After 9/11 we labeled a lot of people, groups, things "extremist" or "terrorist." I am not sure we ever had a very good definition of what that was and any semblance of a definition seemed to change to fit the "bad people" we wanted to fight, punish, monitor, imprison. There were a ton of mistakes made in the name of the "war on terror" or fighting "extremist." It is a fight against an "enemy" that is so ill defined that it can never really end. Moreover, over the last 20 years, in the name of that fight, we have created a massive surveillance state over our own citizens that has already infringed and has the potential to further infringe on a lot of the fundamental freedoms Americans have long held dear.

If we are now turning even more inward, against internal "enemies" with a similar amorphous fight against "extremism" or "white supremacy" we should be asking really hard question about what that fight means, who and what we are targeting. The surveillance state we created and freedoms we gave up after 9/11 - turned even more inward - risk giving the government even more power to monitor us, restrict us, control us and punish us.

The internal threat is real and needs to be addressed. We need to address internal groups that are fomenting actual violence and present a real danger. However, we also need to be really really really careful that we don't bring the "war on terror" down on ourselves, giving up so much that we hold dear about limited government and personal liberty, in the process.



[Post edited by RML Hoos at 01/21/2021 1:18PM]