Right-wing Radical Threat Assessment

The Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) released a 9-page assessment yesterday that included disgruntled former military personnel as a potential for "homegrown terrorism" (ala Timothy McVeigh), especially in light of the sweeping changes in American society and politics and the ascension of a non-white to the Presidency of the United States.

I will not deny that like any other human institution there are people who currently where the military uniform that are capable of performing unspeakable acts of violence against the very people they were sworn to protect. People like Timothy McVeigh, or Lee Harvey Oswald. But the overwhelmingly vast majority of service personnel are people who see the United States as it currently exists as something worth preserving, worth dying for. Without any facts to back me up (because I really have NOT done the research) I would still opine that the very nature of the kind of person that would perform military service makes them far less likely, even with the very specialised training that some of them receive, to perpetrate an act of violence against their own people. The very thought of somebody who is willing to put themselves between their nation and war's desolation then returning home to do damage to the very thing that they risked all for seems pretty far-fetched to me.

As an illustration, look at the video evidence of the confrontation at the Berkely USMC Officer Selection Station between radical leftist organizations like Code Pink and pro-American civilians and military personnel. The leftists were far more likely to be provocative and use abusive language to express their opinions. Also, the acts of vandalism that took place during the pro-USMC rally at Berkely city hall were all by persons that were there to oppose the rally.

Based on this very small, but typical incident, I would assess that while the special training received by certain segments of the military give them a capability to perform domestic violence, I would also include in that assessment that those same individuals are, by their very nature, less likely to do so.

While I am NOT a fan of Dr. Michael Savage or his talk show, he got it right when he said that the DHS is basically saying that they are concerned about people who are concerned about "illegal immigration, the increasing power of the Federal government, gun grabs, abortion and the loss of U.S. national sovereignty. In other words, anyone who is worried about our borders, language or culture is now on 'Big Sis' ' watch-list."

However, I would definitely agree that if the current administration continues to move the nation left towards socialism or smiley-face facism that then the current administration would have a just concern of how the large conservative population (roughly 50% of us) will react. Which simply means that the current administration would do well to not take us very far down that path.