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Posted on 09/15/2025 3:37:19 AM PDT by EBH
The Day the Fears Came Home
I still remember the weeks after 9/11. The air itself felt different — heavier, charged. We were grieving, yes, but we were also afraid. In those days, the Patriot Act swept through Congress, and most of us nodded along. We wanted to feel safe. We wanted to believe it would only be used against the men who had flown planes into towers.
But even then, a whisper lingered: What happens if these powers are ever turned inward?
We told ourselves it wouldn’t happen. That Americans wouldn’t call other Americans terrorists. That these tools were for al-Qaeda, not our neighbors. And for nearly 25 years, that uneasy whisper has followed me.
The Laws We Feared
The Patriot Act did more than fight foreign terror. It quietly rewrote definitions. “Domestic terrorism” was born on paper, even if rarely spoken out loud. The law lowered thresholds for surveillance. It opened the door for freezing bank accounts, monitoring phones and emails, prosecuting “material support.”
Definition: The USA PATRIOT Act (2001) amended federal law to expand the definition of terrorism to include domestic terrorism.
Specifically, 18 U.S. Code § 2331 defines domestic terrorism as acts that:
1. Involve dangerous acts to human life that violate federal or state law;
2. Appear intended to intimidate or coerce civilians, influence government policy by intimidation/coercion, or affect the conduct of government by mass destruction/assassination/kidnapping;
3. Occur primarily within U.S. territory.
Result: This means the government doesn’t just have a foreign-terrorism toolbox, it can apply terrorism designations to U.S. citizens if their actions fit those criteria.
Later, the NDAA of 2012 triggered a new round of debates; indefinite detention for citizens suspected of terrorism. Once again, we reassured ourselves: This is about them, not us.
The system, our justice system, remained slow by design. That slowness has always been both our flaw and our feature.
The Hybrid Coyote
For decades, we leaned on the “lone wolf” story. Every violent act was isolated, a troubled individual. That story kept the Patriot Act’s worst fears at bay. Lone wolves didn’t require the terrorism toolbox.
But that myth is gone. Charlie Kirk’s assassination shattered it. In any other country, we’d call it what it was: terrorism.
What we face now is a hybrid — a coyote slipping through the cracks. Not a foreign enemy, not a lone wolf. Something in-between. And our system, built for neat categories, doesn’t know how to catch it.
The Watchlists We Once Feared
Not long ago, Americans learned that the FBI had already been compiling quiet watchlists: “radical-traditional Catholics,” survivalist preppers, even parents at school board meetings. When those revelations surfaced, the response was outrage.
How dare they paint ordinary citizens as threats? How dare they use counterterrorism tools against Americans?
We shouted then, because it felt like the government was turning suspicion inward.
And yet here we are. With hearts hardening, with people losing jobs over their words, with assassination in the air, those same watchlists suddenly look less like dystopia and more like preparation.
That’s what chills me. What once horrified us may soon be tolerated — even welcomed. The coyote net was already built. The only question is whether we’ll now ask to use it.
Trump’s Word,
Last week, Trump used a word presidents have avoided for two decades. He essentially called them terrorists.
“This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today”
That wasn’t a slip. It was a calculated risk. A signal. A test.
Because once you name it, the drawer marked “Patriot Act” slides open. Inside are powers we always feared and perhaps, in this moment, the very powers people will welcome.
Trump wasn’t just naming one shooter. By tying Kirk’s death to “the terrorism we’re seeing in our country today,” he put an entire ecosystem on notice. It was less about a lone criminal and more about the climate that nurtures violence the rhetoric, the groups, the networks. In 2001, terrorism meant sleeper cells and foreign plots. In 2025, the word now stretches to include domestic ecosystems of politics, media, and culture. And once that circle is drawn, the machinery of counterterrorism doesn’t stop with an individual. It scans everything inside the circle.
The Paradox
This is the bind of 2025.
If the justice system stays slow, the hybrid coyote keeps slipping through, striking again. If the justice system pulls the terrorism lever, it gains speed but sacrifices restraint.
For almost 250 years, we’ve lived with that flaw and that feature. We tolerated the slowness because it kept tyranny at bay. But now, weary and hardened, the public may trade restraint for action.
The Day the Fears Came Home
In 2001, we feared the Patriot Act. In 2025, we may welcome it.
The whisper that haunted us after 9/11 has become a choice laid bare on the president’s desk. What we once swore would never be turned inward may now be the only tool left standing.
And the scariest part? We’ll tell ourselves it’s for our safety.
Sidebar: Whatever Happened to the Patriot Act Sunset?
When the Patriot Act was first passed in 2001, some of its most controversial provisions had “sunset” clauses. The promise was that these extraordinary powers would expire once the immediate crisis had passed.
But over the years, Congress kept extending them. In 2015, the USA Freedom Act rebranded and modified parts of the law, ending the bulk phone metadata program but leaving most surveillance tools intact. In 2020, a few provisions finally lapsed — like “roving” wiretaps and the “lone wolf” tracker clause — but the core of the Patriot Act had already become permanent law.
I know some will say I’m being too cautious at a time like this. But caution is what has kept our republic alive for nearly 250 years. The day we stop asking what these powers cost us is the day the hybrid coyote wins not with a bullet, but with our own surrender.
In other words, the sunset never truly came. The architecture of surveillance and expanded definitions of terrorism remained in place. The laws we once called temporary emergency measures are now part of the baseline.
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JUST IN: President Trump says a lot of people are “under investigation” after being asked a question about Charlie Kirk.
“They're already under major investigation, a lot of the people that you would traditionally say are on the Left.” pic.twitter.com/yBNcZmxyZX— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) September 14, 2025
Good essay, EBH. I agree 100%. If we start locking up every blue-haired freak now, we are going to lose support, and then elections. In order to start locking them up, we need evidence, and right now, I’ve seen precious little of that. More than evidence, we need to win in the court of public opinion.
We need to have 60-70% of Americans say NO to political violence. Good luck with that, half of college students think it’s ok to kill your political enemies. However, just because Charlie Kirk was shot, doesn’t mean the tide wasn’t turning our way. In fact, the opposite. We’re winning. Just have to keep doing what we’re doing.
once we cross into labeling entire groups as terrorists, we can’t walk it back. We win not only by defeating violence, but by keeping the very system intact that protects us from becoming like those we oppose
In Texas we call crossbreeds coydogs - smart as coyotes, not afraid of humans.
“Transpersons” are the coydog of humanity.
Up here we call the Coywolfs...crossbreeds between the eastern coyote and a canadian wolf.
The Day the Lone Wolf Myth Died
Free Republic Exclusive | 9/13/2025 | EBH
Posted on 9/13/2025, 12:10:11 PM by EBH
The Day the Lone Wolf Myth Died
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/4340208/posts
Individuals are terrorists. Those that have done the deed, eliminate them. Don’t return them to civilization to terrorize again. That may give pause to those who are thinking about it. Stay safe, stay armed, stay alive. Many evil individuals will target you in any venue and in a variety of ways.
What DOES need to happen, though, is the establishment of cultural norms that make the “blue-haired freak” an outcast and a pariah. When we reach a point where people who look and act normal tend to be successful and the blue-haired freaks are all living in cardboard boxes under bridges, we will have reached a point where the cultural/behavioral indicators have been restored.
”Not everyone was meant to evolve. Some people are here to remind you what happens if you don’t.” — AC’s Book of Wisdom
FOX NEWS ALERT: @FBIDirectorKash reveals details about a note found in the home of Charlie Kirk’s suspected assassin. pic.twitter.com/BgZZiAe1bP— FOX & Friends (@foxandfriends) September 15, 2025
Good post. Thoughtfully written. Thank you.
I think you’re absolutely correct.
.
Beautiful, thanks for the post.
I will give you the opportunity to explain yourself more fully before responding further.
No, but we should approach it with a great deal of sobriety. We have already seen and in many cases experienced the doxxing, swatting, de platform and vilification. As noted in the essay above even targeting by a leftist government/regime.
We should not go into this level of legalism in a drunken rage. But with cool, calculated reasonings.
The left was already moving to incriminate us under Biden, we shouldn’t dismiss they will do it again if they should return to power.
P
“The left was already moving to incriminate us under Biden, we shouldn’t dismiss they will do it again if they should return to power.”
**************
The Left wants power and control. The Right wants freedom and limited government influence over their lives. Those are opposing beliefs and therefore problematic to reconcile.
The Left has become increasingly aggressive in its tactics and has largely enjoyed a lack of accountability despite the growing intensity of their vitriol and violence. We cannot afford to be under any delusions about what the Left has in store for us.
I visit other websites whose focus is not really on politics but am constantly surprised at the intensity of antipathy toward Trump and MAGA supporters whenever a topic gives them an excuse for an anti-conservative diatribe. There’s a disturbing amount of hatred out there. Jus sayin.
Very good observation.
Vice President Vance and Stephen Miller have now said it plainly: the target is not lone wolves, but the NGO networks that facilitate violence. Charlie Kirk’s last words to Miller were that we needed an organized strategy to go after them. Those words have become marching orders. Game over for ambiguity. Game on for the machinery of state
well done piece.
timely, too
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