FeedsLiberals Overreact Yet Again
In a classic case of liberals being unable to read and understand legislation, the readers of Digg and Reddit have gone apeshit over H.R. 1955, the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007. Stories about its criminalization of "thought crimes" have hit the front pages of both Digg and Reddit and there have been many more, highly dugg stories on Digg, such as this one or this one or this one.
The problem is that these people don't understand how bills are structured. The bill actually does nothing but create some committees to study homegrown terrorism and report back to Congress. Rather than looking at this, all of the stories look to the definition of "homegrown terrorism," which the bill states as follows:
The term `homegrown terrorism' means the use, planned use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual born, raised, or based and operating primarily within the United States or any possession of the United States to intimidate or coerce the United States government, the civilian population of the United States, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.
First, these people think this means that everywhere, all government must have this definition of homegrown terrorism, conveniently ignoring the phrase "For purposes of this subtitle" at the beginning of the section of definitions. Definitions almost always apply to very specific sections of law and this law is no different.
Second, in order to think that the definition of homegrown terrorism is bad and a criminalization of thought, you must severely misunderstand the grammatic structure of the sentence. It becomes clear if you remove the fluff and connect the relevant phrases:
The term `homegrown terrorism' means the use, planned use, or threatened use, of force or violence... to intimidate or coerce the United States government... in furtherance of political or social objectives.
To me, that is the very definition of terrorism. The bit in the middle limits the definition to homegrown terrorism; i.e. terrorism done by people in the U.S.
The real problem here, however, is that people who otherwise appear to be intelligent are so ready to assume that the government wants to criminalize thought or attempts to further political or social objectives. It is a sad state of affairs when so many people believe that Congress as a whole (the bill passed the House 404 to 6) wants to do such a thing.
Stumble It!We use Markdown to style our comments. **This is bolded.** *This is italic.* [This is a link](url)
For more options,
try reading the
wikipedia article or the
official style guide.
Comments
Comments from site editors have a darker background than comments from everybody else.yes, i have to emphatically agree with you, the real problem here is definitely with the people who are possibly overreacting in their readiness to assume that this government wants further restrict civil liberties in the name of terrorism. It is a sad state of affairs when so many people believe that congress as a whole wants to do such a thing, since congress would never do anything like that... nothing, for example, like the military comissions act 2006, the patriot act, recent fisa bills, etc...
yes, you are right, when people are possibly overreacting in the face of an increasingly authoritarian government, it is much worse than that governments creeping authoritarianism. that is the real problem! i'm so glad we have people like you to clear these things up. thank you!
We use Markdown to style our comments. **This is bolded.** *This is italic.* [This is a link](url)
For more options, try reading the wikipedia article or the official style guide.
I apparently did not make myself clear. I mean that it is sad that it has come to such a point (i.e., so many things have happened, like the military commissions act, patriot act, fisa, etc.) that people distrust Congress so strongly. In short, I agree with you.
We use Markdown to style our comments. **This is bolded.** *This is italic.* [This is a link](url)
For more options, try reading the wikipedia article or the official style guide.
Well, I can't blame them--I can't read legislation either.
We use Markdown to style our comments. **This is bolded.** *This is italic.* [This is a link](url)
For more options, try reading the wikipedia article or the official style guide.