H.R. 1955, pushed as the “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007″ and widely  derided as the “Thought Crimes Act” is one of those pieces of crap that only a professional politician or network news anchor could love.  It starts with a list of “Findings” and then creates a Commission to spend 18 months “studying” the already decided and written into law conclusions and writing a report on how to curtail the free speech of anyone who does not accept the status quo.

Some samples:

The term `violent radicalization’ means the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious, or social change.

The term `ideologically based violence’ means the use, planned use, or threatened use of force or violence by a group or individual to promote the group or individual’s political, religious, or social beliefs.

Is this not what our military is doing trying to establish democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan?

The Internet has aided in facilitating violent radicalization, ideologically based violence, and the homegrown terrorism process in the United States by providing access to broad and constant streams of terrorist-related propaganda to United States citizens.

Does anybody remember Radio Free Europe? (Hint for the young: it wasn’t a campaign to hide all the radios.) Is the US government the only legal source of propaganda? (I’m sorry, I forgot – our leaders only speak the truth. It’s the NotUS that speak propaganda.)

Understanding the motivational factors that lead to violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence is a vital step toward eradicating these threats in the United States.

“Eradicate” violence!?!?!? Yeah, let’s nuke it out of existence…

Only after all this is the Constitution mentioned, and a weak prohibition of profiling “based solely on race, ethnicity, or religion”. In other words, profiling is OK as long as its only 99% of the process, not 100%.

As far as I’m concerned, the “status quo” is something to be endured until something better comes along, not something to be preserved at the cost of liberty and privacy.

So how would I rewrite this bill?

The current policy in Iraq and the War on Terra (all this time you thought he was mispronouncing it, didn’t you?) have been the best recruitment tool the terrorists could have asked for. A study is therefore needed to find a better policy aimed at increasing understanding and tolerance among people of different beliefs everywhere. Career politicians and preachers are not eligible to serve on the Committee as they are the ones that made this mess in the first place.

We the People includes the NotMe.