DHS is Preparing to Monitor Travel of Americans They Alone Define as ‘Domestic Extremists’

posted by Sundance at Conservative Treehouse

This is something CTH has discussed since the early aftermath of the 2020 election.  The once whispered approach is now an open discussion.  As you read the linked Politico article remind yourself of the bigger picture.

While it might sound innocuous for the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security to monitor the travel habits & patterns of Americans they define as ‘domestic extremists’, we would be prudent to remind ourselves that political affiliation is just as easily defined as ‘extremism.’

DHS is considering not only tracking American people defined by the U.S. intelligence apparatus as ‘extremist’, they are also debating the manner and processes of intercepting, questioning and searching those individuals.

As we have seen from the factual example of the January 6th DC protest rally, if you attend an event labeled as ‘extremist’ by a 20-something ideologue with access inside the system, you may find yourself on a “no-fly” list.

Expand your thinking to what was initiated with the COVID model for “contact tracing” and you can quickly see how physical proximity to a rogue dissident, a person with wrong thoughts – aka a domestic extremist, can result in you being labeled along with that dissident…. and you are on the list.  Then overlay the efforts of Big Tech to assist the administrative state with an electronic trail of your habits, contacts, phone calls, text messages and internet patterns…. and you are on the list.

Remind yourself what FBI “contractors’ with access to the NSA database already did in their quest for political opposition research and surveillance.  Then overlay all of the above and you get an alarming picture that is not something to dispatch.  This is a very serious matter in a nation that prides itself on freedom and liberty.

WASHINGTON DC – The Department of Homeland Security is considering monitoring the travel of domestic extremists and expanding its use of the No Fly List, law enforcement sources told POLITICO.

The discussions are part of the Biden administration’s strategy of treating domestic terror as a national security threat, and not just a law enforcement problem. They’re also part of broader conversations in government about how to use tools developed for the Global War on Terror to combat domestic extremism. And, if past is prologue, the approach could prove politically contentious.

The department could begin analyzing the travel patterns of suspected domestic extremists, monitor flights they book on short notice and search their luggage for weapons, a senior law enforcement official told POLITICO. There have also been discussions about putting suspected domestic violent extremists — a category that includes white supremacists — on the FBI’s No Fly List, the official said. When suspected extremists travel internationally, officials may be more likely to question them before they pass through customs and to search their phones and laptops.

A second law enforcement official told POLITICO that conversations about monitoring domestic extremists’ travel have involved multiple federal agencies at the interagency level, including the FBI.

“Domestic violent extremism poses the most lethal, persistent terrorism-related threat to our homeland today,” a DHS spokesperson said in response to a request for comment. “DHS is committed to improving security and is reviewing options for enhancing screening and vetting protocols and travel pattern analyses, consistent with privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties.”

The FBI declined to comment. (read more)

When we see all of these shootings attached to the FBI’s previous knowledge of the suspect, we must be cautious about what we would ask for lest we suddenly realize there is a direct motive here for the FBI not to stop a domestic terrorist from carrying out their agenda.

Perhaps, just perhaps, the FBI is allowing these shooting incidents to take place in order to provide fuel for people to demand a solution…. that opens the door to the labeling of people as domestic threats as a proactive measure…. and that carries all of the ramifications outlined above.

…Oh, but the FBI would never do that right?… 

The FBI knew in advance the identity of Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa. And the Pulse Nightclub shooter. San Bernardino terrorists. Boston Marathon Bombers. Garland Texas shooters. Parkland High School shooter. Fort Hood shooter.

Never has one entity known so much and done so little.

— First Words (@unscriptedmike) March 23, 2021

Biden puts Harris in charge of border crisis

 

President Biden is putting Vice President Harris in charge of addressing the migrant surge at the U.S.-Mexico border, senior administration officials announced on Wednesday.

Why it matters: Just as President Obama tasked Biden with fixing the U.S. economy after he assumed office in 2009, Biden is putting his own vice president in charge of a problem threatening to overshadow the new administration's successful launch.

• Harris will lead efforts with Mexico and the Northern Triangle (Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador) to manage the flow of unaccompanied children and migrant families arriving at the border in numbers not seen since a surge in 2019.

• "Starting today, the Northern Triangle nations and Mexico will know there was one senior official dedicated to this effort. To be very clear, this is an important task," a senior administration official told reporters during a conference call.

• It was held just an hour before a White House event with Biden, Harris, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra.

   

   

   

  The announcement and high-level meeting, coming the same day the White House arranged a trip for senior aides and members of Congress to South Texas, illustrated the breadth of the administration's efforts to get control of the problem.

• Republicans say Biden is to blame for refusing to reinstate a Trump-era policy to expel unaccompanied minors, as well as more accommodating language the president's own press secretary concedes is connected to the administration's humanitarian values.

What they're saying: "President Biden said during the transition, whatever the most urgent need, he would turn to the vice president," one of the three officials briefing reporters said, "and today he is turning to the vice president."

• The first goal will be stemming the flow of illegal migrants to the U.S.
• In a broader context, Harris also will work on establishing a strategic partnership with the Central American countries "based on respect and shared values," another official said.

 

• The work will be conducted with the understanding that "these countries are our friends and our neighbors. They are members of our shared community of the Americas and within the Western Hemisphere."

Details: One official said Harris spoke Wednesday morning with Ricardo Zúñiga, the State Department’s special envoy to the Northern Triangle.

• Zúñiga and other top border officials left earlier this week for Mexico and planned to go on to Guatemala with the goal of addressing local problems fueling the migration north.
• They include lax responses to the coronavirus pandemic, rampant crime, as well as the aftereffects of two hurricanes that blew through the region.
• The Biden administration has discussed increased aid to address some of these root concerns.

The bottom line: "The people of the Northern Triangle certainly deserve to experience freedom and opportunity, and be able to access protection within the Northern Triangle," one official told reporters.

 

 

• "They shouldn't have to come to the United States to seek that freedom and opportunity, and that's what she'll be working toward."
• Among the items to tackle are local corruption and ways to improve local economies.

https://www.axios.com/biden-harris-border-crisis-d749a52a-2de3-4cc4-aaca-6a7dbc9df25a.html 

 

 

 

Article by J.B. Shurk in The American Thinker

 

The Great Reset Is Just a MacGuffin for Total State Control

The United States has always presented a roadblock to the ambitions of globalist oligarchs through its one-two punch of a Constitution that clearly constrains the powers of government while empowering the people and an American culture that prides itself on representing the last, best hope for freedom on the planet.  So how do you "reset" America so that it becomes just another socialist country controlled by an elite few?  You undermine America's freedoms by undermining her foundations.  You go to war with the American people.

"White supremacy" is the socialists' "yellowcake uranium."  It's really that simple.  You can't start a war against society without an excuse, and you can't engage in perpetual war unless the excuse chosen is so vague and illusory that it can't possibly be vanquished.  This has always been a particular talent of power-hungry socialists.  They know how to engage their troops in endless battles by choosing inexhaustible targets: bourgeois materialism, carbon dioxide, hate, whiteness.  It's bloody (evil) genius!  "We're going to wage war against the middle class, natural air, bad thoughts, and skin color — that should keep everyone busy!"  

Imagine if George Bush had been half so clever before invading Iraq: "We're taking down Saddam's murderous regime because he refuses to believe in climate change.  On that subject, the science has long been settled, so Saddam and his climate denier sons must go."  Now, that's how you declare war in the Age of Idiocy!  If you blame hostilities on yellowcake uranium, you've actually got to find some yellowcake.  If you go to war in defense of the weather, by golly, nobody will stand in your way!

MacGuffining Our Way to Fascism:

Weather, white supremacy, who cares?  They're not important; what's important is how to train the many to obey the few — that's socialism in a nutshell!  Italian dictator Benito Mussolini succinctly defined fascism as "all within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state."  Famed director Alfred Hitchcock used the term "MacGuffin" to describe an object or device in a movie that serves merely as a trigger for the plot.  If you put both ideas together, you've got a pretty good handle on what socialism really is.  Socialism is a way for a small group of people (the oligarchical, blue-check, blue-blood, limousine-liberal, champagne-swilling, Davos-demagoguing, pampered elite) to rule over everyone else by keeping populations so riled up about absolute nonsense that they beg to be ruled over more completely.

Are America and the West really plagued by "hate speech" that must be punished and rooted out?  Or is it perhaps more likely that governments seek to control freedom of speech by using some amorphous and transmutable concept like a "hate" MacGuffin that they can demonize and pound like a piñata whenever frisky commoners start having ideas that threaten the status quo?

Is it really in the interest of national security for the FBI to hunt down and punish Trump-supporters who exercised their freedom of association to gather in support of voting rights on January 6?  Or is the FBI just using an "extremism" MacGuffin to demoralize and intimidate conservatives while continuing to turn a blind eye to the campaign of Marxist destruction caused by Antifa and BLM shock troops in cities across the country, including in D.C.?

Did the Chinese Virus really require economic shutdowns, house arrests, and suspension of Americans' constitutional rights, or were those extralegal constraints perhaps the fruits of a "health" MacGuffin that allowed our Swamp Caesars to rig the 2020 election against President Trump, pass trillions of dollars in legislative bribes to fill blue state coffers, and transform a representative republic into a permanent "state of emergency" dictatorship?  

Are we really facing an existential global warming crisis that will require wholesale replacement of the free market with Green New Deal controls dictated by the State, or are global elites using a "Great Reset" MacGuffin to cement their financial and political hegemony?

Cherchez le Banquier:

Pop quiz: How do you know when the "cause" is not really the "cause"?  

Answer: when the bankers are funding it.

If you want to control the global economy (and therefore manage every single person on the planet), you don't just make the pitch to eight billion people that the top one percent of the top one percent should hold the reins of power permanently.  (Down with billionaires!  Amirite?)  Heck, no — you tell them that the world is on the edge of complete environmental collapse (global cooling, warming, whatever...) unless governments take control of free market economies.  And how will they do so?  By seizing control of the production, distribution, and use of all hydrocarbon energies (AKA those dastardly "fossil fuels") around the globe.  

Now, if you grab a random "useful idiot" off the street, that person has probably been indoctrinated to believe (and intentionally kept docilely ignorant through public education not to know otherwise) that the oil, natural gas, and coal that keep civilization afloat today can be swapped for multicolored unicorns raining from the skies tomorrow, but for anyone with a brain and a whit of common sense, it is indisputable that every single widget sold, job created, and dollar made depends on hydrocarbon energy.  Absolutely everything bought and sold is, at its root, based on the use of energy, and hydrocarbon energy is the foundation of the entire global economy.  

So what sounds more likely: that the globe's wealthiest power brokers get together at swank resort towns after arriving on separate private jets several times a year to discuss small surface temperature fluctuations (that have almost everything to do with the sun's natural cycling) in order to save the planet from global warming?  Or that they gather together to discuss how to keep control of the global economy through global governance?  Regulating carbon dioxide has always just been the narrative; possessing and maintaining power is the goal.  If the world learned to run on cotton candy tomorrow, the day after, next the World Economic Forum would be telling us cotton candy must be controlled by a select few in order to save the world from an imminent fluffy pink extinction event heading our way.

The Great Reset Is a Great Opportunity for America's Enemies:

Unlike climate change fear-mongers' fractional temperature variations that may or may not come to fruition a century from now, however, when fractional banking, spiraling national debt, and the impending fiat currency meltdown combine to produce disaster, everyone on Earth will feel the impact.  For the first time in history, financial Armageddon is a real possibility — caused by central bankers' inability to stop printing money, national governments' inability to stop spending it, and market speculators' inability to stop taking advantage of both institutions' stupidity.  Some people call it the "everything bubble" because once it finally bursts, nothing will be spared.

So what do global establishment oligarchs who know that big trouble lies ahead do in preparation?  They work on sidestepping the mess they've created, use it to their advantage, and stay on top of what comes next.  They wrap themselves in socialism's politically correct trappings while seizing even more leverage and power.

You didn't really think every corporate behemoth just woke up one day and decided to embrace global warming and systemic racism as pet causes because those issues tug at the heartstrings of the über-wealthy, did you?  The "Great Reset" is just the global establishment's pre-emptive answer to the coming collapse it's set in motion.  And if the globalists pull it off just right, they can destroy what's left of Americans' freedoms in the process without ever firing a shot.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/03/the_great_reset_is_just_a_macguffin_for_total_state_control.html

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The Cultural Populist’s Agenda

 

 "Woke" people are sleepwalking their way through reality

Article by Emily Jashinsky in The Federalist

 

The Cultural Populist’s Agenda

Elites don't merely ignore the economic interests of the public, but are increasingly detached from their cultural interests as well.

 

Donald Trump’s entrance into politics scrambled both parties, accelerating a realignment of voters that continues to confound the Beltway nearly five years after he arrived on the scene. Patterns emerging from the vote in 2020 underscore these shifts, as Republicans made further inroads with minorities and the white working class, while Democrats pulled in extra support from the suburbs.

As a result, the parties are now responsive to new coalitions. Culture and economics are obviously intertwined, but populist policy is most often discussed in the context of the latter, of trade and immigration and monopolies and student loans. Those issues worsen cultural ones and vice versa, but we tend to talk about the economic ones much more.

Elites don’t merely ignore the economic interests of the public, but are increasingly detached from their cultural interests as well. This is especially true as the highly educated media and corporate class imports radical cultural leftism into ostensibly mainstream corridors of society at a rapid rate, leaving a bipartisan swath of people reeling. It’s no longer just the “bitter clingers” who find themselves alienated by elites.

It’s the Clinton-voting parents of track runners who are losing scholarships to biological men, but are terrified to say anything critical. It’s the single millennial living alone in a city, unable to make it through a Netflix film, let alone a book, without constantly being pulled back to social media.

It’s the people addicted to pornography, the people who can’t stand Trump but can’t stand the media either. The parents who catch their kids watching videos about “wet -ss p-ssy” on TikTok, but struggle to find cleaner spaces to which they can be steered. It’s the lonely, the unmarried, the faithless, the people who don’t know what to believe so they scroll the internet, looking for fleeting mood boosts from social media, pornography, datings apps, and charged politics.

It’s exceedingly easy to lose perspective on how quickly and dramatically technological advances are changing daily life. We’re running an experiment on human psychology in real time, and in a political and media environment that’s disproportionately responsive to wealthy interests, the policy discussion has yet to catch up. A December New Yorker cover illustrated this poignantly.

Already there are creative coalitions working in good faith on the left and right to address some of these issues. To be clear, not all of the proposed policy solutions are constitutional or effective fixes to all of these problems. It rarely helpful to increase the scope of the federal government’s influence into individual’s lives, and we shouldn’t lose sight of that in our desperation to solve these mounting problems.

But these problems demand our urgent attention as much as bad trade deals or guest worker programs. And because these issues are so immediate, in many cases, focusing on cultural wounds is not only a moral imperative, it’s also politically expedient. Gov. Kristi Noem, R-S.D., is learning that right now.

To the extent that populism seeks to buck the establishment and serve a coalition of voters whose interests are not represented by elites, the movement should strive to address cultural concerns voters are confronting. This is not an exhaustive list, but here are some places to start. Part of adapting to cultural changes is broadening the political aperture and folding issues long ignored by the political class into their ideological universe.

This is not a list of policy solutions, because we don’t yet have them. This is a call for policymakers to redirect their focuses and invent those solutions, whether they involve robust government action or the pursuit of cultural avenues to healing. Issues like obesity, pornography, and mental health affect our daily lives in very immediate ways and our political class should at least be responsive to them.

1. Cancel culture

Cancel culture is reviled outside of coastal newsrooms, board rooms, and writer’s rooms. Even the bespectacled cast of “Morning Joe” is over it.

I’m not sure there’s an opening for policy solutions here, but politicians can make firm and compelling arguments against the narrowing of our political discourse, helping to reset our cultural standards by refusing to accept the new ones. They can also raise the issue in negotiations with corporations like Amazon and demand answers when, for instance, Amazon removes books like Ryan Anderson’s, as Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., did.

Cancel culture and identity politics are used by elites to disempower the working class. “Canceled” members of local school boards or people hauled into a meeting with HR, for instance, can’t just head over to Substack and Patreon when they face personal and professional consequences for saying something heterodox. This chills the speech of people living paycheck-to-paycheck, rendering them less able to speak freely over the amplified voices of elites to help their children and communities.

2. Media Corruption

The media is the public’s primary window into politics and culture. It is failing them miserably. The left’s complete grip on the public’s access point to politics is drowning us in misinformation, from Russian collusion to the southern border to Trump’s phone calls to the pandemic. This is far beyond partisan bias. The media is now completely unreliable on every major story.

As a consequence, the public has nowhere to turn for accurate information. Take the example of masks. The government was wrong. The media was wrong. Who’s to believe what? Rather than restricting freedom of the press, we should relish this opportunity to disempower corrupt corporate outlets by spending time clearly combatting their corruption and by cooperating with and building the new media infrastructure.

3. Loneliness and Isolation

This is an issue with root causes spread across the cultural landscape, from marriage to the birth rate to civic engagement to Big Tech. People like Timothy P. Carney and Robert Putnam have chronicled the decline of civic engagement and the dangers of social isolation.

This is a widespread problem that is much worse in working-class communities than wealthy ones. We will almost certainly come to learn it was exacerbated by the pandemic in many areas of the country. As a sharp daily pain for so many Americans, it deserves basically double the attention from politicians, think tanks, journalists, artists, and the medical community.

4. Modern Sexual Behavior

Emerging evidence suggests we’ve underestimated the severity and the scope of porn-on-demand’s effect on men, women, and society at large. It’s not an abstract issue but a daily problem for millions of Americans.

Further, while modern sexual ethics is an enormously broad topic, it should be interpreted as aligning our ideological priorities so they direct us into fulfilling lives, rather than directing us into sexual pain and perpetual singledom and childlessness. (Read Mary Eberstadt.)

5. Big Tech and Health

Tech billionaires are profiting from inventions designed deliberately to cultivate addictions. We don’t yet fully understand the effect this wreaking on mental and sexual health, although the signs are not great, but they contribute to the worsening of our sedentary lifestyles, which is behind the obesity epidemic our corporate media does a terrible job covering.

Thanks to ostensible advancements in technology, we’re increasingly substituting virtual connections for in-person ones and constantly tethered to addictive dopamine machines. We’re increasingly sedentary in ways the human body was not built to tolerate. That has left us increasingly obese, which also leaves us increasingly unhealthy in myriad categories. Daily life has changed quickly in the last 100 years, but the last 15 have been head-spinning.

6. Gender Extremism

A Politico-Morning Consult poll showing exactly how dense the media-Hollywood bubble is on sex and gender unsettled some folks in the Beltway recently. This is a country that supports equality under the law, and the transgender movement’s efforts to undermine the legal and cultural definition of sex are undermining women’s equality. Most people don’t like that.

Girl’s sports are Exhibit A. Girls work tirelessly for years to cover absurd college costs by securing athletic scholarships. The ideology behind legislation like that Equality Act will put many of them at a disadvantage, especially given that it takes a small number of biological males statewide to place certain tournaments and qualifying events out of reach.

While media elites may believe it’s a worthy sacrifice in the name of sexual equality to pass laws and implement norms that force women in domestic violence shelters to sleep in facilities with biological males, the public will not.

https://thefederalist.com/2021/03/23/the-cultural-populists-agenda/ 

 

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JoeBama Calls For Assault Weapon Ban, Universal Background Checks, Ban on High Cap Mags

“Assault weapons” politically defined as any firearm that can kill people.  “High Capacity Magazines” defined as any weapon that can hold more than seven bullets. “Universal Background Checks” defined as a federal registry of who owns guns in the United States (you can imagine how that registry aligns with the newly proposed “domestic extremist” list).   Below are Biden’s transcribed remarks:

(White House) – JOE BIDEN: “I don’t need to wait another minute, let alone an hour, to take commonsense steps that will save the lives in the future and to urge my colleagues in the House and Senate to act.

We can ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines in this country once again. I got that done when I was a senator. It passed. It was law for the longest time, and it brought down these mass killings. We should do it again.

We can close the loopholes in our background check system, including the “Charleston loophole.” That’s one of the best tools we have right now to prevent gun violence. The Senate should immediately pass — let me say it again: The United States Senate — I hope some are listening — should immediately pass the two House-passed bills that close loopholes in the background check system.

These are bills that received votes of both Republicans and Democrats in the House. This is not and should not be a partisan issue; this is an American issue. It will save lives — American lives — and we have to act. We should also ban assault weapons in the process.” (link)

Every day we get a little bit closer…

EXPLORE THE IMAGE

Tucker is Right About the Military

 

Article by Shaun Rieley in The American Conservative

 

Tucker Carlson Is Right About the Military

The Fox News host apparently understands the purpose of a democracy's armed forces better than the Department of Defense.

Two weeks ago, Tucker Carlson poked a hornet’s nest by daring to challenge President Joe Biden’s comments regarding the current priorities of the U.S. military. 

I hesitate to wade into this debate, in part because I dislike using my status as a veteran of the Iraq war as a cudgel, and in part because the issue tends to raise emotions in a way that makes rational discourse difficult. But after watching Carlson be upbraided for his comments for over a week, including through official Pentagon channels, I am compelled to speak up in his defense. And because, apparently, only those who have served are permitted an opinion on this question (and others like it), I am forced to point out that I do have the requisite experience to be allowed a position.

Carlson’s comments, which criticized a policy prioritizing the development of “maternity flight suits” among other things, were widely labeled “sexist” and “misogynistic” and were said to have been “mocking pregnant service members.” Some were more blunt: Illinois’s Senator Tammy Duckworth tweeted “F—k Tucker Carlson.” 

Even more striking, however, was the fact that the Pentagon itself joined the chorus: Spokesman John Kirby called Carlson’s remarks “ridiculous,” and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin expressed “revulsion”—comments an official Department of Defense press release headline described as “smit[ing]” the cable news host.  

Leave aside the implication that a category of person traditionally considered off-limits for targeting in acts of war—pregnant women—will be put forth as front-line combat troops by an ostensibly civilized country. It is utterly shocking that the Department of Defense would target a private citizen for voicing an opinion, and then celebrate its attack using words that would ordinarily be reserved for enemies of the country. This portends a shift away from the care that the military has always taken to retain its nonpartisan, nonpolitical disposition vis à vis American citizens.

This traditional position had been carefully maintained for good reason. Standing militaries always sit uneasily, even paradoxically, within a liberal democracy: They are essentially authoritarian institutions, but they are established and maintained by liberal democratic governments charged with the task of defending political and individual liberty. While liberal democracies emphasize individual rights, inclusivity, and equality, military effectiveness requires exclusivity, group identity, and hierarchy. To reinforce the collective and hierarchical nature of military institutions, and to facilitate the formation of group identity, the armed forces make use of thick symbolism: uniforms, rank insignia, unit insignia, customs and courtesies, personal grooming standards, and the like. Meanwhile, liberal democracies tend toward a suspicion of tradition and the thick social symbolism it requires.

Until recently, this paradox went mostly unremarked in American society. While the liberal left of the 1960s viewed the military with suspicion, even revulsion, an earlier generation of progressives saw little tension in “making the world safe for democracy” through the use of military force. And in any case, the paradox seemed unresolvable. Liberal democracies, like all political communities, need effective—exclusive, cohesive, hierarchical—militaries to defend them against aggressors, regardless of the tension with the broader society. 

The primary political problem to be addressed in this was how to ensure that a standing military did not become dangerous to the liberties of those they were to protect, especially guarding against the threat of military coups and imposition of martial law. The question is of ancient pedigree: In the Republic, Plato discusses the difficulty of creating a warrior class that is effective at repelling enemies and yet is gentle toward friends and fellow citizens. And the question caused much debate during the framing of the American Constitution as well.

In Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville pointed out that the love of equality which defines democracies tends to render any inequality present in society unacceptable, particularly as conditions become more equal. As conditions have become more equal in American society, even inequalities previously thought of as natural, and therefore intractable, have become offensive to Americans who are insistent on leveling all distinctions.

Tocqueville also pointed out that, while the commercial disposition of democratic societies will generally render them less war-like, democratic armies will tend to become more desirous of war given that the equality of social conditions offers fewer opportunities to distinguish oneself.  The military service—and wartime service in particular—remains one of the few sources of genuine honor in democratic societies.

In recent years, the idea of military service as an obligation of citizens—and specifically male citizens—to contribute to the common defense has become obscured. Instead, it is increasingly seen as just another job that one might choose, or not. I suspect it is not coincidental that this mirrors the approach to the wars that the military has been asked to wage over the past two decades. There is no reason to ask the country at large to sacrifice for the war effort because the wars are optional: Primarily ideological rather than existential, they may be fought, or not. 

Warfighting has therefore fallen on a small percentage of the overall population. This has resulted in an growing divide between those who serve or have served and society at large. In many cases, this divide has become a kind of hero worship: Military service is revered precisely because it is the kind of thing that most people do not, and would not, choose to do.

Viewed this way, it follows that excluding anyone from any aspect of service—such as, for example, limiting combat arms roles to males—amounts to denying them the opportunity to earn distinction. Combine this with the rise of identity politics, and this denial of opportunity is seen to extend far beyond the individuals immediately effected; it impacts anyone who might happen to identify with them as well. 

This seems to be the rationale, for example, behind the Pentagon’s official press release responding to Carlson, which asserts that “the American military works best when it represents all the American people.” On this account, the military is, first and foremost, an egalitarian and representative body, rather than an exclusive and hierarchical one.

But we are entitled to ask: Is this true? Could viewing the military as a representative body, and members of the military as representatives of their respective identity group, make for a more effective service? The short answer is: No. An effective military is not identical with a representative one, and neither does the military exist to be a representative institution. In fact, the opposite is closer to the truth.

Carlson’s comments effectively highlight the tension between the social requirements of an effective military and the democratic social ideals of inclusion and equality. He was attacked for comments drawing attention back to the military’s purpose for existing: to defend the country and its citizens from existential threats. When this end is subverted in favor of ideological pursuits disconnected from the realities of warfare and statecraft, the military does risk becoming less effective, because priorities are being assigned based on a rationale other than the fighting and winning of wars.

As Tocqueville saw, the ideological drive toward absolute social equality always poses certain risks to liberty. Until recent times, the United States has thrived in part because its actual pragmatic practices have been better than simplistic egalitarian theory. Hierarchical institutions—including, most prominently, the military (but also religious and educational institutions as well)—were maintained and even praised as indispensable supports of a free society, despite their tension with egalitarianism. The Carlson incident reveals that this may no longer be the case.

At its most benign this trend may yield public policy that is inadvisable or even immoral, such as expecting that pregnant women will fight in our wars. But an ideologically partisan military poses a unique threat to a free society, in ways that ideological capture of other institutions (detrimental as it may be) does not. Not only does it potentially undermine its ability to defend the country from external dangers, but it also poses a direct threat to American citizens it views as ideological foes.

When it attempts to “smite” citizens for the mere act of questioning a matter of public policy, the Department of Defense moves into shockingly dangerous territory. The danger of democracies is that they may come to prefer equality in slavery to inequality in liberty.

 Shaun served as an enlisted infantryman in the Army National Guard for nine years, which included overseas tours in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

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Article by Larry O'Connor in Townhall

 

The Problem with Taxation Without Representation Is the Taxation Part

If you could trade your congressman and two senators for a tax-free lifestyle, would you? Seriously.

Imagine Washington, DC, as a tax-free haven. It would be like Hong Kong on the Potomac.

Democrats in Congress are engaging in the obscene Kabuki theatre of "debating" statehood for the constitutionally delineated federal district known as Washington, DC. 

In the House of Representatives on Monday, there was a lot of talk about slavery and equity and injustice and disenfranchisement, but not a whole lot about the constitution and the fact that the very body discussing DC statehood does not have the power through a simple majority to grant said statehood.

It's pretty clear in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17:

"[The Congress shall have Power] To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States."

At the time, the cozy little enclave off the Potomac had not yet been selected as said district. Many thought New York City would eventually be carved out for the ten square mile privilege of being taxed without representation. Others firmly believed it would be Philadelphia.

It wasn't until the Hamilton/Jefferson/Madison compromise dinner that moved the district to its eventual home in exchange for Hamilton's (and President Washington's) plan for an all-encompassing federal debt plan to alleviate state burdens acquired during the Revolutionary War, thus cementing the Treasury Department's entangled relationship with America's economy. (Confused? Go watch "Hamilton" on Disney Plus.)

Regardless of where the federal district would end up, the Constitution clearly spells out that Congress would have total legislative control over the seat of power for the US federal government. Unlike Congress's role in granting statehood for other territories of the United States, granting statehood to DC would require amending the Constitution. That's just how it is.

That didn't stop the overblown rhetoric we heard in the House Oversight Committee.

DC Mayor Muriel Bowser wrote a letter to her constituents Friday making a case for statehood. It's a perfect example of the non-constitutional arguments made by proponents:

"For 220 years, the injustice of taxation without representation has lived on in Washington, D.C. But now our nation has the opportunity, and a clear path forward, to finally right this wrong."

"We know: the time for DC statehood is now. The time to end the disenfranchisement of more than 700,000 taxpaying Americans is now."

"Right this wrong. The injustice of taxation without representation. End the disenfranchisement."

Are we to believe that the Founders, who just won a war against the dominant world super-power over the cause of taxation without representation, were then determined to implement that same injustice against their fellow citizens? Balderdash.

The entire argument documented in the writings of Madison, Hamilton and Jay had to do with the undue influence this one powerful state would have over the federal government's decisions over distant states without the same proximity or influence. And this was before California and Oregon were contemplated, let alone Alaska or Hawaii.

Yesterday, Rep. Rashida Tlaib referred to the Constitution as an "authoritarian system" when making her case for DC statehood.

"Put simply, you oppose D.C. statehood; you support taxation without representation," she said. "You hear me? If you oppose D.C. statehood, then you support taxation without representation."

Put simply, Tlaib thinks George Washington favored "taxation without representation." Preposterous.

Here's what they're all missing: At the time of our founding, none of the brilliant men who formed this more perfect union were unaware that the residents of the 10-square-mile federal district would be without representation. However, at that time, the reach of the taxation power of the federal government was so limited and so minuscule none of them even considered this arrangement would be tantamount to "taxation without representation" because there wasn't really any taxation.

States controlled taxation, for the most part, and since DC was not a state, it would basically be a tax-free zone. And that is the real solution to this dilemma.

The problem with "taxation without representation" in DC is not the lack of representation; it's obscene taxation. And, unlike the constitutional hurdle Congress must cross to grant DC statehood, they could alleviate federal taxation for the district, and they should.

Several years ago, the idea was floated by staunch conservative Congressman Louie Gohmert (R-TX).

"After looking at the situation of U.S. territories such as Puerto Rico, Guam, or Samoa, I found that the residents there paid local taxes, but none paid federal income tax. It occurred to me after researching the situation still further that until, when or if the citizens of Washington, D.C. have a full voting representative, they should not have to pay any federal income tax," Gohmert said.

Yesterday, in her testimony, Mayor Bowser claimed the residents of Washington, DC, would prefer not to forego the privilege of paying upwards of half of their income to the federal government in exchange for not having a couple of senators. I'm not sure she's right. What about you?

If you knew you could live tax-free, but you wouldn't have representation in Congress, would you opt-in? Maybe it's time to find another 10-square-mile bastion of freedom in our country and grant them the honor of living tax-free without representation. Maybe we move the federal government and give DC back to Maryland, and everyone would be happy.

Who's ready? Let's end taxation without representation and keep our Constitution intact. Stop taxing the residents of Washington, DC, or move our federal government to a region whose residents wouldn't resent having the federal government there.

https://townhall.com/columnists/larryoconnor/2021/03/23/the-problem-with-taxation-without-representation-is-the-taxation-part-n2586724 

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