Outrage From the Wingnuts

The DBP released a report on the rising danger of right-wing extremism. (PDF file)

"How dare they monitor us," they cry. "What about our civil liberties," they moan.

Yeah, well, color me unimpressed on two counts.

First, the report is a real piece of shit. It is little more than a recitation of the things that the extreme Right did in the 1990s, with a mention that the election of President Obama pissed those folks off, concluding in "we otta watch them thar folks." If the bureaucrats in Homeland Security paid a contractor more than a hundred bucks to produce that, they were swindled.

Second, I have a hard time taking the rantings of the Wingnuts about this even close to seriously. During the Bush Administration's time, the Right thought it was a fine idea to: Monitor believers of a mainstream faith, infiltrate peaceful antiwar groups (classifying the Quakers as "potential terrorists" in the process), detain people for long periods without trial, torture people, wiretap everybody without warrants, engage in "sneak-and-peak" searches, snoop through peoples' bank records without a warrant, data-mining of all Americans, and so on and so forth. The Right not only approved of that, they cheered them on and they wanted even more.

Well, we warned them. We warned them that the tools they were so earnest in giving a Republican president would be there come the day that a Democrat became president. They ignored us. We warned them to heed the words of Pastor Niemoller. They laughed us off.

They're not laughing now.

Pardon me for thinking that the outrage of the Hindenbergs on the Right here is colored by politics and that, if a Republican is elected president in the next decade, tramping all over the Bill of Rights will again be in style among conservatives.

Do I think it is wrong to monitor groups based solely on their political beliefs? Absolutely. But I think I also would be less than honest if I did not admit to a bit of schadenfreude. All of the surveillance powers that the Right thought were good for the government to have, at least when Bush was in power, are now being turned against some of the far-Right groups; the Right is being hoisted on its own petard.

Now the Right is all concerned about preserving civil liberties and freedom from government surveillance. And so:

A: Where were you for the last eight years?

B: Welcome to the party, pal.