The government thinks the Proud Boys are a violent extremist group. In fact, according to a report released in April by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) — which reviews and monitors executive branch programs for Congress — pretty much anyone who believes in freedom and espouses the founding principles is potentially a violent right-wing extremist, also known as a domestic terrorist. On top of that, the government claims these so-called violent “right-wing” extremists such as the Proud Boys are more dangerous to America than Islamist terrorists. According to the GAO report, “Of the 85 violent extremist incidents that resulted in death since September 12, 2001, far right wing violent extremist groups were responsible for 62 (73 percent) while radical Islamist violent extremists were responsible for 23 (27 percent).”

The report then outlines the characteristics of these “far right wing violent extremist groups”:

Far right violent extremist attackers are characterized by ECDB [U.S. Extremist Crime Database] as having beliefs that include some or all of the following:

· Fiercely nationalistic (as opposed to universal and international in orientation);

· Anti-global;

· Suspicious of centralized federal authority;

· Reverent of individual liberty (especially right to own guns; be free of taxes);

· Belief in conspiracy theories that involve a grave threat to national sovereignty and/or personal liberty;

· Belief that one’s personal and/or national “way of life” is under attack and is either already lost or that the threat is imminent; and

· Belief in the need to be prepared for an attack either by participating in or supporting the need for paramilitary preparations and training or survivalism.

This broad conception of what characterizes a right-wing extremist is contrasted with the government’s much narrower conception of radical Islamists. “Attackers with violent radical Islamist beliefs were generally those who professed some form of belief in or allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), al-Qa’ida, or other (radical) Islamist associated terrorist entities.”

You see, to be an Islamic extremist you need to be a card carrying member of ISIS, al-Qaeda, or an affiliated group. But to be a right-wing extremist you need only to believe in American exceptionalism, or be skeptical of the centralization of power in government, or value individual rights, believe the aforementioned beliefs are worth standing up for, and be K-selected enough to have contingency plans in place in case of war, or economic or environmental dislocation. In other words, be a Western chauvinist who refuses to apologize for creating the modern world. In short, be a Proud Boy.

But the evidence of Western chauvinists like the Proud Boys perpetrating acts of terrorism don’t exist, because they never happened. So to justify its claims the GAO relies upon manipulated data to make the case that these so-called violent right-wing extremists are more dangerous to America than Islamist terrorists.

First, the GAO lumps in several of the country’s most notorious left-wing terrorist organizations with the aforementioned lovers of freedom and individual rights. According to the GAO, “many persons having violent extreme far right views express support for some version of white supremacy, the Ku Klux Klan, and neo-Nazism.”

Never mind that the largest white supremacy organization in the nation’s history — the Klu Klux Klan — was the militant recruiting arm of the Democratic Party — the party built on destroying individual rights, centralizing power in the federal government, promoting globalization, and being too r-selected to plan for the nation’s future by doing something about the now $20 trillion national debt.

And nevermind that neo-Nazism is shorthand for the new National Socialist party. These guys have the word “socialist” in their name. Need I say more? How about the fact that the National Socialists in Germany were once in a pact with the International Socialists in the Soviet Union?

Suspicion of centralized government authority and reverence to the individual rights to life, liberty, and property — the views espoused by right-leaning groups in America — are antithetical to the racist, bigoted, authoritarian views of the KKK and national and international socialists. This conflation of pro-freedom groups with left-wing terrorists and militant socialists enables the government to kill two birds with one stone — to use a tired trope. First, as already mentioned, by adding the terrorist attacks of the left to those of the right, the GAO can claim right-wing extremism is more dangerous than Islamist terrorism — and thus pander to the left by diverting attention away from the dangers of one of the left’s favored contemporary mascots. Second, it allows the left to white-wash their own atrocities — both their historical and contemporary record. Under the GAO’s version of events, NAZI’s and KKK members are part of the ideological right, and therefore, again according to the GAO, since 2001 “activities of far left wing violent extremist groups did not result in any fatalities.” The sophistry is strong with the GAO. (From here on out I will continue to use the phrase “right-wing” since that is what the GAO calls them, but I will be adding the quotation marks to signify the inclusion of various known left-wing organizations in the GAO’s definition of “right-wing.”)

But they weren’t done yet. Even with all these mental and rhetorical gymnastics, they still couldn’t find enough deadly attacks perpetrated by the so-called “right-wing” to make the case that those guys are more dangerous than Islamist terrorists. So, they started juicing the numbers. Terrorism is defined by Merriam-Webster as “the unlawful use or threat of violence especially against the state or the public as a politically motivated means of attack or coercion.” In other words, to be terrorism, the perpetrators have to be publically pursuing a political agenda. In place of terrorism, the GAO uses the murkier phrase “violent extremism — generally defined as ideologically, religious, or politically motivated acts of violence.” The two terms are more similar than they are different — the perpetrator saw the crime as a means to furthering a political agenda. But, to the short list of textbook acts of terrorism committed by so-called “right-wing” extremists over the past decade and a half, the GAO added gang initiation murders, prison murders, strong arm robberies, domestic violence incidents, school shootings, and police-altercations.

Of the 62 incidents defined by the GAO as “Far Right Violent Extremist-Motivated Attacks that Resulted in Fatalities” from September 12, 2001 through December 31, 2016, only 13 can be legitimately labeled terrorist attacks.

Of the remaining 49 incidents, six were shootings of on-duty law enforcement. Yet, between 2001 and 2016, more than 2,500 law enforcement officials have been killed in the line of duty. The GAO offers no explanation of why these six shootings in particular warrant labeling as acts of terrorism.

Next, three of the incidents were prison murders. According to the Department of Justice, there were 778 homicides in state and federal prisons between 2001 and 2012, yet again the GAO offers no explanation of why these homicides in particular warrant labeling as acts of terrorism. Three of the incidents were gang initiation related murders of homeless men; four were murders of pedophiles and sex offenders; and one was the killing of notorious late-term abortionist George Tiller. Those 17 incidents can be immediately removed from the list of supposed “right-wing” terrorist attacks.

Then we have 12 incidents that were clear hate crimes perpetrated variously by known gang members, drunk high school students, and crazy old men against homosexuals, minorities, and immigrants, but with no identifiable or widely publicized political agenda. These too must be removed from the list.

The remaining 20 incidents were heinous murders with only one clearly identifiable link — they were all perpetrated by whites. (With one caveat — in one of the incidents, the perpetrator was actually a Hispanic drug smuggler targeting a competitor, but the GAO decided to label him a “white supremacist” just the same.) Yet, the GAO went out of their way to twist the facts to fit the narrative. Here are just a few of the incidents to give you an idea of the sort of deceit necessary to push the narrative that the “right-wing” in America is guilty of more terrorism than Islamists. These are not necessarily the most outrageous misrepresentations of the facts, but are representative of the sort of incidents I am talking about.

The GAO described the first incident I want to cover as “far right violent extremists murdered 3 fast food workers (one Native American and two Hispanic).” While the two defendants in the case were apparently founders of a militia group that “pledged allegiance to a racist creed” according to one of the prosecutors, and one of the defendants later made anti-immigrant comments in written statements to investigators, the murders were not labeled as hate crimes and no racial angle was raised during trial. The men committed the murders while attempting to rob a fast food restaurant where one of them had recently been fired for stealing. The other defendant had a history of mental illness, with several stints in behavioral health facilities and diagnoses of schizophrenia and manic-depression. Yes, this sounds like “right-wing” terrorism to me.

The next incident the GAO described as “Two white supremacist skinheads murdered a man.” 19 year old Anthony Prentice had been living with 58 year old Dan Miller for over a year. Prentice had a troubled childhood and was on probation for participating in a riot at a youth correctional facility. Court documents described Miller as a “teacher and advocate” to Prentice. Some months before the murder, Miller had intervened on Prentice’s behalf, helping Prentice avoid a four year prison sentence for a probation violation. According to the defense attorney in the case Prentice and Miller had been “good friends and roommates” for at least a year leading up to the murder. One day, Prentice and another man, James Harrison, 21, held Miller down in their home and stabbed him multiple times before carving a swastika into his back. Harrison told police Prentice attacked Miller because Miller called him a derogatory name. “Right-wing” terrorists strike again.

Next we look at what the GAO described as “Middle school skinhead student shot and killed gay peer.” 14 year old Brandon McInerney sat down in class behind 15 year Larry King and shot him twice in the back before dropping the gun and walking back out. The two boys’ teacher, Dawn Boldrin, described Larry as “soft-spoken” and “outwardly gay.” Larry often showed up to school in women’s clothes, makeup, and high-heels. According to one news report, “Larry’s behavior made him a target for bullying so Boldrin decided to do something nice for him: She secretly gave him her daughter’s green prom dress.” “I bagged it up and before school, very privately, I gave it to him,” Boldrin said. “I told him to enjoy it. Have fun.” Brandon, the shooter, was then described as a “typical eight-grader,” but also “popular and athletic.” The same Boldrin who gave Larry the dress said Brandon was “not a misfit by any means and above all he was respectful.” This extended quote from an ABC News report sums up the case well:

“Three years after the shooting, this past July, Brandon stood trial. There, his defense team would deliver a bombshell: Larry had been sexually harassing Brandon. So who was bullying whom?

The jury in the case ultimately couldn’t reach agreement on a verdict. Five jurors believed that Brandon was guilty of murder while seven voted to convict him of voluntary manslaughter.

All did, however, agree on one thing — that Brandon was not guilty of a hate crime.”

These are the sorts of incidents the Government Accountability Office draws on as supposed evidence that America is under siege from “right-wing” extremists, which under the GAO definition of the phrase, would appear to include proud Western chauvinists like the Proud Boys.

Before even addressing the problem of the GAO conflating socialists and militant Democrats with the right-wing in America, we are down to only 13 attacks resulting in 31 deaths over a 15 year period by “Far Right Violent Extremists,” a category that includes people of a multitude of religious and spiritual leanings, diverse ethnic backgrounds, and widely disparate political priorities. That is compared to 23 attacks resulting in 119 deaths by Islamists espousing worldwide takeover by the religion of peace. (Even if we went with the GAO official report, there were still 12 percent more deaths from Islamist terrorism (119) than “right-wing” terrorism (106) over the past 15 years.)

These bogus reports which sully the good name of Western chauvinists such as the Proud Boys not only help to justify the government’s diversion of resources away from the fight against Islamist terrorism in America, but also are used by various cuck libertarian groups on the traditional right to fog the immigration debate and by militant groups on the ideological left to divert attention from their far more nefarious and more frequent acts of domestic terrorism. Which brings up one last point I will cover in more detail in a future post.

We are by now all quite familiar with Benjamin Franklin’s quote about sacrificing liberty for safety. Terrorism reports which emphasize only the body count of the attack ignore the much harder to quantify, yet much more significant impact on our basic freedoms in this country.

First, a common refrain in the pro-Muslim immigration crowd is that very few Muslims worldwide — and an even smaller share of Muslim immigrants to America — ever engage in a single act of Islamist terrorism. Yet, these immigrants often bring something with the potential for a much more deleterious long term impact on America’s freedoms — namely, an animosity towards those freedoms that may eventually manifest itself in voting patterns, spending on political campaigns, and the upbringing of children. The Constitution is not carved in stone. After all, it has been amended 27 times thus far. Most of those amendments have expanded our freedoms, but that may not always be the case if America sets an immigration policy which targets immigrants espousing anti-freedom ideologies. To paraphrase the pre-eminent philosopher of the modern era, “if people already believe freedom is injustice, they will vote as if slavery is freedom.”

Finally, while there have yet to be any deaths associated with left’s increasingly violent protest culture over the past several years, make no mistake about it, most of these events labeled “protests” by the MSM and “riots” by much of the alternative media in fact fit the definition of domestic terrorism quite well: the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims. These leftist attacks on everyone from rabble-rousers like Milo to stuffy scholars like Charles Murray (author of the Proud Boy Bible by the way) have already started to have a chilling effect on people’s ability to peaceably assemble without fear of violence or intimidation by left wing agitators. Yet none of these acts of terrorism will make it into official government reports because no one has been killed, yet.

But don’t worry, the government is spending plenty of time and money making sure Western chauvinists like the Proud Boys can’t go around espousing the hate-filled message of freedom and respect for individual rights.