Trump’s “Indicators of Terrorism” Attack American Freedom

Some people’s idea of free speech is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage.

Winston Churchill

I don’t allow comments on this blog because I got sick and tired of rude and aggressive atheists coming on here and constantly attacking Jesus, the Church and my beliefs over and over and over and over and over and over.

I put up with it for years. I put up with them going on what was then called Twitter and trying to start a name-calling hate campaign against me. I put up with all their idiotic behavior.

But I finally arrived at the point where I decided that I was tired of it. Nothing good was coming of it, and it felt like mud-wrestling pigs.  You know: You end up all filthy and dirty and exhausted … and the pig likes it.

So, I deep-sixed comments.

But I never, not ever, thought those people were doing anything that smacked of terrorism. I thought they were boorish jerks and two-bit bullies. But I believed in their right to be boorish jerks and two-bit bullies. Just like I believed in my right to stop listening to them.

Not only that, but I will defend their right to be atheists and talk about their beliefs — or lack of it — any time that right is challenged by a power mad wannabe dictator.

When I was in office, I got called just about every name you can imagine. I had people going on the radio and television and in the newspapers calling me everything but a nice person. I got picketed, and lied about and slandered and defamed and mocked. They took photos of me and used Photoshop to distort them to mock me. They went to places where I had once worked and harassed them for hiring me. They followed me all over the state when I made speeches to sit in the audience to heckle me.

So, you could say I’m kind of a veteran of being harassed and attacked in the rough and tumble of politics. But unlike President Sissy Pants, I didn’t try to use the government to take vengeance on any of them.

I regarded the power I had as a trust given to me by the people it really belonged to: The people of my district. My job was to use that power for their benefit, not for petty grudges and my own benefit.

I certainly didn’t regard the behavior of my detractors as “terrorism.” I would never under any circumstance have tried to sic the law onto them and prosecute them for “terrorism.”

Trump is not like me. He’s not like you, either. You and I believe in American freedoms.

Earlier  this week, Trump told the generals in our military that they should look at American cities as “training grounds” for military engagement. He’s sending troops into the major cities that voted against him with instructions to use “full force” against the civilians who live there.

Last week, he forced a federal prosecutor to resign because the prosecutor refused to obey Trump’s orders to indict James Comey. He replaced that prosecutor (who Trump had appointed himself) with one of his stooges who would indict St Peter and all the Apostles if Trump told her to.

He also signed an executive order designed to use the power of the government to attack Democrats by labeling them “terrorists.”

Yesterday he put out a list of what he considers “terrorist indicators.” Trump’s so-called “terrorist indicators” are things that can get people “investigated” for terrorism by Trump’s new, stooge FBI. These are the things that Trump has instructed his FBI to monitor you and me about, because, you know, we might be terrorists. It said in part:

There are common recurrent motivations and indicia uniting this pattern of violent and terroristic activities under the umbrella of self-described “anti-fascism.” [ . . . ] Common threads animating this violent conduct include anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.

Trump’s list of “indicators” that the FBI should use to identify “terrorists”  includes things like “anti-Americanism,” “anti-capitalism” and, my personal fave, “hostility to towards those who hold traditional American views on morality.”

I like that last one because the entire Trump regime is composed of a bunch of lying, cheating, corrupt, immoral scumbags; many of whom have been publicly revealed to be sexual predators.

Here’s the list:

• Anti-americanism
• Anti-capitalism
• Anti-Christianity
• Support for the overthrow of the United States government.
• Extremism on migration
• Extremism on race
• Extremism on gender
• Hostility toward those who hold traditional American views on family
• Hostility toward those who hold traditional American views on religion
• Hostility toward those who hold traditional American views on morality

I understand and fear real terrorism. I remember the Oklahoma City bombing. I heard the bomb explode, heard the building fall. I know people who were trapped in the rubble. I know people who died. I know people who were maimed for life.

I watched the Twin Towers fall. I know about the heroism of real Americans on United Airlines flight 93.

That’s terrorism.

What Trump is labeling as indicators of “terrorism” are ideas, thoughts, opinions and free speech. Attaching a hot-button word that has no specific meaning like “extremism” to them doesn’t change the fact that he’s talking about ideas, thoughts and opinions. It magnifies it.

The nebulous things on this list would allow the government to surveil, investigate and ultimately prosecute anybody. It all depends on what Trump tells his FBI “anti-Americanism,” or “extremism on race” are.

I think that Trump is instructing the Justice Department to “investigate” and put people in jail for opposing him. Do you want to live in a country where anything you say can be twisted into the crime of “terrorism” and you can be put in prison for it? That’s where this is heading.

The very essence of being an American is that we are free to think and let think. Americans are free to have opinions of their own. Americans are free to say what they think. Americans are free to do that without any fear of the government monitoring them and trying to mis-use the laws designed to protect them from the savagery of mass-murdering terrorists like Osama bin Laden to persecute them.

The real terrorism here is what Trump is doing. The terrorists are a president who is attempting to bring the full force of the government against anyone who opposes him, and the Republican-controlled Congress and six members of the Supreme Court who are letting him do it.

Note: The phrase “think and let think” is a quote from the founder of Methodism, John Wesley.