It's Friday, so get ready to skip to your lou, my darlings. Your Friday Morning Roar! Intercept to Publish U.S. Government Rulebook For Labeling You As A TerroristAllowing governments to set the definitions for anything is always a bad idea, whether it be for what is or is not considered "legal" marriage, or defining mental health parity (another article here), or setting down what does or doesn't qualify someone as a potential terrorist. Yet, the government issued a 166 page internal document that attempts define the characteristics that comprise a terrorist. Of course, this is all done in the name of fighting the "War on Terror." And it's every bit as vague and ridiculous as you would imagine. From the Intercept:

The Obama administration has quietly approved a substantial expansion of the terrorist watchlist system, authorizing a secret process that requires neither “concrete facts” nor “irrefutable evidence” to designate an American or foreigner as a terrorist, according to a key government document obtained by  The Intercept.The “March 2013 Watchlisting Guidance,” a  166-page document issued last year by the National Counterterrorism Center, spells out the government’s secret rules for putting individuals on its main terrorist database, as well as the no fly list and the selectee list, which triggers enhanced screening at airports and border crossings. The new guidelines allow individuals to be designated as representatives of terror organizations without any evidence they are actually connected to such organizations, and it gives a single White House official the unilateral authority to place “entire categories” of people the government is tracking onto the no fly and selectee lists. It broadens the authority of government officials to “nominate” people to the watchlists based on what is vaguely described as “fragmentary information.” It also allows for dead people to be watchlisted.

Well, no one wants zombie terrorists. We would truly be lost then. Frankenbombers! But the prospect of Frankenbombers or even Explodable Mummies doesn't compare to the really frightening thing in this report, which is the broad brush with which the state paints its citizens as terrorists.

Emblazoned with the crests of 19 agencies, it offers the most complete and revealing look into the secret history of the government’s terror list policies to date. It reveals a confounding and convoluted system filled with exceptions to its own rules, and it relies on the elastic concept of “reasonable suspicion” as a standard for determining whether someone is a possible threat. Because the government tracks “suspected terrorists” as well as “known terrorists,” individuals can be watchlisted if they are suspected of being a suspected terrorist, or if they are suspected of associating with people who are suspected of terrorism activity.“Instead of a watchlist limited to actual, known terrorists, the government has built a vast system based on the unproven and flawed premise that it can predict if a person will commit a terrorist act in the future,” says Hina Shamsi, the head of the ACLU’s National Security Project. “On that dangerous theory, the government is secretly blacklisting people as suspected terrorists and giving them the impossible task of proving themselves innocent of a threat they haven’t carried out.” Shamsi, who reviewed the document, added, “These criteria should never have been kept secret.”The document’s definition of “terrorist” activity  includes actions that fall far short of bombing or hijacking. In addition to expected crimes, such as assassination or hostage-taking, the guidelines also define destruction of government property and damaging computers used by financial institutions as activities meriting placement on a list. They also define as terrorism any act that is “ dangerous” to property and intended to influence government policy through intimidation.“If reasonable suspicion is the only standard you need to label somebody, then it’s a slippery slope we’re sliding down here, because then you can label anybody anything,” says David Gomez, a former senior FBI special agent with experience running high-profile terrorism investigations. “Because you appear on a telephone list of somebody doesn’t make you a terrorist. That’s the kind of information that gets put in there.”

The entire article is an excellent and very deep read (far too much for me to highlight here). Put aside 20 minutes to dedicate to it as you count down the minutes until the workday ends and cuddle up to Big Brother's insanity.Michigan Dept. of Agriculture Forces Farmer to Dump 248 Gallons of Organic Milk & 1200 Eggs These stories just keep coming, and despite the constant exposure to them I still haven't built up a tolerance or understanding of the government's hatred for organic products consumed by consenting adults. In Michigan, a dairy co-op called the Hill High Dairy, which investors buy shares in to receive the food that is produced, was raided by agents of the state and forced to dump 248 gallons of fresh organic milk, 100 dozen eggs and unknown amounts of butter, cream and cheese. From the Organic Prepper:

According to the owners of the dairy, the MDA threatened to arrest the co-op owner, Jenny Samuelson,  for “selling food without a license.” However, the farm is a co-op, where people must buy shares. The MDA, however, said that the co-op contracts were invalid, and therefore, instead of being shared, the food was being sold. Because co-op members had paid for their shares, technically the MDA stole food that belonged not just to the Golimbieski family, but to every single member of that co-op.

I wrote an entire article on this topic during our "Ron Paul's 32 Questions in 32 Days" if you want to delve further into illogical goverment reasoning on this topic. But in a nutshell the federal government (and some states) deemed raw milk (and byproducts) a danger to us all, even though it presents a minuscule speck in the overall spectrum of illness and disease. The government has shown that they will spend millions of dollars to infringe on the rights of individuals that do not consent to the regulation forced upon their food. They ignore the preference of the people because it goes against certain prescribed methods. By doing this government officials infringe on the personal liberty of the individuals they claim to serve.VT Senator Bernie Sanders Wants To Put The Socialism Into Social Security - Adopt Payroll Tax System Into SS I just saw this idiocy on Facebook yesterday and it was so beyond aggravating that I had to share it in today's Roar and vent a bit. I'll simply post the picture that Rep. Bernie Sanders posted, which has over 50,000 likes.

Apparently Bernie Sanders views himself as a modern day Robin Hood, robbing the rich to feed the poor, despite that going against the basic rights of those high-salaried individuals to keep the wages that they work hard for. And the comments of his admirers...of which I will post one such gem below...echo this thought process to a point that is actually terrifying.

Let's also look at Bernie's language. Stealing this money from those who have earned it (and btw if you visit his website, Bernie really hates anyone who is wealthy) will extend the solvency of Social Security for 47 years. It's not even a permanent solution. It's like every government answer to any problem, which is a stop-gap fix for a long term problem that doesn't have a palatable solution for the populace other than a massive scale-back of the scope of government itself. What will happen after the riches taken from the rich run out in 47 years? Well, by then the "new" rate established with his bill will have become accepted as the norm and the next wave of socialist liberal politicians will then argue that the rich should pay even more towards social security, seeing as they "currently" pay so little! It's a slick slope that begins with the violation of people's rights (and no, just because someone is more wealthy than you doesn't mean they owe you anything or are eligible to have their rights infrined more so than you) and ends with the complete disregard for the private funds of individuals and the right to keep the wages from one's own efforts.

Editor Marc Clair posted on our own Facebook yesterday that people can always change and this is why he continues to preach and teach about liberty and libertarian philosophies. This is true. However, after reading what some of these uninformed people wrote in response to the Senator's post and their unbelievably warped sense of entitled self-worth, I have to say that sometimes there are topics where it is nearly impossible to change someone's mind. I've seen this in personal relationships where it breaks down to idealism and there is no regard for liberty, no regard for logic, and no chance of altering their perception. You have to just shake your head, walk away, and put your energy into reaching someone more receptive to reason.

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