Respond to the following discussions from classmates (X6) Write how you would respond to their discussions) with approximately 125 words or more each. Include a reference to each response if possible. Be thoughtful and insightful and it must demonstrate critical thinking and analysis.

1. Right wing extremism is an occurrence that has resurfaced as a result of social media and the internet freedom that have allowed the sharing of information that would otherwise lead to the mobilization of people against particular changes as well as adoption of reforms. Protection of values in the American society has been the main basis of right wing extremism with the political front playing a major part in its propagation.

Most of the right wing extremist groups are often against the various governmental programs or authority. Over time, there has been the development of laws that have ensured that the groups are nullified and their activities declared to be against the law. Acts such as the Civil Rights Act of 1968 have been instrumental in preventing the mistreatment of various groups of people. One of the common grounds for the right wing extremist groups is different religious and ethnic affiliations.

There are a number of extremist groups that are against Islam as a religion whereas a large number of the groups are against the incorporation of the minority groups into the society. The members supporting such mentalities are ones that believe there are differences between the rights for people in reference to their origin.

Property ownership as a popular majority of the extremist groups believe is for the white people and the others are not rightful holders of property in addition to political positions. This is an occurrence that the American society has worked hard to correct especially for the states located to the south of the nation where ethnic and religious bias remain to be at higher levels as compared to the rest of the regions.

2. Right-wing militia group aims at overthrowing the government which does not protect the right of its citizens. Also, it supports the agendas of average citizens and privileged elites in the country. RWE proposes that the rights of residents should be given priority by the government (Chermak & Gruenewald, 2016). They claim that the immigration policy threatens the country's traditions and values.
Right-wing extremists and hate groups are more violent as compared to other movements because they implement their policies through conflicts.

In most cases, conflict is as a result of the competition for scarce resources. Also, they are regarded as violent due to their increased attacks per year across the United States (Dinas, Georgiadou, Konstantinidis, & Rori, 2016). They have also made it impossible for the US intelligence service to monitor their operations.

The act of radicalizing children is also a factor that has made right-wing extremists be determined as a terrorist movement. Their activities of harassing businesses owned by minority groups make them more violent (Berning & Schlueter, 2016). RWE has evolved to a terror group due to their operations of spreading toxic ideologies and fear among communities (Akkerman, de Lange, & Rooduijn, 2016). Its violent acts are in some cases motivated by political factors that cause mistrust and division among the communities.

This movement promotes racial discrimination through their actions of advocating for employment of the majority races in the country. Also, the militia group wants the whites in the United States to be given priority in the education sector, as well as be considered first when sharing national resources (Parkin & Freilich, 2015). They are financed by civil societies in order to drive their agendas nationally and internationally. Also, various political leaders support the movement as they feel that the rights of the majority races are violated (Dunn, 2015).

3. FUQRA FILES EXCLUSIVE: FBI Links Jihadi Cult to Al-Qaeda

For the first time you can read here the actual FBI documents showing the links between 22 radical Islamist villages in the U.S. and al-Qaeda.

The Clarion Project has obtained newly declassified FBI documents from 2003 revealing that the jihadist cult Jamaat ul-Fuqra, also known as Muslims of America (MOA), had ties with al-Qaeda in Pakistan. The group is best known for its network of about 22 Islamist compounds  On American soil.

The State Department included Fuqra in its annual terrorism reports until 2000, describing Fuqra as an "Islamic sect that seeks to purify Islam through violence." It was removed due to its relative inactivity, but has been under investigation since.

A dozen North American Muslim organizations have asked the State Department to designate Fuqra as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
After reading about this group, could it be labeled a militia/domestic terrorist organization?
Fuqrafiles.com

4. Research the hate crime laws in your home state. Explain why you think they are, or are not, as similar and equally applied as federal hate crime laws.

After researching this topic, I am surprised to learn that my home state Georgia is one of the five states in the United States that does not have any hate crime laws. South Carolina, Indiana, Arkansas, and Wyoming are the other four states that have no hate crime laws. (Badertscher, 2015)

For the state as a whole, hate crime laws are not applied the same in Georgia because it's not an official category according to the law. However, there are some police precincts such as the Cobb County Sheriff's Office that have a database that tracks hate crimes and report them as such in their annual reports. (Helm, 2017) I will continue to research and verify whether they prosecute the hate crimes as regular crimes and just internally annotate that the crime was based on hate. It seems to me that if the state doesn't acknowledge hate crimes, how would a precinct within that state acknowledge them?

5. After researching my home state of New York and the hate crime laws we have and comparing them to that of the federal government I would have to say that they appear similar but of course do have differences. The New York States hate crime law is known as Article 485 along with 485.05 for a list of specific offenses and definition and 485.10 for sentencing.

New York State defines hate crime as "intentionally selects or commits an act of offense in whole or in substantial part because of a belief or perception regarding race, color, national origin, ancestry, gender, religion, religious practice, age, disability or sexual orientation of a person, regardless of whether the belief or perception is correct" (slightly paraphrased) (NY Laws).

According to the updated 2017 "New York's Hate Crimes Law: An Assessment" in 2015, hate crimes committed against individuals increased 7% in 2015, with the most frequently reported bias motivations for hate crimes being anti-male homosexual (26.2%), anti-Jewish (24%), and anti-black (15.6%) (Hoylman, 2017). Within this helpful document are potential points for improvement when it comes to combating hate crimes and enforcing the law. The points for improvement included data collection and reporting with a potential fix being an enforcement for reporting hate crime data.

Next is improving the training of Law Enforcement Officers, then a periodic review of the crime statistics, punishments, enforcement, training and reporting along with other points of improvement. I really like how Senator Brad Hoylman outlined the areas of improvement for the New York State Law for hate crimes, with any luck these points will be taken into consideration and law enforcement will be more efficient in this area.

6. Both the New York State hate crime laws and the federal hate crime laws are very similar in verbiage. Both sets of laws protect against crimes against individuals or property based on the biases against race, color, national origin, ancestry, gender, religion, age, disability or sexual orientation (NY.GOV, 2017; U.S. Department of Justice, 2017). The federal hate laws also cover gender identity which I didn't notice specifically mentioned in New York's hate crime law.

The law for New York State also goes on to describe a very long list of which crimes are specifically included if the motivation for the crime is based on the biases noted above. The crimes listed are too many to list, but include assault, aggravated assault, menacing, reckless endangerment, murder, unlawful imprisonment, stalking, coercion, arson, and more (Justia, n.d.).