Spring Break
Stopping domestic terrorism
Government must do more to stop actions of radical environmentalist groups
By: Mike Walters
Issue date: 9/30/03 Section: Opinion
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Words such as these bring to mind the haunting images of the World Trade Center crumbling to the ground in a hateful anti-American attack on U.S. lives and property, but the quote does not come from a foreign threat. While law enforcement officials have been investigating the possibility of "sleeper cells" of terrorist groups such as al-Qaida, they've ignored a terrorist group living here in the United States.
What's worse - the U.S. government is advocating the ideology behind its hatred and violence in public schools and on television commercials every day.
The words come from the Earth Liberation Front's Web site, the "heroes of environmentalism," and unless the government does more to stop the ELF's activities, Americans are going to be put in danger by this group's radical agenda.
The ELF admittedly fought against the "American Dream" by torching a five-story condominium complex in San Diego, sabotaging five housing construction sites and destroying car lots during last summer alone. On Sept. 23, its members tried to bomb a Michigan pumping station belonging to Nestle Waters, the parent company for Aberfoyle and Ozarka, all the while claiming to be promoting life.
It is true that the ELF, while boasting about its $100 million in property damage, has not been responsible for taking any human lives. However, by asserting that nature is more important than human life and showing no regard for human rights, it is only a matter of time before killing people becomes part of the group's agenda. As syndicated columnist Robert Tracinski wrote, "No, they don't want to kill people; they just want to make sure that we don't own anything, don't eat anything, don't use any power and have no place to live."
Environmentalism, which the ELF violently fights for, places inanimate objects such as trees, dirt and mountains above the lives and prosperity of human beings. ELF's idyllic world is a place in which humans live in harmony with nature.
If one ever wonders what the "life" it claims to promote would look like for mankind, watch any charity commercials where diseases and filth rank above men and women and claim their lives daily. Even those starving African states take from nature; such a harmony cannot exist to humans, who depend on taking things from nature to survive.
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