The Concord, New Hampshire police department requested an armored vehicle to deal with "domestic terrorist" threats. Whom are these domestic terrorists? The libertarian 'Free Staters'! Any government intent on preserving its power will inevitably engage in a propaganda effort determined to label any group that opposes its ever expansive power as a threat; in the 21st century, this means slandering these groups as terrorists. It's especially ironic when the groups being labeled as potential terrorists are libertarians whose central axiom is the non-aggression principle which condemns the use of aggressive force!
The application reads:
The State of New Hampshire’s experience with terrorism slants primarily towards the domestic type. We are fortunate that our State has not been victimized from a mass casualty event from an international terrorism strike however on the domestic front, the threat is real and here. Groups such as the Sovereign Citizens, Free Staters and Occupy New Hampshire are active and present daily challenges. Outside of officially organized groups, several homegrown clusters that are anti-government and pose problems for law enforcement agencies.It is not even propaganda to state that New Hampshire's experience with terrorism has been of the domestic type, it is a downright lie. New Hampshire has never, and will likely never, experience a terrorist attack, so the thought that they have "experience" with domestic terrorism is a falsehood. They are one of fifteen states who has not convicted a single individualsince 9/11. They are also "one of 15 states and territories that the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. intelligence agencies assess as having no specific foreign or domestic terrorism threat...and is one of 18 states that have no metropolitan area that has been designated by the federal government as "high-threat, high-density" with regard to acts of terrorism."
I'm sure they've actively been engaging in surveillance of groups they believe to be terrorist threats, which in all seriousness they claim libertarian groups to be, but this in no way amounts to any "experience" with terrorism. If this amounts to experience, I can watch my neighbor cut his lawn and claim to have experience with terrorism too, since based on his clear history of violence (toward grass) I think he could be a potential terrorist.
This scheme isn't in any way original. Not too long ago, the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point published a report concluding that today's anti-federalist groups were potential terrorist groups. It is a typical fear-mongering tactic by which the government finds any excuse it can to protect its own neck (figuratively) and scare everyone into a police state. Governments act on the commonly-held democratic viewpoint that "we are the government." They rely on us to believe that a threat to the government is a threat to the citizenry; that these individuals are treasonous or are traitors (see Edward Snowden). In reality, there is a sharp disconnect between our own security and the security of government power which they will never acknowledge and are deathly afraid we will find out. This is why anytime someone advocates cutting spending anywhere, they malign these views as harmful and dangerous (see Christ Christie). This trend is most pronounced in military spending, but happens across the board.
Propaganda campaigns have always been determined to paint an antagonistic picture of those "outsiders" who either don't conform to the typical government ideal of a servile citizenry or are physically different. Whether it's Nazi propaganda through WWII of the Jewish "threat," American xenophobia, or racism, the campaigns rely on ignorance or just plain stupidity in order for the message to engross the masses. Don't be so naive and fall prey to these delusions.