With the Obama administration’s controversial “extremism” summit now over, critics from across the political spectrum are outraged. Muslims and Islamic organizations are crying foul because, they say, the gathering focused too much on jihad and Islamic extremism. Anti-jihad groups are outraged because the summit supposedly did not focus enough on Islamic extremism — even to the point of avoiding the term entirely — and because a Muslim Brotherhood-linked figure was selected as Obama’s new “extremism” propaganda czar. Christians were outraged, too, partly because of the half-baked comments by embattled State Department spokesperson Marie “jobs-for-jihadists” Harf. After being mercilessly ridiculed for suggesting ISIS members needed jobs, Harf claimed that imaginary “Christian” extremists were also a serious threat.
In the end, though, few media reports or analysts focused on the fact that Obama’s extremism summit ended up promoting all sorts of anti-Constitution and Big Government extremism — much of it to be imposed at the international level, all of it under the guise of fighting nebulous notions of non-Islamic extremism. Officially dubbed the Summit on Countering Violent Extremism, last week’s gathering was an extravaganza for pushing radically increased government power, centralization of power at the federal and global levels, government propaganda, and numerous other extremist schemes. Some analysts even described Obama’s summit as a bizarre convergence of the extreme Left and extremist Islam to push common goals: Big Government, less liberty, more wealth redistribution, blurring the lines between church and state by having government “train” and fund “religious leaders,” and open attacks on traditional American ideals.
Statements made by Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry, and other senior U.S. officials support that view. In a “fact sheet” about the summit posted on the White House webpage, for example, the administration explains how it is working with “local communities” to counter extremism. But “local communities” in an unconstitutional “partnership” with the federal government will not be the only entities involved. Indeed, in the fact sheet, the White House makes clear yet again that the United Nations and emerging regional regimes will play a key role in the battle. At a UN summit last year, Obama called on the largely autocratic UN member regimes, many with links to terror and mass-murder, to return this year with steps to address “the underlying grievances and conflicts that feed extremism.” At the summit last week, the president added that, “if we’re serious about countering violent extremism, we have to get serious about confronting these economic grievances.”
The Obama administration, of course, has made clear what it views as the “grievances” that feed extremism, citing, among others, a lack of Big Government and welfare. “The most basic issue is good governance,” claimed Kerry in an opinion piece about the extremism summit published by the Wall Street Journal. “It may not sound exciting, but it is vital. People who feel that their government will provide for their needs, not just its own, and give them a chance at a better life are far less likely to strap on an AK-47 or a suicide vest, or to aid those who do.” While Kerry and Marxists worldwide may hold the extreme view that government must “provide” for people’s “needs” to end “extremism” — Kerry proposed, among other schemes, “training young people so they can get jobs and envision a future of dignity” — the founders of the United States would have viewed such a proposition as totalitarian extremism unworthy of a free people.
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