Where is the outrage from right-leaning, patriotic Americans to the appearance of secret police? We should all be unified on this if anything.
By Shish KaBob Seger
Dear ‘Patriots’,
Federal agents in camouflage, without badges are snatching up American citizens and taking them to undisclosed locations. To hear this statement a mere 5 years ago would seem unthinkable. However, the very thing those who dub themselves as ‘patriots’ say they have been preparing to fight against is here. A nation that tolerates the circumvention of its laws and liberties can not claim to be free. Simply said, secret police are the most un-American shit ever.
Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) has recounted widespread reports that “federal law enforcement officers have been using unmarked vehicles to drive around downtown Portland and detain protesters since at least July 14. Personal accounts and multiple videos posted online show the officers driving up to people, detaining individuals with no explanation of why they are being arrested, and driving off.”
Though these federal forces are apprehending those who you differ with ideologically, a dangerous precedent is being set. There is no turning back once a nation allows an environment where its government has the power to indiscriminately apprehend people without explanation. If it helps motivate you to oppose this troubling development, President Obama signed into power the act which gives Trump authorization to deploy such tactics. Yes, you heard that correct. Barack HUSSEIN Obama. According to The Nation, “On the face of it, what these federal officers are doing is illegal and unconstitutional. It’s possible that they are acting under the 2011 National Defense Authorization Act, signed by Barack Obama, which legalized the detention of Americans suspected of being terrorists. If so, then the War on Terrorism has truly come home.”
What happens next, if this overreach is not reigned in, is predictable. Nations that can stomach secret police typically move on to conviction in absentia, kangaroo courts, and eventually extrajudicial execution. All of your sentiments regarding opposition to government overreach, individual sovereignty, and freedom from federal control should crystallize in this moment. Your dark fantasy of an unfettered government brutalizing its citizens is knocking on the door. What’s confusing is that a recent tweet by Oregon’s ‘fierce feminist’ Governor sounds like it was written by an Alabama militia member afraid of federal forces encroaching on his pig farm. “The President is failing to lead this nation. Now he is deploying federal officers to patrol the streets of Portland in a blatant abuse of power by the federal government. I told Acting Secretary Wolf that the federal government should remove all federal officers from our streets.“ Bemoaning the deployment of federal forces on an unwitting local population is your steez! Where you at Bubba?! Remember how afraid you were of Jade Helm? Well, this here is the real shit.
My compatriots, your worst fears have manifested themselves as supposed friends. Yet secret police are hallmarks of the repressive nations you claim to despise: Iran, Soviet Russia, Pol-pot’s Cambodia, East Germany, Castro’s Cuba, and Maoist/Modern/Future China(s). Secret police are a tell tale marker of an authoritarian regime. It is not compatible with a good ‘God-fearing-red-blooded-2nd-Amendment-cherishing-American lover of smoked brisket’ like yourself.
Now, you may be thinking “ well the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Well, not for long. You see, the people on the streets of Portland and other cities across this great country are fighting your fight. Though it may be hard for you to see past the fact that they are fighting on behalf of minorities, ultimately, they are fighting government overreach in the form of state violence. The same encroachment on civil liberties that you and your ilk catastrophize in your mind when someone mentions a gun law. Know this, If the federal government can snatch you off the streets for no cause and without them identifying yourself, they can surely take away your gun. I know you are no fan of the ACLU but they described secret police randomly scoping up American citizens in a rather clever way: “Usually when we see people in unmarked cars forcibly grab someone off the street we call it kidnapping—what is happening now in Portland should concern everyone in the US.”
What is important here is that we find our common ground despite being told we have fundamentally differing worldviews. We must work past the words that concede us and dial into the principles that unite us. As fellow Americans, you should fear a government that deploys forces in rented vans, without identification, that captures American citizens and brings them to secret locations. Too many men and women laid down their lives to live in freedom for us to now suddenly accommodate authoritarianism and repression because it suits your temporary political sentiments.
C’mon Bubba. Let’s come together on this one.
Show Comments
Barbara Mullin
Sounds like what happened to all those people who got sent to Guantanamo years ago and are still imprisoned. Some of them are taxi cab drivers or goat herders and were not even demonstrating.
Jeff
Just spitballin’ here but it would seem that the approach taken has failed to render a solution and maybe a different approach might end an easily observable cycle of insanity…Perhaps HS wouldn’t consider the “protestors” a threat to national security if they were to surrender their anarchic, violent, and destructive occupation of an American city…They obviously have the attention they wanted but have made no request or demand for a seat at the table which sends the signal that they really only want to riot, hurt people, destroy property and the livelihoods of those that those properties represent…
Kris
Reply to Jeff — one can feel that some of the protesters are over-the-top destructive and wrong and thus should be subject to some law enforcement, but still believe that “Federal agents in camouflage, without badges are snatching up American citizens and taking them to undisclosed locations” is a completely un-American, unacceptable, and non-Constitutional response.
To Shish KaBob Seger (author)
Re: Your Dear ‘Patriots’ greeting — Why the single quotation marks? Are you trying to imply that you are speaking to those are who not ‘really’ patriots? If so, do you want folks to buy in to your point, or not?
Zed
Spoken like a real dyed-in-the-wool baby fascist bootlicker
Clifford Cross
* Every Governor has the right to call out the National Guard to protect American citizens and have Barr’s Bastard Terrorist Troopers arrested regardless of what ‘federal’ agency sent them to harass and abduct peaceful protesters.!!
BARBARA PAZ
What a naive attitude. You have been living the good life. (and that’s great!) Is the problem that the police are unmarked? or that the suspects are not given their rights and then taken to unknown destinations?
It’s important that we have secret police. We need secret police to catch dangerous people, ie. local and international terrorists, crazy SOB’s who are aimed at killing, child kidnappers, etc. If a police with his shiny badge approaches any of these types of people, the results will be disasterous. So of course there is need for secret or undercover police. How naive to think otherwise.