The Obama administration is once again trying to criminalize political speech
02/11/2016 / By usafeaturesmedia
(Freedom.news) It’s no secret that President Obama considers any political ideology other than his own as hostile. He’s based his entire presidency on attacking conservative and libertarian viewpoints and ideals that are so diametrically opposed to his brand of liberalism/socialism/Marxism.
That said, opposition to a competing political ideology is one thing, but attempting to suppress and criminalize it is something else entirely.
Since his earliest days in office Obama has used the power of the federal government to intimidate political opponents into silence. Within a few months of taking office, the Obama Department of Homeland Security released a “report” warning of the danger posed by “right-wing extremists” – that is, Americans who hold different political views than the president. That was also the first time the administration used the excuse that any opposition to this president came from racism, not legitimate political discourse.
Then, during the 2012 reelection cycle Obama’s IRS was weaponized, singling out conservative/Tea Party groups seeking tax-exempt status for delayed approval and outsized scrutiny, and likely at the president’s behest.
Now the administration has renewed its effort to damage and demonize the conservative/libertarian brand with a new push – this time from the Justice Department. As reported by Reuters:
The U.S. Justice Department is considering legal changes to combat what it sees as a rising threat from domestic anti-government extremists, senior officials told Reuters, even as it steps up efforts to stop Islamic State-inspired attacks at home.
Extremist groups motivated by a range of U.S.-born philosophies present a “clear and present danger,” John Carlin, the Justice Department’s chief of national security, told Reuters in an interview. “Based on recent reports and the cases we are seeing, it seems like we’re in a heightened environment.”
“U.S.-born philosophies?” Like what – a desire for freedom? Liberty? Individualism and a preference for smaller, less intrusive government? How extreme. Yet, Obama considers these “philosophies” a “clear and present danger.”
A read through the story provides little more than vagaries and insinuations, but little in terms of hard facts. Indeed, the story mentioned that just as many extremists tied to the Islamic State – 27 – have been arrested in recent months for suspected illegal activities as so-called “domestic” extremists, an infinitesimal figure in a country of 310 million people.
If anything, based on other reporting, Islamic extremism is the much more pressing problem, at least according to the FBI. But when you have a president who goes out of his way to praise and celebrate Islam – refusing, even, to recognize the threat posed by radical Islam – you get a Justice Department and other federal bureaucracies filled with militant Leftists who have made it their mission in life to stifle all political dissent.
The Obama administration’s persecution and demonization of – if you base it on recent congressional elections – a vast majority of Americans is unprecedented in our history. Obama himself has been arrogant, dismissive, divisive, narcissistic, and scandal-plagued. Even on his way out he seems incapable of letting go of his confrontational ideology in one final drive to leave his successor an American electorate as fractured and angry as possible.
That he is now using the Justice Department – it’s almost laughable using the descriptor “Justice” – to further antagonize and demonize tens of millions of Americans simply because they don’t share his far-Left political views really shouldn’t surprise anyone who is being honest about what he really is.
But all of us should be saddened by it. And worried.
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Tagged Under: free speech, Justice Department, President Obama
