.:aaron.helton:.

Or so the good folks at the Alabama Department of Homeland Security* and those at the Pennsylvania DHS would have you believe.

You see, my beliefs in limited central government and maximum personal liberty happen to coincide with those held by a number of Dangerous Groups in America, including the Libertarians. Like many of these groups, I do not favor gun control legislation of any kind, I do believe we are in the process of eroding the protections that the Constitution mandates to protect U.S. citizens from oppressive government, and I also believe that the U.S. is slowly losing its sovereignty each time we pander to foreign interests. These things concern me, and I will do what any citizen in my shoes should do: vote. I’m a bit surprised to note that these views make me a terrorist in the eyes of two states. However, this really just adds fuel to the paranoia fire. When the officials arrive to take me to the gulag..er..Guantanemo Bay, all I will be able to do is shrug and say, “See? What’d I tell you?”

* The link above is the Google-cached page. The AL DHS was circuitously Dugg, and I can only surmise that the resulting 404 (page not found) errors are some result of that. I do not believe for a moment that the folks in Alabama wised up and revised their policy defining terrorists, but we could always hope. Regardless, they can’t escape Google, at least not for a while. In case the cached page disappears, here is the anti-government group section reprinted in its entirety:

Anti-government groups usually believe:

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Gun Control = Enslavement
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Constitution has been subverted
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The U.S. has lost its sovereignty

Opposition to a strong federal government is not new. The first Continental Congress wrestled with this issue when they first created the “Articles of Confederation” before our present day Constitution. George Washington marched troops into Pennsylvania to uphold the power of the Federal Government to collect taxes. In fact, we fought a civil war over the issue of individual and states versus federal rights.

Today’s anti-government groups have their origins in the shock and outrage among a number of groups to include gun rights groups, tax protestors, and white supremacists over the government actions with the Branch Davidian religious cult at Waco and and white supremacist Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge along with recent laws that limited gun ownership. A coalition of these groups called for the formation of “leaderless resistance” groups—the beginning of “unorganized militias”. Few people involved in this self styled “Patriot Movement” are criminals but there are some on the extreme fringe that are convinced that the Government has been subverted and that their freedoms must be aggressively defended to the point of attacks on our governing institutions.

In general, these terrorists claim that the U.S. government is infringing on their individual rights, and/or that the government’s policies are criminal and immoral. Such groups may hold that the current government is violating the basic principles laid out by the U.S. Constitution and that a new world order is attempting to enslave humanity. Some groups also believe that the government and other organizations are transgressing the rule of God as described in the Bible. Some groups see themselves as separate nations within the United States, taking the initiative to establish their own laws and common-law courts.