Political Thuggery and the Abdication of the Moderates

The most important American political story of the last week
or so is the one about the Dinesh D’Souza case. I do hear there was some speech given by an eminent somebody, and an
outbreak of amazingly original and strategically astute thinking by moderate
Republicans on immigration policy, but I call ‘em the way I see ‘em.

In an essay that deserves more attention, Jim Lakely of the
Heartland Institute showed how the D’Souza case reveals a pattern of selective
enforcement, disproportionate response, and in a word, government persecution
of political opponents, and he laid out ten
other serious instances of such persecution.

Some might dismiss his piece, The Unceasing Political Thuggery of Obama’s Gangster Government, as another instance of conservative
red-meat punditry. It is that, sure, but
I would advice a closer look. For given
the nearly nine months after the IRS scandal, with no signs of serious
reckoning for any of the major players, with little indication of legacy media
(MSM) interest, and indeed with new (and open!) calls for tighter IRS control
of conservative groups, not simply from liberal activists and bloggers, but
from major leaders like Senator Schumer, the signs increasingly suggest his
headline might be correct.

RTWT, but here’s a key graph, one that the history buffs can
have fun with:

Never in the history
of this country have we seen such a broad and coordinated abuse of the
government’s power to threaten criminal prosecution and ruin the lives and
livelihoods of people the president and his party see as political “enemies.”
None of the victims above did anything that even smelled like a criminal act (except,
perhaps, D’Souza) before the state came crashing down with the inevitable and
purposeful result of ruining their lives. …putting those dissenters through
the government’s paces was the whole point. …As columnist Mark Steyn has often
noted, the process is the punishment.

Never? The Nixon
administration is the first obvious point of comparison, but those who really
know the history of our nation’s presidency and federal bureaucracy might be
able to point to other worse instances of such “broad and coordinated abuse”
for the sake of intimidating and demoralizing one’s critics.

But stop. Is that
really the sort of question we should be asking? So long as facts are forcing us to conclude
that our present administration has moved at least near or into the group of worst administrations for political thuggery in our
history, isn’t the real question about us? About why we are tolerating this?

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The most frightening and dismaying thing here is the ongoing
silence of the moderates, and the similar silence of the ethical liberals.

Some of that is due to media malpractice:the outlets they tune into simply do not
report items like this, or do so in way that makes them utterly ignorable.

Still, it is a sick-making sound.

For their silence is making the Democratic Party a party that
refuses to forthrightly criticize, discipline, and eventually disown its
members who call for or engage in this Chicago-style political intimidation,

or its members who are cavalier about violating the
Constitution’s most basic provisions,

or its members who regularly and unashamedly employ deception.

And yes, the current Democratic Party is one that has
disturbing pattern of appointing and tolerating persons who have little or no
moral compass.

Bob Filner and Anthony Weiner represent only one kind of such
rottenness, and not the worst kind, despite the astounding fact that the obviousness
of their amorality was tolerated by nearly all of the Democrat operatives around
them for as long as those cretins looked to remain power players.

What is worse is when such inability to detect and denounce a
proclivity for vice is accompanied by an inability to detect and denounce a
proclivity for viciousness towards others. And not just towards opponents. Here is Hugh Hewitt’s personal reflection (from around May 2013)
about certain patterns of federal bureaucracy staffing, for what it’s worth:

I have spent 23 years
representing clients before various federal agencies, and the vast majority of
federal officials I have dealt with have been just like those I worked with
during my time as a general counsel in two federal agencies, and as a staff
lawyer the White House Counsel’s office and DOJ –superb public servants of the
highest ethics and significant competence.

I continue that law
practice before an alphabet soup of agencies, as do my partners, but things
have changed, and they have changed at every level of the federal government.
Indifference combined with arrogance and sometimes pure spite used to be very,
very rare, but increasingly it seeps out of almost every agency, and the very
good employees struggle to undo the work of the worst.

By their appointees, and their appointees’ appointees, you
will know them.

This is not your grandfather’s, or even your father’s,
Democratic Party. I say it is one in an
ethical free-fall.

William Galston, in his magisterial 1991 work of democratic
theory, Liberal Purposes, said that one of the virtues specific to
liberalism must be patience-the ability
to accept, and work within the constraints on action imposed by social
diversity and constitutional institutions.  It’s sad to have to admit that the application of this to liberals in our day has simply become laughable. The lion’s share of Galston’s fellow liberals, and especially the ones in positions of power, openly reject
that. 

In the words of one young Democrat appointee (head of the Texas division of Enroll America) Christopher Tarango to a James O’Keefe undercover plant, authorizing him to do an illegal action:  Look, I like where your head’s at, you’re going by what we
call Rule No. 17, Rule No. 17 is — and I told you is — do whatever it
f***ing takes.  Details from the November reporting on this particular story (merely one of many hundreds of similar ones under Obama’s regime) here.

The foulest and most revealing word there is we.  

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Regardless of whether you accept the broad picture I am
sketching, it is an undeniable fact that the actions of the Democratic
Party’s government agents and appointees are sowing a dangerous sort of fear and suspicion throughout the nation. The increasing appearance of a systematic program of intimidating critics
is a serious problem, and is so regardless of whether conservative citizens are
becoming too alarmed or not by what perhaps conceivably could be more of a set
of unrelated or loosely-related instances than evidence of some master-plan.

How many more apparent persecutions are we before a serious
movement for a tax “strike,” done by means of millions of citizen vowing payment-slowdown,
gets underway?  That could cripple our
nation, and tempt Obama into draconian response. And with what arguments could responsible conservatives hold it
back? Without even being allowed to know, due to Democratic congressional obstruction, the facts about the initial IRS
scandal?

And yet, our moderates-so-called, who say they are oh-so
against the encouragement of “extremism,” and who absurdly locate it in things
like Arizona Republicans saying they are tired of John McCain, well… …they remain
silent.

And yet, those of our liberals who still assure us that,
yes, they are bound by what Jesus says about the Golden Rule, or by what Kant says about morals, or by what the grand frameworks of Deliberative Democracy or Political Liberalism call for, well…

…they also remain silent.

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That is why the example of Alan Dershowitz, who a few days ago said the prosecution of Dinesh D’Souza smelled to high heaven, is so
refreshing and edifying:

This is clearly a case
of selective prosecution for one of the most common things done during
elections…

Hey, maybe it isn’t “clearly” such a case. And of course, it does seem D’Souza is
guilty of the charges, although admittedly in the matter of an election where
the candidate he donated to had absolutely no chance. But Dershowitz knows that appearances matter,
and he knows where the real danger at present lies. D’Souza and his actions are unimportant,
compared to those of his persecutors.

Liberals, moderates, watch Mr. Dershowitz, and see how it’s
done.  Jonathan Turley also.  Keep America
out of dangerous waters on these kinds of issues, and for God’s sake, start speaking up!