That’s like saying that everyone who donates to PETA is likely to go out and fire bomb the science deptartment at their local university because they experiment on animals. That would be a ridiculous assumption to make, even though eco-terrorists and animal rights activists have done just that on more than one occasion. And just this past week an American convert to Islam walked into a military recruitment center and shot 2 servicemen. One of them (23 yrs old) died. He’d only just finished boot camp. Should we start suspecting that all American Muslims are going to start going on shooting sprees?

This kind of thinking is the beginning of a slippery slope and once you start down it everyone starts to look suspect for one reason or another.

*(sorry for the GIGANTIC run-on sentence that is basically the entire first paragraph.It was kind of all one thought…)