Today's scary news had nothing to do with it being Halloween. It came out today that a letter was sent to one million citizens who are registered Democrats in the state of New York. I won't quote the whole thing, but the message was rather explicit: We know who you are, and while we can't determine for whom you voted [the letter actually said "for who"], it is a matter of public record if you voted; if it turns out that you didn't vote on November 4th, we're going to come after you and ask you why not.
I saw a report on this early this morning while on the old exercise bike. My mind wandered to asking myself what I would have done had I lived in New York and received that letter, and I didn't like the track the wandering mind took.
I don't know if the letter was illegal, or just unethical, but we have reams of Federal election law, and I thought that if I lived in New York and received it, I would at least report it to some investigative authority to put it in their hands. Then, for the first time in my life, I thought negatively of a Federal law enforcement capability. "Sure", I thought; "I would probably have turned it over to the FBI."
The FBI, boys and girls. The FBI of Eric Holder's Justice Department, which has been so frighteningly politicized that it critiques the performance of local policemen trying to arrest a convenience-store robber and sends representatives to the thief's funeral. It's the same Justice Department that is staying as far away from the IRS scandal as it possibly can, despite the fact that IRS officials appear to have conspired in such a way as to influence the 2012 election.
I imagine that if I supplied the letter to the FBI, some Special Agent would diligently begin to look into evidence of wrongdoing and illegality, dedicated men and women that they are. Shortly thereafter, some senior official would politely tap the agent on the shoulder and suggest that she spend her time on a different case.
OK, that's a strawman, and I usually hate strawmen. But the point of it all is that there are certain egregious offenses which we can no longer expect Federal law enforcement to investigate, if there is a chance of potential embarrassment to the president, the executive branch, or any Democrat or left-leaning organization. And that, friends, is scary.
All of a sudden I realized that Federal law enforcement was not 100% devoted to ethical pursuit of their mission, and that at some point I could be in the position of relying on them in vain. It occurred to me that for all my life I have been comforted by the knowledge that, along with the brave armed forces defending our shores, Federal law enforcement was here defending our rights. No longer, though, is that a given.
I really don't care about the letter itself; it's probably perfectly legal. It is what it made me realize that was frightening. And I thought, well, this is what they must feel like in dictatorships like North Korea, where there is no recourse for indignities because, well, the state is the one causing them. But this is America, where not only do we not expect indignities from the state, we expect the state will leap to the protection of its citizens from them.
Not with this FBI. A nice scary thought for this Halloween.
Copyright 2014 by Robert Sutton
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