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Comment by msandford | Hacker News Reader

Back during Obama's tenure lots of right sympathetic groups got labeled domestic terror organizations. It's always political. Don't like the state calling you bad names? The solution is to reduce its power not to just get the "correct" people in charge. https://www.splcenter.org/resources/reports/year-hate-and-ex...

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> Back during Obama's tenure lots of right sympathetic groups got labeled domestic terror organizations

Which groups were labeled domestic terror organizations by the Obama admin? SPLC is a non-profit, not a government agency.

No they actually didn't. A lot of hate groups pushing violent and hateful rhetoric got called out by individuals and non-profits.

I realize I didn't make the point clearly enough. This is nothing new. It's politics, always has been. The left labels people on the right they don't like with bad names. The right is absolutely going to do it back to the left. That's the game. I don't like it, but that's clearly how it goes.

Don't read what I'm saying as an endorsement of what the right is going to the left right now. Nor should you read it as an endorsement of what the left did to the right back then. They're both bad.

What are you talking about? This is weaponization of the FBI to treat US citizens like criminals by designating them as terrorists or supporters of terrorism. This is not a "both sides" issue. This is the full weight of the state being used against its own citizens for constitutionally-protected activity.

You specifically mentioned Obama. How did the Obama admin do the same? Does it make this a dismissable non-issue?

The Obama administration sent the IRS after conservative organizations.

https://waysandmeans.house.gov/2014/06/24/timeline-of-the-ir...

This was also bad, and was criticized by Dem members of Congress along with the mainstream media, and led to the IRS Commissioner's resignation. Hopefully Bondi will too.

"Don't read what I'm saying as an endorsement of what the right is going [doing] to the left right now. "

That's me in the post you're critizing me for. I'm explicitly saying it's not good. What else do I need to do to make sure that you understand that I don't think it's okay?

Not say things like "it's always political", and otherwise both-sides the topic as if the current regime is not a watershed break with American norms, however flawed and imperfectly-adhered-to they were. Yes, our government has been decaying towards authoritarianism for quite some time and yes, there is plenty of blame to go around. But if we earnestly care about individual liberty, now is the time to throw our backs into stopping it.

Were they domestic terror organizations? The answer to this is important, and often overlooked.

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