Everybody’s a Potential Terrorist. Yes, You Are Too.

Type_webhead_here Several recent reports by law-enforcement agencies have awakened the American public to a terrorism threat far broader than previously imagined.

The first, from the Missouri Infor mation Analysis Center, focused on the militia movement. It identified the warning signs of potentially violent anti-government ideology: association with third-party political groups, enthusiasm for minor-party candidates such as Ron Paul or Bob Barr, hostility to immigration, and opposition to abortion. Brandishing a bumper-sticker was considered a dead giveaway.

Then along came the Department of Homeland Security, warning that not just militia members but all right-wing extremists posed a threat. Right-wing extremists included anyone who didn't see eye-to-eye with the Obama administration, and veterans. Especially veterans.

Not to be outdone, the Virginia Fusion Center recently rolled out its own report warning that there were potential terrorists everywhere. It noted that areas with high levels of ethnic diversity gave terrorists the chance to blend into the crowd. It singled out state colleges and universities as "radicalization nodes," with particular attention paid to historically black colleges and Pat Robertson's Regent University. It also mentioned state prisons, anarchist extremists at VMI and William & Mary (Question: Is there such thing as an anarchist moderate?), Muslims at VCU, and environmentalists who protest energy companies. (That means you, Moonflower and Willow.)

NATURALLY, all this finger-pointing has upset the pinkos at the ACLU and the brownshirts in AMVETS and the 700 Club, who say the security agencies are casting too broad a net. Well, that is nonsense of the purest ray serene. If anything, the reports seem far too narrow in scope. All three have overlooked some other highly likely sources of radical terrorist node-ification. These include, but are not limited to . . .

The Tax Day Tea Parties. Those events, which in some cities brought together literally dozens of Americans, were rife with anti-government agitation and criticism of the Obama administration. Preliminary reports also indicate the presence of veterans.

Republicans. GOP Rep. Michele Bachmann stated in late March that "I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back. Thomas Jefferson told us 'having a revolution every now and then is a good thing,' and the people -- we the people -- are going to have to fight back hard if we're not going to lose our country." Texas Gov. Rick Perry has raised the possibility of secession. Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor repeatedly has expressed opposition to efforts initiated by the executive branch. Here's hoping someone in the Department of Homeland Security is connecting all those dots.

The Boy Scouts. Launched a century ago by a foreign imperialist warmonger (Britain's Robert Baden-Powell, a veteran of the Boer Wars), the Scouting movement is organized along paramilitary lines; individual cells, called "troops" -- or, for Cub Scouts, "packs" -- usually consist of a few to several dozen boys. Each troop has its own insignia, which are traded enthusiastically at annual events called "jamborees," where the indoctrination of America's youth into the Scouting ideology is particularly intense.

Disciplined and regimented, Scouts have infiltrated nearly every community in the United States under cover of teaching citizenship and virtue. However, from an early age Scouts receive training in weaponry (archery, rifle, shotgun); wilderness survival skills; camping; orienteering; first aid; rappelling; chemistry; and even aviation and atomic energy.

The Religious Society of Friends (a/k/a "Quakers"). This Christianist sect has a long history of not falling in line behind the American government, from its opposition to slavery to its conscientious objection to warfare. Quakers' belief in a direct, unmediated relationship with God is, in national-security parlance, "kinda weird." The supposed pacifism of the Quaker movement may well be a diversionary tactic meant to lull security agencies into a false complacency about the organization's true aims.

That guy from IT with the ponytail who's always eating Ramen noodles dry. That boy just ain't right.

Your ex. August 17, 2006: The incident at the Menendez kid's birthday party. 'Nuff said.

Little Bunny Foo-Foo. More formally referred to as Lepus sylvaticus, Little Bunny Foo-Foo is widely acknowledged to exhibit violent tendencies: "Little Bunny Foo Foo / Hopping through the forest / Scoopin' up the field mice / And boppin' them on the head." Little Bunny Foo-Foo should be considered armed and dangerous and approached only with extreme caution.

My thoughts do not aim for your assent -- just place them alongside your own reflections for a while.

--Robert Nozick.

Contact A. Barton Hinkle at (804) 649-6627 or .