….pull a Putin.
Laws are for the little people. And Republicans.
[Tuesday-morning update]
I hadn’t read David French’s original story. These people should be prosecuted and jailed. Instapundit has more. Yes, Democrats should be asked at every opportunity if they support this sort of thing. Because many of them do. Force them to admit it, or lie and deny it. But make a big deal out of it either way.
And I agree with Kevin Williamson — this is a clear violation of the Klan Act of 1871.
This story is so shocking to me that I’m beginning to lose faith in the rule of law in this country. Apparently much of our political leadership beat me to it in this regard, or these illegal tactics would never have been tried, let alone practiced for years with impunity.
“Don’t call your lawyer.”
Those words, or anything like them, coming from a supposed officer of the law should be a clue to not just call a lawyer, but document everything you can and make certain it can’t be silenced. And yes, you have a legal right to record public officials entering your private residence or place or work. Anyone who argues otherwise is a tyrant.
And their order to “Don’t tell anyone” is a call to tell everyone. Go to the Press, go online, go stand on a soap box in the public square, and tell everyone exactly what happened. Prior restraint of speech has been ruled unconstitutional more than once.
It’s time to seriously modify the unlimited immunity that prosecutors and judges enjoy. They should be held criminally and financially liable for actions such as these.
The funny thing is that elected WI Democrats were openly coordinating with activist groups and yet no SWAT raids.
We almost saw this on the national level too. Lerner was trying to get the DOJ to bring people up on charges for not being Democrat.
From Smith to Hayek to Friedman to today liberal drones were told time and time and time again that the natural, guaranteed result of socialism, government control and their lefty agendas is Tyranny.
They refused to see it.
Now it’s happening.
I predict they still won’t learn.
They’ll never learn, as long as they get freebies.
They won’t learn until the force of the state is turned against them. They believe that will never happen. History suggests otherwise.
There need to be disbarments and prison sentences. Instead, there will be promotions and political appointments.
This, all of this, isn’t going to end well.
Notice our friends to the left are not defending this like they do when it comes to what the Obama administration did with the IRS, despite both being pretty horrendous abuses of authority. But notice that no one from the left is criticizing this either.
A cop shoots a man who just robbed a store and we get literal riots in the streets and years of attacking “white” spaces and other racist garbage but when Democrats engage in their historical behavior of persecution, they can’t be bothered to even type something on the internet.
The dehumanization Democrats inculcate in their followers has paid huge dividends in the party allowing their politicians and government workers to act this way because they don’t view the victims as human beings but rather as scapegoats for everything bad that ever happened in human history and especially the historical sins of the Democrat party.
Note that the arguments are not that the police have too much authority, but that the authority needs to reside at the federal level, and the rest of us should get used to the mantra of saying “Hands Up Don’t Shoot” when the government comes to jail us for running an “illegal” tobacco business or “walking down the street”. Police shouldn’t shoot you, but you should also comply with there orders such as not calling an attorney or media when they unlawfully raid your home.
All I think about is the erstwhile troll Admiral Gerrib snarking about people on this blog who use the phrase “at the point of a gun.” Well, this is a real-life, literal (Mr. Biden) example of “at the point of a gun.”
Indiana passed a law that protects people who shoot such “law enforcement” officials in self-defense. I think the federal government should pass one as well.
They did. It’s called the Second Amendment.
I’m not condoning the behaviour of those in Wisconsin who did this, and I’m not defending their actions, either. However, if one would like to understand why those targeted by this witch hunt never called their lawyers or went to the press, read a little bit of Wisconsin Code Chapter 968. Specifically, 968.26, “John Doe proceeding”, as annotated by Justia, or in its native form on Wisconsin’s website.
As mentioned in the article, the original intent of the law (which has been on the books and constantly challenged since 1970 or so) was likely to enable RICO-type investigations, and to provide secrecy when attempting to investigate and prosecute large-scale illegal enterprises. The whole issue of compelling targets to remain quiet is written right into Wisconsin Code.
When the choices are “don’t call a lawyer, don’t tell anyone about this” and “go to jail indefinitely for contempt of court” (and likely into a max-security wing with hardened criminals), I would imagine that those who are otherwise law-abiding and recently traumatized would still choose “don’t tell anyone” over “rip apart my family even more by getting tossed into a dark hole”. That such statutes even exist is a travesty in and of itself.
Then again, people in this country seem to be okay with The Patriot Act, Gitmo, and other black-site disappearances of “terrorists” and other prosecutorial targets, so in some respects, Wisconsin has just been leading the way for decades upon decades.