I Guess I Am On A List Too

 Joy Pullman has an article today at The Federalist telling us that A Bible, Slingshot, and Sports Gear. So, I'm Probably On a 'Terrorist Watch List'. I recently bought a Bible with a credit card too. I bought an English Standard Version (ESV) to use in our Bible studies. So, I guess I am on a list somewhere as well. While such surveillance is unconstitutional, to be despised by the despicable is a badge of honor.

Americans who shopped at sporting goods stores and bought religious books “like a Bible” were flagged through their banks as potential domestic terrorists, Rep. Jim Jordan revealed Jan. 17.

The federal government also flagged as potential criminals any transactions that involved the terms “MAGA” or “Trump,” the House Judiciary Committee chairman said. These Americans were tagged as possible “violent extremists” with zero due process or even notification of this criminalization of their constitutional rights to property, free speech, consent to their government’s activities, and religious exercise. The federal government even asked for surveillance of Americans’ messages on private payment apps like Zelle, a competitor to Venmo.

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So if you’ve shopped at a sporting goods store, including Cabela’s, Bass Pro Shops, Dick’s Sporting Goods, or myriad gun retailers, you could be flagged to law enforcement as “Lone Actor/Homegrown Violent Extremism.” All these retailers and dozens more appeared on a list Jordan found that a federal financial crime agency distributed to instruct bank employees in how to criminalize their fellow Americans’ religious and political ideas.

“In other words,” Jordan writes in a letter released yesterday, the federal government “urged large financial institutions to comb through the private transactions of their customers for suspicious charges on the basis of protected political and religious expression.”

It is hard to express just how Un-American and Unconstitutional all this is. Moreover, this is Fascism in action. Because it is illegal for the government to do it, they have pressured banks and payment systems such as PayPal and Venmo to do it and pass the search on to the government. But the government is not allowed to do that either. On the other hand, the Democrats seem not to care about the law if it interferes with their tracking down people who disagree with them, another Fascist trait.

Oh, and I can’t forget the other item of treacherous samizdat I bought in the last year: last Lent, I bought myself a Bible from ChristianBook.com, a terrorist-sounding site if I ever heard one. They sell other “extremist” gear like Bible commentaries, devotionals decorated with hearts, artsy Bible journals complete with marker sets, plush dolls, craft kits, and Jesus stickers.

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Turns out, benign, all-American consumerism by a completely peaceful and law-abiding citizen with zero criminal record or activity somehow threatens the people running my own country into the ground. What are they afraid of, and why do they hate Jesus so much?

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The deepest opposition to Democrats comes from serious Christians, because Democrats’ cornerstone policies blatantly violate the Ten Commandments (and lots more, including much of the Bible’s book of Romans). This is why it makes sense for them to connect Bible-buying with dissent from their politics.

Indeed