We are a nation of laws, or at least we used to be.
We have become a nation of subjects living at the mercy of the whims of
progressive politicians willing to use government agencies, their
positions and a complicit media to trample voter’s rights, silence
opposition and impose an agenda voters rejected and reject laws they
explicitly supported. If the law can be overruled or ignored by
politicians in this way, and government agencies can be weaponized, all
while being ignored by the self-appointed “free press,” liberty isn’t
just threatened, it’s dead.
The nation was shocked when it learned Obama administration used the
Internal Revenue Service to target and silence political opponents, and
the president swore at the time he would root out those responsible. But
within weeks, he stopped caring and labeled it as a “phony scandal,”
and the media fell in line and moved on. And this was just the tip of
the power-abuse iceberg.
We still have no idea who ordered the IRS to target political foes of
progressives – the trail ended when Lois Lerner read a 5-minute
statement to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, then
contemptibly and illegally took the Fifth rather than answer questions
from committee members. Imagine the howls in the press if a Republican
even tried to get away with that. Lerner not only got away with it, she
was given paid leave then allowed to retire with full benefits. And the
targeting not only continues, but progressives now seek to codify in
regulation the abuses they undertook so they can silence opposition in
the future.
It’s something out of a Hollywood movie…only Hollywood has become a
player in the fight. Well, not exactly a player, more like an unwilling
participant.
Hollywood conservatives, to the extent they exist, have a group called
Friends of Abe. It’s essentially a social club where people who
otherwise have to hide their personal opinions because they wouldn’t get
work get together and talk, sometimes with politicians as guests. I
first heard about the group from Andrew Breitbart, who was an integral
member. He expressed the importance not only of the anonymity of the
members, but of the existence of the group at the time. The group
eventually became known, but the membership, beyond a few, remained a
closely guarded secret. Enter the IRS.
FoA applied for tax-exempt status and soon found itself on the IRS hit
list. Not only does the IRS want financial records, it wants names. It’s
not illegal to join a conservative group (yet), not even in Hollywood,
but it can be career suicide. Moreover, it’s no one’s damn business who
joins a social club of like-minded political colleagues. But if you want
to ruin people, if you want to codify uniformity of thought and silence
people who dare step out of line, you need to identify them.
For all the talk of “McCarthyism” by progressives, they conveniently
ignore a few things about the late senator. First, he did root out
communists who had infiltrated government (the real sin for which they
won’t forgive him). And second, his right hand in the “witch hunt” was
none other than their hero, Robert F. Kennedy.
As progressives cheer the IRS’ embrace of deplorable tactics because
those tactics help major funders “purge” their ranks of impurity, the
federal level is not the only one on which they work against liberty.
The state of New York, under the leadership of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, is
seeking to “audit” the books of Project Veritas. PV, the group founded
by gonzo journalist James O’Keefe, exposes progressive hypocrisy and
illegality and provides a clear-as-day juxtaposition that exposes the
complicity of traditional media in shrouding the progressive agenda in
legitimacy. Another unforgivable sin.
New York has no reason to believe there is any problem with PV’s books.
It just wants to make sure … in the same way the Stasi used to just want
to make sure. And it’s not the financials New York cares about anyway.
It’s the names. If you want to target your enemies, it helps to know
their names.
The media silence on this abuse is drowned out only by the sound of its drooling at the prospect of investigating those names.
Fascism is alive and well in the Empire State.
But the assault on conservatives is only one front in the war on
liberty. After all, what’s the point of attacking your enemies if you
don’t have an agenda to advance?
President Obama’s “democracy by dictate” is widely known and celebrated
by the media, his “pen and phone” will make the history books. But his
ignoring and/or changing the law, even laws he supported, is not unique
to him. His example has and will serve as inspiration for other
progressive politicians.
One such example is Mark Herring, the new attorney general of Virginia.
Herring, a former state senator who voted in favor of a state
constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, announced this week that,
as Attorney General, he would not defend the law against a legal
challenge.
When Proposition 8, the gay marriage ban ballot initiative in California
cruised to easy victory, the attorney general there also refused to
defend a law overwhelmingly supported by voters. Citizen groups stepped
up to do the job the AG refused to do. The ban was overturned by a lower
court, and the Supreme Court ruled the plaintiffs did not have standing
because they were not the state government. So, by refusing to defend a
law directly approved by voters, the AG of California effectively
overturned the will of the people and replaced it with his own.
The same thing is happening in Virginia.
Because this is happening on gay marriage, many people won’t care. But
if the rule of law and the clear will of the people can be overturned on
the whims of a politician, either by action or lack thereof, there is
no law.
Progressives are the quickest to cry “democracy” when it suits their
needs, yet they routinely ignore public opinion when it’s against them.
And they’ve never been afraid to use the courts to get what they
couldn’t get what they wanted at the ballot box. But now, packing the
courts is not the sure thing they’re looking for, so they’ve gone a step
farther and gotten politicians sworn to uphold the law to go against
their oaths. We are close to transforming this nation from one of laws
to one of progressive whims.
There are bad laws and wrong laws and laws that don’t work. But the
beauty of our system is there is a way to change them – through our
representatives. And if our representatives don’t change or pass the
laws we want, we can vote in new ones. But the left is moving us toward a
new normal, one in which “We The People” are removed from the process.
Progressive politicians ignoring or rewriting laws at will moves us from
a system where government derives its power from the consent of the
governed to one where we exist on the whims of a few politicians.
You may not care now because the whims are in your favor. If you support
gay marriage in California or Virginia, you may be quite content with
your AG refusing to enforce them. If you support Colorado and Washington
flouting federal drug laws by legalizing marijuana and getting the OK
from Attorney General Eric Holder, you may be happy now. If you support
amnesty, you may support President Obama deciding to treat immigration
law as if the DREAM Act were passed by Congress and signed by him.
But whims change. Power passes to people you may not agree with or who
take it to an even greater extreme, and their abuses may not be so much
to your taste. What then? Where will you go for justice when you realize
a right you do care about is gone and its return is dependent upon the
whims of someone elected to protect it, only they aren’t interested in
giving it back?
Since