Commentary
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Is podcaster Joe Rogan headed for a terror watch list?
You might think this idea is nuts, but the truth is we’re creeping ever-closer to a time when something that outlandish could become the norm.
Why isn’t this hyperbole?
Because the Biden administration—in the name of “defending democracy”—has classified those who question it on an increasingly long list of important issues as a threat to the homeland, and pledged to pursue them accordingly.
As I’ve discussed for Straight Arrow News before, our ruling elites have been engaged in a War on Wrongthink masquerading as a War on Domestic Terror since at least January 6, 2021.
The latest development in that war is the Department of Homeland Security’s recently issued, speech-chilling, frankly bone-chilling, National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin.
DHS claims America is in a “heightened threat environment fueled by several factors, including an online environment filled with false or misleading narratives and conspiracy theories, and other forms of mis- dis- and mal-information (MDM)…”
Among the greatest contributors to the current “threat environment,” says the DHS, is the “widespread online proliferation of false or misleading narratives regarding…[what else] COVD-19.”
Bad ideas as the administration defines them on a disease they’ve constantly misled about pose a terror threat.
And it would seem that public enemy number one here, for the Biden administration, and its allies, is the “horse-dewormer”-hocking, tequila-swigging, Bernie Sanders-supporting, former UFC commentator, standup comedian Joe Rogan.
Rogan, as you likely know since the story has exploded, recently hosted dissenters from Covidian orthodoxy including Drs. Peter McCullough and the then-recently-de-platformed from Twitter Dr. Robert Malone as guests on his podcast.
Soon thereafter he found himself the subject of a contrived cancel campaign led by, among others, washed-up musicians, non-medical doctors, and the corporate media whose ratings he has crushed.
But it was not just these parties who were out for blood.
It was also the president of the United States, his press secretary, and surgeon general, who, while the anti-Rogan jihad was blooming, publicly called for the combatting of Covid “misinformation and disinformation.”
This was totally phony. It was a farce. How do we know this? Because the administration, and its media mouthpieces, by their own standards have been the most powerful and prolific purveyors of “misinformation and disinformation.”
The administration has flip-flopped on virtually every aspect of the Chinese coronavirus to positions that it used to call for its social media buddies to ban people over on grounds of MDM—when it comes to everything from masking, to natural immunity, to vaccine efficacy, risk stratification, and beyond. Lab leak.
It’s flipped on a dime on these issues not because “The Science” has changed, but because the politics have changed—because they’re afraid they’re gonna get their clocks cleaned in 2022.
Yet they claim critics of disastrous lockdowns and anti-Scientific covid policies that have stunted our kids’ development and eroded liberty and justice are dangerous.
Dangerous to what? Well, to their rule. They see their rule as equivalent to America or democracy itself, just like Dr. Anthony Fauci claims he is Science, and any questioning of his agenda constitutes an assault on Science.
Ironically, the Homeland Security bulletin claims that the first key driver of the “heightened threat environment” is the “proliferation of false or misleading narratives, which *sow discord or undermine public trust in U.S. government institutions.*”
Never mind what the federal authorities have done to sow discord or undermine public trust in themselves, like, say, calling for Twitter and Facebook to censor people, or Russiagate.
It’s the critics, the dissenters—those who have no monopoly on force, or multi-trillion-dollar budgets, or a press they can coerce into doing their bidding with a wink and a nod—who are the real scourge.
The bulletin lists another potentially institution-threatening area of discourse “false or misleading narratives regarding unsubstantiated widespread election fraud”—perpetuating the narrative of “insurrection” that as we’ve covered before is so central to their effort to persecute Wrong thinkers, while ignoring the fact the regime’s own election integrity-eroding measures during 2020 have destroyed confidence in the system for millions of peaceful, law-abiding Americans.
In a new twist versus prior Biden-era bulletins, the latest one also claims that calls for violence have been tied to anger over “the evacuation and resettlement of Afghan nationals following the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan.”
So it’s not just questioning the merits of mask and vaccine mandates, or skepticism over the security of mass mail-in elections that could get you in hot water with the feds, but your doubting of the wisdom of dropping largely-unvetted refugees from a terror-dominated sharia backwater in the middle of your town that can make you a target of the Feds.
This threat bulletin flows directly from the Biden administration’s first-of-its-kind National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism.
That strategy, as detailed here previously, calls for confronting long-term contributors to domestic terrorism, including:
enhancing faith in government and addressing the extreme polarization, fueled by a crisis of disinformation and misinformation…[the administration goes on to say] We will work toward finding ways to counter the influence and impact of dangerous conspiracy theories that can provide a gateway to terrorist violence.
Linking speech that conflicts with regime orthodoxy to terror, and using that pretext to police thought—with an armed Ministry of Truth operating out of our national security and law enforcement apparatus—*is* America’s “counter-terror” policy today.
While, of course, we know that terrorists like the would-be Jihadist down in Texas, get through.
Treating critics as terrorists, and threatening to sic the most powerful, pervasive, sophisticated security state in the history of the world on them has nothing to do with defending democracy through protecting the truth. It’s about intimidating democratic opposition into silence and submission to The Narrative.
The regime believes it has to maintain a monopoly over ideas, to monopolize the American mind, to maintain its monopoly on power.
Joe Rogan threatened that power by having on guests who challenged the regime’s credibility, millions of people heard it, therefore he’s a danger.
Donald Trump called the regime a failure to its face, stated inconvenient truths about it that struck a chord with tens of millions of Americans, and backed policies that threatened to disempower the regime—therefore he -Trump and his allies likewise threatened that power, and, therefore, he was a danger.
Parents outraged over anti-Scientific and detrimental Covid-19 policies, and the indoctrination of their kids in Critical Race Theory in schools threatened the regime’s corrupt monopoly on the critical institution of public education, therefore they were dangers to be pursued by the DOJ, as we’ve covered, like jihadists.
The War on Wrongthink at the end of the day isn’t about left or right.
It’s about who rules: A sovereign people, or the elites who deign to lord over us.
The Ruling Class—“defenders of democracy”—sees citizens opposed to its agenda. What does it do? Rather than address our concerns, peaceably, respectfully, legitimately, it calls us terror threats and pursues us accordingly using the full power of the public and like-minded private sectors.
The Ruling Class doesn’t fear MDM—misinformation, disinformation, and mal-information.
It fears truth spoken openly, honestly, courageously particularly the truth about its rot, corruption, and incompetence, which calls into question its authority.
If all from unorthodox presidents, to curious podcasters, to caring parents, freedom convoy participants are deemed existential threats to the regime, then how strong is it really?
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