(no subject)

[geekchick]

Today is Boomtime, day 1 in the season of Confusion, 3270.

Link via gothic_peacock (in this post here):

If you'd arrested someone with a list of politicians and other people "marked to die" and a plan on how to blow up 1500 others, wouldn't you label them a domestic terrorist and want to make sure you kept them in custody? I'd imagine so. Unless of course they're planning to blow up 1500 people at a Democratic presidential caucus and that hit list is full of Democrats and liberals; then you ground them until their trial.

Jesus H. Christ on a pogo stick.

[Edit: Looks like someone gained clue, and he's staying in jail. But still, how on earth could anyone think this man should've been anywhere else?]

Comments

[winterbadger]

My impression is that people just don't take home-grown terrorists as seriously since we started getting the fancy foreign variety. :-)

Seriously, this lookslike an isolated incident of a judge being persuaded (somehow) that this guy isn't a danger (how someone could persuade anyone of that is a riddle I'd be fascinated by the answer too--it sounds as if he's certainly a danger to himself and those he lives with, and very possibly to others as well).

But I've also gotten the impression that federal law enforcement just isn't taking the possibility of domestic terrorism as seriously as they ought to, because international terrorism has such a high profile. I'm guessing that investigating foreign contacts is seen by top brass as "sexy" and therefore it's the ticket to more funding and to promotion.

[geekchick]

My impression is that people just don't take home-grown terrorists as seriously since we started getting the fancy foreign variety. :-)

I'd agree with that actually; when your average American thinks of terrorists, I'd suspect that "Tim McVeigh" doesn't necessarily come up near the top of the list.

Like the "War on (Some) Drugs", this is the "War on (Some) Terrah".

But I've also gotten the impression that federal law enforcement just isn't taking the possibility of domestic terrorism as seriously as they ought to, because international terrorism has such a high profile. I'm guessing that investigating foreign contacts is seen by top brass as "sexy" and therefore it's the ticket to more funding and to promotion.

And that, unfortunately, wouldn't surprise me in the least.

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

I tend to agree with what you've said above. I don't think Americans take the idea of a "nice white American boy" as a terrorist very seriously. It's so much easier to view "terrorists" as a group of Other Different People.

And there is a book I tried to read, "The Terrorist Next Door" about the right wing militia groups that will likely be the source of future domestic terrorism. Library wanted it back before I finished, but what I did read was disturbing.