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If we were setting out to compile a list of groups that we condemn or disapprove of, a strong case could be made for the inclusion of the Proud Boys. But Canadas list of banned terrorist entities does not exist as a vehicle for expressing such sentiments and we should not be using it as such.

This past week, 13 additional groups were added to that list. Of those inclusions, 12 were relatively non-controversial. The inclusion of the Proud Boys, however, raises some legitimate questions and concerns.

Yes, the group holds radical political views and seem to have a thirst for violence (an alt-right fight club is how theyre described by one prominent anti-hate group), but the terrorism bar needs to be set higher than that. Politicizing this process seems both unwise and potentially counterproductive.

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While a strong case exists for describing neo-Nazi groups like Atomwaffen Division and The Base as terrorist organizations, the Proud Boys were the only ones who were the subject of a motion in the House of Commons calling for such a designation (the NDP proposed the motion, which MPs passed unanimously).

Its encouraging that our elected representatives take a dim view of far-right organizations, but this is a highly unusual intrusion into what should otherwise be a sober and objective process. It should not be influenced by the prevailing political attitudes of the moment.

Loosening the definition of terrorism could set a troubling precedent, one that could be abused for political purposes.

The Proud Boys indeed appear to have been involved in the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill insurrection. The events of that day certainly crystalize the threat posed by far-right political extremism. Again, though, thats not an excuse for political interference in this process. If anything, the rushed inclusion of the Proud Boys could prove embarrassing for the government.

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While some Proud Boys members have been charged in connection with the insurrection, none of those charges have been proven in court. Absent any convictions, the case for listing the Proud Boys becomes much weaker.

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This rationale exposes two additional problems for the decision. The fact that those involved in the insurrection are now facing serious charges demonstrates how criminal law provides a means to deal with this sort of political extremism.

Furthermore, it exposes the arbitrary nature of the decision. For example, there are members of the far-right group known as the Oath Keepers who have also been charged in connection with the insurrection. Yet we have not listed the Oath Keepers as a terrorist organization, even though a similar case could be made.

Or, for that matter, why havent we listed the Three Percenters? Or the Soldiers of Odin? Or the Order of Nine Angles? Or the Boogaloo Bois? Or QAnon?

Some of these groups are more dangerous than others. Some are more organized that others (some may be considered more movements than actual groups). There are lone wolf actors who may subscribe to some or all of the beliefs of these groups. There is unquestionably a security threat that exists here, but a narrow counter-terrorism approach will leave many gaps.

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Listing a group as a banned terrorist entity can provide some useful tools in targeting its leadership or disrupting its fundraising, but that has limited applications. The motion voted on in Parliament is rather vague with regard to these nuances as well as the broader question of how we deal with political extremism. It involves law enforcement, obviously, but also a broader de-radicalization approach. Ironically enough, it also involves political leaders.

The word terrorist is obviously a pejorative term, and so much of the conversation around the Proud Boys seems more about who can use the strongest language to denounce them than any sort of meaningful conversation about what these groups and movements represent and how we can counter them.

Politicizing counter-terrorism efforts only serves to erode public confidence in those efforts, as does making arbitrary decisions about which groups make the list and which do not. All of this may outweigh whatever marginal upside results from the listing of the Proud Boys.

This list is not a magic bullet and we not should rely on the listing process as our means of dealing with political extremism. Parliamentarians are right to be worried about groups like the Proud Boys, but their proposed solution which has now been acted upon misses the mark in many ways.

Rob Breakenridge is host of Afternoons with Rob Breakenridge on Global News Radio 770 Calgary and a commentator for Global News.

2021 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

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COMMENTARY: We can condemn and combat extremism without loosening the definition of terrorism - Global News

Nearly a month after a pro-Trump mob violently stormed the U.S. Capitol, a clearer picture is emerging of the individuals and groups involved as federal authorities arrest and charge people who allegedly participated in the riot.

Former President Donald Trumps supporters -- 74 million of whom voted to give him a second term in 2020 -- are diverse in background and ideology and come from all corners of the United States, and those who stormed the Capitol represent just a fraction.

But to some experts, the hundreds who took part in the Capitol siege represent some of the most fervent and radical adherents of the Make America Great Again movement and others caught up in the frenzy of the day. They say attempts to unite those extremist elements fell apart after Charlottesville but gained renewed momentum in 2020, with racial unrest, the pandemic and most recently the unfounded controversy over the election.

Pro-Trump protesters gather in front of the U.S. Capitol Building, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington, D.C., before a mob stormed the Capitol, breaking windows and clashing with police officers, as congress gathered to certify the election of Joe Biden.

Cynthia Miller-Idriss, a sociology professor at American University who studies extremism and far-right movements, said that those who stormed the Capitol are a loose coalition of groups from across the far-right spectrum.

These were people who were radicalized and participated in an insurrection, its just that some did so in a very planned way, and I think others ended up being caught up spontaneously in mob rioting," Miller-Idriss said.

For the experts, the most prominent force that unified hard-right adherent, militias and other Trump supporters and whipped them up into a frenzy behind the idea that the election was stolen -- Trump himself.

And Trump, unlike past presidents, gave these disparate groups a national platform unlike any they'd had in modern American history with the instantaneous recognition and feedback of social media.

Trumps false claims about election fraud and his rhetoric post-election urging his supporters to fight back is at the heart of the former presidents Senate impeachment trial, which is set to begin next week. The House of Representatives voted to impeach Trump on Jan. 13 after House Democrats filed an article of impeachment, charging him with "incitement of insurrection."

ABC News reached out to the former presidents legal team but representatives declined to comment.

Larry Rosenthal, chair and lead researcher of the Berkeley Center for Right-Wing Studies, said that the mob was generally made up of two groups: right-wing populists, whom he described as part of Trumps most faithful rally-goers, and right-wing militia groups that represent two overlapping currents of the far-right movement: white nationalism and anti-government.

President Donald Trump is seen on a screen as his supporters cheer during a rally Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington, D.C. Trump supporters gathered in the nation's capital today to protest the ratification of President-elect Joe Biden's Electoral College victory over President Trump in the 2020 election.

Some of these ideologies and beliefs were on display in far-right insignia scattered among the crowd, which included symbols of the Confederacy, Nazism, white supremacy and anarchy.

And some of those arrested have documented their alleged involvement on social media and some have known ties to far-right groups, or are adherents of disproven conspiracy theories.

In addition to a diverse and loose coalition of groups involved, the members of the mob were also not racially and ethnically homogenous.

Although the majority of rioters at the Stop the Steal rally were white, the Trump mob was not a homogenous group of white nationalists," Cristina Beltrn, a professor at New York University who studies race, ethnicity and American politics, said.

Jacob Chansley and other supporters of President Donald Trump are confronted by U.S. Capitol Police officers outside the Senate Chamber inside the Capitol in Washington, Jan. 6, 2021.

In fact, one of the organizers of Stop the Steal is far-right activist and conspiracy theorist Ali Alexander, who identifies as Arab and Black. Blacks for Trump signs were spotted in the crowd and some Black and Latino participants are now wanted by the FBI for their alleged involvement in the siege.

In order to understand Trumps support, we must think in terms of multiracial whiteness, Beltrn writes in a Washington Post op-ed: Multiracial whiteness reflects an understanding of whiteness as a political color and not simply a racial identity a discriminatory worldview in which feelings of freedom and belonging are produced through the persecution and dehumanization of others.

The motivations of the mob

After weeks of hearing false claims from Trump and his allies that the election was stolen, thousands of the former president's most loyal followers disrupted the certification of the 2020 election results by breaching the U.S. Capitol and clashing with law enforcement in a violent siege that resulted in the death of five people.

Supporters listen as US President Donald Trump speaks on The Ellipse outside of the White House, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington, D.C.

This insistence -- and not just Trumps, but other elected officials insistence on that narrative of disinformation and that false conspiracy about the election has played a huge role in mobilizing these people, Miller-Idriss said.

In fact, chants shouted by rioters and signs spotted in the crowd closely mirrored Trumps own words.

For instance, the rally was named Stop the Steal, a phrase the Trump appeared to revel in and tweeted repeatedly before his account was suspended; shortly after Trump urged supporters to march to the Capitol and fight like hell, rioters shouted fight for Trump as they violently breached law enforcement to enter the building; signs reading take back our country and Trump won the legal vote were spotted among rioters, reflecting language Trump has been using for weeks on Twitter as he repeated his false claims that the election was stolen from him.

Member of a pro-Trump mob exit the Capitol Building after teargas is dispersed inside, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington, D.C.

And finally, after Trump continued to falsely claim that Vice President Mike Pence could refuse to ratify President Joe Biden's 2020 win -- but had declined to do so, chants of Hang Mike Pence were heard among rioters and images casting Pence as a traitor were scattered among the crowd.

(Trump) was continuing to propagate and circulate and disseminate this information about the election in ways that posed an existential threat to them and made them feel that their democracy has been stolen, Miller-Idriss said.

"People move from radicalization into mobilization, to really believing that they are not only empowered to act, but compelled to do so.

People shelter in the House gallery as protesters try to break into the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington.

The leader of the mob

According to Rosenthal, far-right groups that subscribe to white nationalist ideologies have always existed in the United States and since the second era of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s and 30s they have generally existed on the fringes of society, but Trump gave them a place in national politics.

Trump supporters gather outside the U.S. Capitol, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington.

Suddenly, in 2015 at the level of presidential politics, somebody is talking their language, he added, pointing to Trump's anti-immigrant and racially charged rhetoric.

During his presidency, Trump frequently failed to condemn white supremacists and far-right groups espousing hateful and disproven conspiracy theories. He also often galvanized their causes.

The Stop the Steal movement energized some of the same elements of the far-right movement in the U.S. that shaped the August 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville when hundreds of so-called alt-right groups took to the streets to violently protest the removal of Confederate monuments.

The Unite the Right [movement] failed. It did not create such a unified militia and the groups that put it together started falling apart among themselves the alt-right kind of went into decline, but 2020 resurrected things, Rosenthal said.

This past year, anti-lockdown and anti-mask demonstrations amid the COVID-19 pandemic inflamed the anti-government right-wing militia groups, while the Black Lives Matter protests that erupted over the summer following the police killing of George Floyd activated the white nationalist side of the far-right movement, Rosenthal added.

Supporters of President Donald Trump gather in the rain for a rally at Freedom Plaza, Jan. 5, 2021, in Washington, D.C., the day before a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol following a rally with Trump.

And Trump, who was outspoken on both issues, elevated these positions to the national stage, experts said.

As president, Trump repeatedly downplayed the pandemic, refused to implement a nationwide mask mandate, mostly refused to wear a mask himself and his administration frequently flouted federal safety guidelines meant to curb the crisis.

Meanwhile, during his 2020 campaign, Trump cast himself as the law and order candidate, slammed the Black Lives Matter movement, dismissed concerns surrounding systemic racism and police brutality and in a message to voters, he claimed that if he is not re-elected, crime and riots will overtake the suburbs.

President Donald Trump arrives to speak at a rally Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington D.C.

During his final weeks in office, the coalition of far-right groups again found a common cause around the baseless cause that the election had been stolen or rigged.

The white nationalist and anti-government currents compounded in "Stop the Steal," along with an important element of "fascist mobilizations," Rosenthal said: "A devotion to a singular leader who can command their attention.

ABC News' Alexander Mallin and John Santucci contributed to this report.

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Anatomy of the pro-Trump mob: How the former president's rhetoric galvanized a far-right coalition - ABC News

Like Emma, Oylers narrator teeters on the border between likable and loathsome and possesses enormous reserves of intellectual and libidinal energy in search of an outlet. Emma is handsome, clever and rich; Oylers narrator is also those things, albeit in somewhat lesser form. And perhaps most significantly, she too is fumbling, a little blindly, around the problem of her privilege, which she is aware of but not yet existentially troubled by.

In the wake of the election, she observes that for her cohort, the incoming administration would not affect them particularly sweepingly and that in fact, being a white woman living in Brooklyn began to feel, very briefly, less repugnant; the white women living in Brooklyn, in the end, were ultimately just annoying, point-missing and distracting, not the biggest problem.

A somewhat retrograde cynic, a toxic presence, the narrator armors herself in wit, continually hedging her position and thus her engagement with the political tumult around her. She hesitates to go to the Womens March not because I was ideologically opposed to the idea necessarily but because it seemed there would be a lot of pink, which in a feminist context signaled to me a lack of rigor. Later, she refers to her story as a typical searching bourgeois-white-person narrative.

But this cynicism blunts her ability to navigate the world, and her own emotions, with catastrophic results. Her friends tell her shes overcompensating for my despair with snark; I didnt have to be so clever all the time. What was the point of making jokes, she wonders, frustrated and teary. The narrator repeatedly gestures at the limitations of her irony, without necessarily being able to see beyond it.

That sense of entrapment of not knowing how to relate to the world is central to the novel. Oyler is such a funny writer that it can be easy to overlook the fact that the underlying tone of her book is extreme disquiet. Irony provides no protection from unease, but is itself a source of it. It becomes clear why the novel takes place in the days after the 2016 election. This period brought the rapid ascent of the alt-right, the proliferation of its language and symbols. Notably, that language was one of plausible deniability, hate expressed under the cover of irony.

At first glance, that particular form of toxic irony seems miles away from the lacerating humor and thrusting intellect of our narrator. But cynicism leaves her vulnerable to misapprehending the world and the people in it including her very online, conspiracy theorist boyfriend. The reader grasps much earlier than she does not only the final layer of Felixs betrayals, but also the grim possibility that she fell in love with Felix not despite his deceptions but because of them that there is an uncomfortable alliance between her lazy nihilism and his reactionary online persona.

How do we relate to irony and cynicism in this new age of the alt-right? Stylish, despairing and very funny, Fake Accounts doesnt necessarily provide an answer to this question. But it adroitly maps the dwindling gap between the individual and the world. However much time the narrator spends alone, in her head and online, she is formed by what is happening outside. Eventually, the realization hits: The entire time, the call has been coming from inside the house.

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Fake Accounts Examines the Alluring Trap of Our Online Personas - The New York Times

Often I am reluctant to acknowledge myself as a former Baptist. No longer a Baptist (a long story), I am nevertheless proud of a basic Baptist tenet separation of church and state.

The First Amendment short but brilliant is, in fact, the foundation of freedom on which our beloved nation stands. It is a grand and bold statement. The First Amendment reads:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The Civil War of 1861-1865 was fought over states rights to secede, and eventually and inevitably over the issue of slavery. During that war, at Gettysburg, Penn., President Abraham Lincoln said, Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure.

Sadly, now we are engaged is a great civil and cultural war. It is an attack upon truth itself. The press is assailed as fake news, the findings of science are debunked (global warming), and the exercise of free speech is taken to allow sedition and insurrection as patriotic.

Most pernicious, to my mind, is the conflating of church and state by the religious alt-right, with undertones of white supremacy, racism, anti-LGBTQ, anti-Muslim, anti-Semitism and Christian nationalism. The civil or cultural war of today, in part, is being fought, alas, with sedition and insurrection, over our country being a Christian nation, which it is not now, nor ever was, nor ever should be.

The First Amendment guarantees that the USA is a nation that includes and welcomes peoples of all religious persuasions, and those of no persuasion. Our founders were primarily Enlightenment Deists with a profound faith in reason, upon which the Constitution was based. Thomas Jefferson is famous for the Jefferson Bible, cutting out portions of the Bible with which he disagreed.

We make a grave and grievous mistake conflating our nation with any particular religion to the exclusion of other faiths. The great experiment of our nation, as conceived, is embedded in the First Amendment. One nation, many diverse peoples. One nation, many faiths. It is a bold and grand experiment. Shall it endure?

Conflating nation and religion often results in a distortion of patriotism, which tends toward idolatry of nation. True patriotism is defined by love of ones country indeed, the willingness to fight, and if necessary, to die for the freedoms our country affords, including the freedom of religion, along with free speech, etc.

I love this country and the values and freedoms for which it stands. But I cannot admire nor condone those who strive to undermine the very foundation of freedom that must be afforded to every person. I pray this nation and the foundation on which it stands shall not only long endure, but thrive, with liberty and justice for all.

The Rev. Dr. Lloyd Parrill is a retired United Church of Christ minister. He served the Trinitarian Congregational Church, UCC, in Northfield for 35 years, from 1977 to 2012.

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Faith Matters: Our bold and grand experiment: Shall it endure? - The Recorder

As soon as President Joe Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 election, political pundits began speculating on what the post-Trump Republican Party would look like. Fresh on the political scene and the newest sweetheart of the Republican Party, Madison Cawthorn just might be a picture of what a future GOP might embody: a concerning picture.

Cawthorn was born and raised in western North Carolina and was sworn in this January as North Carolina District 11s representative at the U.S. House at only 25 years old. Cawthorns politics combine traditional social conservative values, youthful proximity to Gen Z, Trumpism and an utter lack of experience or education. Now, under a guise of charisma and youth, Cawthorn is bringing hard-right conservative values and dangerous rhetoric to Congress as a representative of North Carolina.

Despite many Republicans making a last-ditch effort to put distance between themselves and President Trump after a disastrous and deadly end to his term, Trump has left a lasting impact on the Republican Party (GOP), especially their voters whom Cawthorn skillfully appeals to. Cawthorns Twitter presence, much like Trumps prior to being banned, is peppered with immaturity, including calling his Democratic opponent a simp and infamously tweeting Cry more, lib right after winning his House race.

Fearmongering and conspiracy theories also make appearances. In alignment with Trumps base, Cawthorn has actively promoted debunked allegations of election fraud, objected to the Electoral College votes on the House floor and contributed to the incitement of violence in the events of Jan. 6. Cawthorn also seems unconcerned about COVID-19, rarely mentioning the virus on social media except to ostensibly compare public health restrictions on businesses during the pandemic to oligarchical rule an absurd misuse of the term.

Like former President Trump, Cawthorn is also the focus of multiple sexual misconduct allegations and accusations of white supremacy. Various symbols of the alt-right have been discovered around him including the name of his real estate company, on a gun holster he owns, a flag flown at his home, a picture posted while visiting Hitler's vacation home prompting concern that he is an alt-right Trojan horse.

Perhaps due to his young age, Madison Cawthorn seems aware of the generational rift amongst Republicans. According to Pew Research Center, young Republicans are far more likely than their older counterparts to believe that climate change exists, acknowledge the unfair treatment of Black Americans and say that the government should do more to solve problems. While Cawthorn claims to take an active stance on issues like these that aren't traditionally Republican, the actions he proposes on his website concerning health care and the environment are essentially a doubling down on free-market approaches.

Status quo 2.0. Madison Cawthorn consistently speaks of a big tent New Republican Party that welcomes voters of any identity. Meanwhile, he and his conservative colleagues show absolutely no desire to protect voters of more marginalized identities. Cawthorn simply wants a rebranded Republican Party capable of capturing new voting blocs without any real shift in policy or ideology.

Although Rep. Madison Cawthorn may be an appealing political figure to conservative Gen Z voters who want a party rebrand that is in alignment with the policies that matter most to our generation the environment, health care, being seen as welcoming this rebrand is nothing more than a face-lift. While this slight shift in focus might make the Republican platform more palatable on the surface, figures like Cawthorn could ultimately represent a dangerous shift to the right. As support for a conservative agenda has lapsed amongst younger voters, it is not a surprise that the rising leaders will hail from farther right areas of the party. Meanwhile, Cawthorn claims to speak for the younger generation, but his ultra-conservatism simply doesn't align with the values of young North Carolinians.

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OPINION: Madison Cawthorn shows the troubling future of the GOP - N.C. State University Technician Online