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J’Accuse
There was a time in which I was absolutely convinced that every Ricochet member, like most Americans, signed on to the general formulation: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it!” (Crafted by Evelyn Beatrice Hall in her biography of Voltaire.) That is we hold the First Amendment and all of our fundamental rights to be sacrosanct to all Americans. To do otherwise is to deny the concept of citizen self-government at the foundation of our Republic. I believed this to be fundamental to everyone parting with the proverbial Starbucks cup of coffee to join Ricochet.
It is becoming more evident daily that the fundamental civil rights of one Donald J. Trump have been seriously abridged. And those rights have been abridged by instruments of government under the direction and control of Barack Obama initially and thereafter by rogue elements of our current Administration with the aid and support of those seeking partisan advantage in the Congress. They call themselves #theResistance, but they are in support of a criminal conspiracy to deny one particular American — Donald J. Trump — his civil rights, and are uncaring or “extremely careless” about the civil rights of those who committed the crime of supporting his election.
There is no doubt that many in #theResistance are deluded into believing that this is a necessary means of saving the nation from a tyrant. If tyrant he be, Trump is a poor excuse for one — fostering the dissolution of power of the unelected, appointing judges who pledge fealty to our constitutional form of government, and reducing the burden of government on the productive citizens of our country.
But maybe he isn’t a tyrant. Maybe he is simply a crook. Ought not the instruments of government be applied to reveal his crimes? Was there not virtue in seeking to prevent a crook being elected? And, if elected, removed? By any means necessary?!
The Bernie Sanders brigade would say that the 2016 election was two criminal enterprises contending against one another. I grant that that is at least half true. Much has been established about the Clinton criminal enterprise, much less has been established about a Trump criminal enterprise. There is a species of criminal who seeks to benefit from the opportunities for graft inherent in politics. So it is a rare campaign indeed that has two concurrent phenomena: (1) a real chance at success, and (2) complete freedom from any person within a candidate’s sphere that might have a shady side.
Given the known knowns about the Clintons, how was the government called upon to save the nation from Trump? How were civil liberties so cavalierly abridged in the course of so doing? I grant that there may be a case in which a criminal enterprise is about to take over government, and that right-thinking Americans in law enforcement would be scrambling to figure out a way to thwart that enterprise. I understand that there may be some real thorny constitutional questions in that circumstance.
But there were no thorny constitutional questions in 2016. There was only conspiracy.
And conspiracy remains. Today it has several elements: (1) the malign actors in government who for ideological reasons and to ensure partisan success determined to abridge the civil rights of Trump, his associates and supporters, (2) the malign actors among their allies in other governments and the media, (3) the deluded masses manipulated by (1) and (2) into believing a narrative in order to maintain and hold political support against Trump and his agenda, and (4) the individuals who, in their political affiliation, should be acting as natural allies for a man who, but for his personality, deserves support of his civil rights.
Group (4) needs to ask themselves the question today: “Do I really believe in the constitution and the civil rights enumerated there? Do I really support the upholding of those rights for people I do not like personally?” If the answer is “yes” then three things need to happen:
- Anyone who is not a progressive needs to understand what is happening here and consider how their next action, word or deed, is going to promote constitutional government or empower the forces arrayed against it. Yes, George Will, I mean you.
- The Democrats have to be administered the greatest drubbing possible at the polls this November.
- The 116th Congress needs to holds Watergate-style televised hearings to fully explore the history of the 2016 campaign and the actions of government officials both during and subsequent to the campaign.
Trump may be an unworthy beneficiary of the Constitution. Then again, he may not be. But he was and is entitled to his civil rights. And so, too, are his supporters. The story that is beginning to emerge is the “Big Lie” — the lie that was designed to protect the malign actions of certain partisans while accusing someone else of doing that in which the accusers were engaged. The DOJ IG report is going to add fuel to a burn that is already under way.
And each of us needs to face whether we pass the test of true self-government — vouchsafing the rights of our fellow citizens by controlling the conduct of our government.
Published in General
Um, how, exactly?
Freedom from people calling you names, making fun of you, or lobbying against you isn’t a fundamental civil right.
His campaign shouldn’t have been wiretapped. That was a rights violation.
Beyond the wiretapping, I just don’t see it.
@misthiocracy, if you think that wiretapping was the extent of it, then I really can’t imagine what I could say that would persuade you.
I’ll go one further and say they’re out to deny rights to all Americans that speak or act against them or their beliefs. I saw yet again on Drudge another case of a black citizen being physically assaulted just for wearing a MAGA hat. The Hate Trump crowd (aided and abetted by conservative Never-Trumpers) has been emboldened to start a campaign of physical violence against anyone who even remotely supports Trump, thus continuing Saul Alinsky’s rule to isolate the target. The problem is, groups like Antifa and these random MAGA attackers don’t realize the opposite is happening-they are trying to isolate Trump by isolating a few citizens at a time, and that emboldens the rest of us to stand up and fight them even more.
What I fear is the fight may have to become violent on both sides, with the resulting chaos and carnage. If civil authorities (city, state, and Federal police forces) don’t step up protection for thye average citizen, order may have to be restored by the National Guard, and armed private citizens protecting their lives and property from these anarchists.
You don’t see other misbehaviors within the US law enforcement and intel communities relative to the presidential candidates in the 2016 campaigns?
Thanks for writing this, @rodin. Truly excellent summary and this needs to be pushed across the country.
Yep. Justice starts with me.
The bigger assault is against the rest of the citizenry, by seeking to subvert the constitutional order of government that has allowed us to live in peace with one another.
B-b-b-but….Trump.
These are great points, @rodin, although I’m not sure about the second. When we are motivated to tell people to just shut up, and wish we could do something to stop them, we do need to take responsibility to remember the constitution; we are all called to do so. We can try to ensure a strong turn-out for the Republicans, but I don’t know if the message will translate to a support of free speech. And I would love the hearings: the public deserves to know.
@susanquinn, is your point that simply winning big at the polls will not cause progressives to pay fealty to the constitution and free speech?
Gee whiz, I guess I did say that! ;-)
Oh, come on. Give me a break. Trump as victim is incredible to me.
A kid in my high school was fond of misquoting Votaire: “Death to what you say, and I disagree with your right to say it.”
He was kidding (I think). Many if today’s “progressives” have the above viewpoint, and they’re not kidding at all.
The attack is not just on the the rights of Donald Trump…he’s a big boy, and relatively able to defend himself…but on the rights of millions of Americans who have far less in the way of self-defense resources.
There is increasing denial of the whole concept of free speech, and it’s been build for a long time To take on specific example, this is from the blogger Neoneocon, about an experience she had when pursuing a Masters degree at an American university:
I discovered it when the young women in an undergraduate class I was required to take for my Master’s—a class which, being in the social sciences, consisted almost entirely of women—were virtually all in favor of a definition of actionable offensive speech that went something like this: “speech that offends any person in the subjective sense, rather than speech that is in fact objectively offensive.” In vain I stood up in front of the 100-or-so students, most of them around twenty years younger than I, to ask what the limits of this might be, to suggest that it was wrong to allow the most sensitive among us to dictate what was unacceptable, and to speak up for free speech in general. I was met with uncomprehending stares and impatient dismissal, a fossil in my own time.
I realized that something was terribly, terribly wrong. Not one person appeared to agree with me, or if they did they weren’t saying so publicly or privately.
This was in the early 1990s. Since then, the anti-free-speech attitudes which have been largely incubated in academia have metasticized into the broader society.
How about “Trump as the target of lawless actions undertaken by people at the highest levels in the domestic and foreign intelligence agencies of the US and the Departments (at least) of State and Justice while evading Congressional oversight. This involved foreign nationals and was intended to interfere in an American election.”
There. No “Trump as victim.”
Up to my including State and Justice, it’s pretty much a paraphrase of McCarthy. And others.
The United States, and her laws, and the rights and liberties of her citizens as victim… unless maybe this lawlessness is justified because better the Clintons in charge than Trump?
Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?
Maybe if he acted under the influence of alcohol and then was sorry about it, would that change your mind?
@garyrobbins, I will follow the Thumper Rule.
Great Post, Rodin.
Locke on: “The bigger assault is against the rest of the citizenry, by seeking to subvert the constitutional order of government that has allowed us to live in peace with one another.”
Exactly right. For those of you foolish enough to think this illegal conspiracy to somehow impeach Trump and deny him his rights was just about Trump, you are seriously deluded. If this conspiracy does succeed (and after today’s IG report that success is distinctly in doubt) these same tactics will not only be used time and again they will also be amplified up the next time. Big time.
I may have been very harsh of those supporters of the Special Counsel up till now , but as Locke On says this investigation is fundamentally an assault against our constitutional order, and one that is trying to set a very tyrannical precedent granting “unfettered powers” to a political witch hunt. This would not be the end of just Trump but the beginning of a dark age of prosecutorial tyranny and malice. Already this Special Counsel assault on the constitution has left considerable collateral among the innocent. If those who concocted this evil
Special Counsel mess are not slapped down very hard, we will see these tactics used again and a great many more innocent people will be wrongfully injured – again. Several of our government institutions have seriously jumped their constitutional moorings and are now out there seriously abusing their constitutional jurisdiction and granted powers. A serious rethinking needs to take place regarding the powers and the necessity of the the FBI and the CIA as well as a serious housecleaning of the DOJ.
Agreed. We are becoming Byzantine. Soon they’ll be cutting off noses too.
You are a pretty strong law and order guy from our other post string, so in light of that I would ask if you would be forgiving of Trump if he was found guilty of bribery. How about perjury? How about abuse of power?
Some nuggets from Andy McCarthy at National Review in ” Spinning a Crossfire Hurricane, The Times on the FBI’s Trump’s Investigation”
“The quick take on the 4,100-word opus is that the Gray Lady “buried the lede.” Fair enough: You have to dig pretty deep to find that the FBI ran “at least one government informant” against the Trump campaign — and to note that the Times learned this because “current and former officials” leaked to reporters the same classified information about which, just days ago, the Justice Department shrieked “Extortion!” when Congress asked about it.
But that’s not even the most important of the buried ledes. What the Times story makes explicit, with studious understatement, is that the Obama administration used its counterintelligence powers to investigate the opposition party’s presidential campaign.”
“That is, there was no criminal predicate to justify an investigation of any Trump-campaign official. So, the FBI did not open a criminal investigation. Instead, the bureau opened a counterintelligence investigation and hoped that evidence of crimes committed by Trump officials would emerge. But it is an abuse of power to use counterintelligence powers, including spying and electronic surveillance, to conduct what is actually a criminal investigation.”
“The Clinton case was a criminal investigation that was predicated on a mountain of incriminating evidence. Mrs. Clinton does have one legitimate beef against the FBI: Then-director James Comey went public with some (but by no means all) of the proof against her. It is not proper for law-enforcement officials to publicize evidence from a criminal investigation unless formal charges are brought.
In the scheme of things, though, this was a minor infraction. The scandal here is that Mrs. Clinton was not charged. She likes to blame Comey for her defeat; but she had a chance to win only because the Obama Justice Department and the FBI tanked the case against her — in exactly the manner President Obama encouraged them to do in public commentary.”
“By contast, the Trump case is a counterintelligence investigation. Unlike criminal cases, counterintelligence matters are classified. If agents had made public disclosures about them, they would have been committing crimes and violating solemn agreements with foreign intelligence services — agreements without which those services would not share information that U.S. national-security officials need in order to protect our country.”
“The scandal is that the FBI, lacking the incriminating evidence needed to justify opening a criminal investigation of the Trump campaign, decided to open a counterintelligence investigation. With the blessing of the Obama White House, they took the powers that enable our government to spy on foreign adversaries and used them to spy on Americans — Americans who just happened to be their political adversaries.”
A pretty definitive accusation of gross and unlawful conduct from our government.
Well, let’s wait and see if he gets convicted. Imagining crimes is easy. I prefer to wait for evidence before impeaching and convicting.
I’d just like to say that this is an outstanding post. I just copied the entire post and comments into a Word document so that I can read and absorb the knowledge put forward at my leisure. Worth the price of the monthly membership.
Prove me wrong. Cite some more examples of acts by US law enforcement which have violated Donald Trump’s constitutional rights.
My question went beyond the issue of an individual’s civil rights so you avoided answering.
So, @misthiocracy, your ideal of law enforcement is Minority Report? Apparently the FBI used it to model their investigatory plan. But even they decided that they had to salt the campaign with some evidence to discover. Those “discoveries” would then justify further intrusive investigation and expansion, which turned up…nothing related to Russian collusion that they had not already salted. But by using their media allies to spread the salted evidence did evoke a constitutional crisis. (Of course, for many, they could have moved directly to an arrest without bothering to do more than intuit a criminal intent in the minds of their opponents. Well, they would say “criminal intent” but that would be a fig leaf to cover the only real sin which was competing for power against the “legitimate” rulers of our nation.)
My point was only about an individual’s civil rights, but good luck with the strawmanning.
So, just clarify for my little brain, which of his constitutional/civil rights were violated by law enforcement acting like dickheads?
No strawmanning, just broadening the extent of wrongdoing. Is there a reason I shouldn’t do that?
I’ve seen many people on the left brush off phrases like “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it!”, “Give me liberty or give me death!”, “Come and take it!”, and “You can take them from my cold dead hands.”
I think they project their own lack of resolve and cowardice on everyone else. So they consider those statements as obvious bluffs meant to show how tough you are. In other words they think of it as a kind of right virtue signaling — something ridiculous you have to say in order to signal how virtuous you are to your politically right clique. To be fair, I’m starting to get the feeling that they are correct about that for the faction of the right that the left has the most contact and experience with.