We have previously reported on the Federal Bureau of Investigation and its supposedly abandoned policy of surveilling “Radical Traditionalist Catholics.” That story has pretty much faded away, but I seriously doubt that everyone in the FBI has forgotten that we are the absolutely greatest threat to America!
Well, the US is not the only nation which engages in such silliness!
UK Government Report: ‘Lord of the Rings’ Fans May Be Potential ‘Far-Right’ Terrorists
Catholic Vote News Feed | Groundhog Day, February 2, 2024
CV NEWS FEED // A now-viral report by British government counterterrorism program Prevent stated that classic novels by authors such as J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis can be “red flags” for possible “far-right extremism.”We have Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, Shakespeare, and Homer on our bookshelf. Clearly, I should be watched! Photo by D R Pico.
“We prevent vulnerable people from being drawn into extremism,” Prevent claims on its website. Prevent goes on to describe itself as a “government-led, multi-agency” program that “aims to stop individuals becoming terrorists.” Its website elaborates that “police play a key role” in the program’s efforts.
The Daily Caller’s Kay Smythe reported that while Prevent “was founded to support counter-terrorism efforts” it “has gradually swayed into a focus on only extremists from Islam and ‘far-right’ ideological mindsets.”
“[T]he programme’s attempts to address right-wing extremism were even more inept than some of its attempts to address Islamist extremism,” British author Douglas Murray noted in a February 2023 Spectator piece.
Murray pointed out that Prevent was once “advised by left-wing activist groups like Hope not Hate.”
“Such groups have long believed that the definition of far-right should encompass, for instance, many people who supported Brexit,” he added.
My old Bible, using an Israeli 20 shekel note as a bookmark.
Even worse: one of the parishioners in our very small parish is trying to get a Knights of Columbus chapter set up, and has asked me to sign up.
Representative Jim Jordan reported that in its zeal to track down the January 6th kerfufflers, the:
federal government flagged terms like “MAGA” and “TRUMP,” to financial institutions if Americans completed transactions using those terms.
What was also flagged? If you bought a religious text, like a BIBLE, or shopped at Bass Pro Shop.
Heaven forfend! Clearly, I should be watched, perhaps even arrested for Wrongthink.