Rule by fear or rule by law?

The answer to that question was settled in 1865, when the central government asserted its dominance over the people of the once-sovereign States, and made it clear any attempt to constrain the government within the Constitution could again be answered by force. If 600,000 have to die to prop up the ruling elite in DC, so be it. Now that Americans are again questioning the Federal government, DC's minions are dropping some mighty big hints that we'd better pipe down -- or else:

U.S. Rep. Jane Harman, D-Venice (Los Angeles County) has come up with a new way to expand the domestic "war on terror." Her Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 (HR1955), which passed the House by the lopsided vote of 404-6, would set up a commission to "examine and report upon the facts and causes" of so-called violent radicalism and extremist ideology, then make legislative recommendations on combatting it.

A clue as to where Harman's commission might be aiming is the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, a law that labels those who "engage in sit-ins, civil disobedience, trespass, or any other crime in the name of animal rights" as terrorists. Other groups in the crosshairs could be anti-abortion protesters, anti-tax agitators, immigration activists, environmentalists, peace demonstrators, Second Amendment rights supporters ... the list goes on and on. According to author Naomi Wolf, the National Counterterrorism Center holds the names of roughly 775,000 "terror suspects" with the number increasing by 20,000 per month.

Interesting that this is published by the San Francisco Chronicle, rather than a conservative or anti-government site. Clearly, the empire is getting jittery, with the peasants getting noisier every day about DC's inept, heavy-handed rule.