We Have to Decide Who We Are

For John, BLUF:  This is about the posibility of political opponents stabbing each other in the back.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Fighting the Extremism Fight

Here is the sub-headline:

What might happen if Republican senators were serious about confronting the Biden Administration’s political weaponization of the intelligence community?

From Amertican Greatness, by Commentator Angelo Codevilla, 27 June 2021.

Here is the lede plus one:

Suppose I had in my hands a draft of a bill that Senators Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) were preparing to prevent the Biden Administration from using federal agencies to encourage U.S. persons to inform anonymously on whomever of their families, acquaintances, fellow workers, etc. they suspect of becoming radicalized to violent extremism.  The staffers who provided the draft would probably report that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is pressing the senators to stop work on the bill and to deny they had ever started it.

The draft “dear colleague” letter by which the bill’s authors would seek co-sponsors would argue that encouraging people to attribute the undefined term “extremism” on activities, expressions, and even attitudes that no law prohibits makes it possible to hurt persons non-judicially whom the government and its partisans dislike or fear.  Thus, say the senators, the Biden Administration is grasping the power effectively to outlaw political opposition.  Using anonymous accusations among persons in ordinary contact is sure to politicize ordinary interpersonal difficulties, increase mutual suspicions, and inevitably will lead to bloody fights.  Destroying the lives of political opponents through anonymous accusations of shadowy crimes, which the media then hypes, is a standard tactic of totalitarian regimes. It has no place in America.

We have to decide who we are.  We need to avoid the kind of activity against our opponents that are a reflection of more dictatorial regimes.  On the other hand, the Fourth Estate needs to be a little more active in exposing undemocratic activities and exposing subversion of democracy by Governmental Intelligence Agencies.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff