The riots in Berkeley, I must say, have got me quite angered. I’m used to the ways of the left and how they behave, but something about last night just really set me off. This isn’t about Milo Yiannopoulos, as a person – though some weak Conservatives last night tried a bit of moral equivalency between him and the rioters – it is about the basic concept of a civil society.
The United States has always been a free speech citadel in the world – no matter how we might have restricted speech by this means or that in the past, it has been since the beginning that in the United States you are more free to speak your mind than in any other place. We have no blasphemy laws; we have no laws of Lèse-majesté. There is no sort of political speech which is banned. Outside of things like yelling fire in crowded theater or immediate incitement to violence, everyone can say what they like. Until just recently.
It has long been known that the left hates free speech. Oh, when they lack power, they’ll talk a good game about free speech (such as the so-called “Free Speech Movement” in the 1960’s), but the whole game is always to just make certain that leftwing speech is shouted from the rooftops and all non-left speech is suppressed. To the left, all non-left speech is actually evil – sirens songs spun by forces against “the people”. Meanwhile, all leftwing speech is inherently good. They don’t view suppressing non-left speech as bad – in fact, it is a positive good as it prevents people from making the mistake of not being leftist. But even without that mindset, non-left speech has to be suppressed because leftwing speech cannot stand up in a free and open debate. Once there’s an actual argument, the left loses. And the left doesn’t like to lose.
In Berkeley, we saw clear as a bell just what the left wants: the elimination of all non-left voices from the public square. And we have to let them know that we won’t be eliminated. I tweeted out last night that I figured a good start would be to withdraw federal funds from Berkeley. I’m glad that Trump had the same thought. Why in heck are we, the people being chased out of the public square, footing the bill for those chasing us? Oh, you can take it a different way – as Gavin Newsome did; in response to Trump, he whined that it was unfair to punish all of Berkeley for the actions of a few. But it’s not like Newsome was proposing to do something about those few. Oh, no – the fact of the matter is that people like Newsome like their bully-boys. They might officially deplore the violence, but they’ll never lift a finger to stop it. And as for the student body of Berkeley – where were you guys? If most of you are really against the violence, why weren’t you out there confronting the rioters? Heck with that – suppress free speech then at the very minimum, we take your taxpayer cash away.
There is talk now of FBI investigations and civil rights lawsuits – and I hope they go forward. It was, in my view, a direct violation of rights that the college and city of Berkeley essentially offered no protection to the rights of Americans who had merely gone to hear a talk. The authorities have an unlimited responsibility to ensure that the rights of all the people are protected – and this not only means the rights of people to go listen to speech, but the right of business owners not to have their establishments smashed to pieces.
Enough is enough – the left has gotten away with trashing this nation for too long. As a free speech absolutist, I want them to be able to continue to say whatever they want. But when what they do gets into lighting fires, smashing windows and beating people, then it’s time to take action.
UPDATE: A little harsh, perhaps, but I think V the K at Gay Patriot is on to something here – relating to a fashion designer making clothes inspired by rioting Social Justice Warriors:
So, whether you’re beating a Trump supporter unconscious with a metal pipe, or just spraying painting “STOP HATE” on a Mormon Church, you will look fabulous, darling. Oh, the romance of socialist revolution! Why be a plain vanilla college student who has led a quiet life of white privilege, when you can be a revolutionary like Che Guevara! Put on that distressed leather jacket, cover your face with a black bandana, and go out there and start a fire in a trash can! Smash some other people’s car windows! That will show those jocks from high school who never invited you to their parties and got to screw all the good-looking girls! You’re down with the struggle, baby! When you take your laundry home — including the pair of pants you crapped in when you thought you saw some riot police headed your way — make sure you tell Mom and Dad’s maid to follow the f–king care instructions TO THE LETTER! Can’t have your best bad-ass riot clothes ruined by that insolent wench.
These are mostly well-off kids – probably bored; many of them, perhaps, from distressed home lives…and here’s their chance to act like they are something. People who can’t accomplish real things often turn towards nihilistic destruction. Lenin was a lousy lawyer; Hitler was a failed artist – both of them were from well-off backgrounds and never wanted to sully their hands with actual work. Not saying all these kiddies are budding Hitlers and Lenins, but they are of the type.
Blogs For Victory 
Amazona and I have been discussing this off-blog. She has some marvelous ideas on how to combat these riots, some of which the Feds may already be employing.
Care to share?
I suspect she will, but it’s not my place. I came up with several half-baked, and to be honest, half joking ideas that patriot groups just monitor areas where riots are likely to occur, watch how the really violent guys get there and torch their transportation while they’re off rioting. Or — eventually, just start shooting them before they shoot us. Amazona came up with some really good, practical ideas, and I hope she does share.
I would say that, once Sessions gets confirmed as AG, I think you’ll see the Feds act more aggressively. As the comment from the Oath Keepers article that I posted in a previous thread indicates, I think they probably already know the identities of the ring leaders and are building files on them, constructing a trail back to the money and the real people and organizations behind them. I’m going to be surprised if we don’t see mass arrests including a lot of very prominent people within the next year. They may also be just giving these domestic terrorists enough rope to hang themselves, so they can get them (and those that fund them) for treason instead of just felony rioting. That process could dramatically speed up if the violence escalates from property damage and minor injuries, as it almost assuredly will if the present tactics don’t accomplish anything — and they won’t. Not based on any secret intel or anything, just my opinion as someone who used to work in the intelligence community.
JDGE1, keep in mind that I have an active imagination.
A few years ago my late husband and I saw a TV show about non-lethal means of capturing and restraining criminals. One of the things we thought looked effective—-and fun for law enforcement—was something similar to the Silly String kids like to play with, but this compound was shot out of large guns and hardened within seconds of contact, forming an unbreakable tangle around the body, arms, legs of whoever was the target.
It sounds like something out of a Batman movie, but you have to admit, the prospect of a gang of rioting thugs suddenly being tangled up together and unable to get free would make for some great video.
Another is a technique used out here in the West to capture large game for relocation. Nets have been used in several versions to drop over animals to tangle them up until they can be darted, sedated, and collared and/or relocated, and there is a tool called a “net gun” that shoots a net out where it deploys before dropping onto the target.
This is a video of the technique being used on people. I have no idea what is being said after the first minute or so, but that is all you need to see to get the idea. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCGej2uvquQ
Again, vivid imagination at work: I love the image of a dozen of so of these nets being fired from different directions over a mob of rioters. Even if only those at the edges of the mob are tangled up, they would impede the flight of others. Downward facing net guns could be mounted on drones to drop nets from above.
Another idea is to use the semi-permanent dye used in money packets in banks—the packets that explode in a couple of minutes after a bank robbery, containing dye that just won’t wash off. I like the idea of something like this, possibly mixed with some substance containing magnetic particles, so those in the mob can easily be identified, and even those who manage to remove or hide most of the color could be identified at airports or trains stations with scanners picking up the magnetic signal.
Or a fine mist of something invisible, mixed with a tracking substance, could be sprayed from drones. Businesses already use an invisible powder that shows up under black light to find people who take money from petty cash, etc. If we could identify ringleaders as they try to leave the city, it would have a chilling effect on their activities, as well as provide a way to track those who pay for the tickets.
So combine techniques. Use drones to spray skunk juice combined with the dye, to make it expensive for the funders, as they would have to replace clothes and masks, even shoes. Sometimes use invisible tracking methods, like the black light powder. I’ll bet it would be possible to create a scent that dogs can detect but people can’t, so rioters wouldn’t even know they had been tagged. Then use scent-trained dogs to pick up even tiny remnants of that scent at airports, etc. Make it harder to engage and fund agitators. When they think they have dealt with the problems of dye and scent with full body coverings, then employ nets and/or Silly String+.
I didn’t tell Spook about another non-lethal method that was on that show. Have you ever used foam insulation you spray out of a can? They had a foam similar to this, fired from cannons over pretty long distances, that firm up on contact, making a shell the guy can’t get out of.
Of course, none of this would do much good if we haven’t first changed the laws to make these kinds of activities serious crimes with serious penalties, and made those who fund them equally liable for both criminal and civil penalties. Identify a wealthy funder and hit him with criminal charges, and make it easy for everyone who suffered damages due to his crews to file massive lawsuits for damages, including punitive damages over and above the actual cost of the damage.
How about funneling rioters into predetermined streets which have been blocked off and set with giant glue traps, like those used for mice?
I did a little research on non-lethal crowd control, and in the process ran into some of the predictable Leftist whining about it—somebody might get hurt, these tactics COULD be used as torture, wahhh wahhh wahhhh. As if no one can be hurt by rioters.
But there is some interesting stuff. Almost everything I found was several years old. I don’t know if this means interest has waned, or if it just means people are keeping their mouths shut about what they are doing.
I found some interesting stuff: From “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Forensics, Edition 2” I found this:
One acoustic weapon system uses high-frequency “acoustic beams” to produce what experts describe as “blunt-object trauma like being hit by a baseball”.
Weapons experts are experimenting with sticky foam fired from a shoulder-hung dispenser. Strings of the foam expand on contact, stopping a person in his tracks. Another kind of weapon uses aqueous foam, a soapy substance that expands up to 500 times its original volume and prevents people from seeing, hearing or moving. Police are even considering polymer agents that act like super glue to immobilize a suspect.
…………………….
Low-energy lasers can be used to blind people temporarily; an infrared laser can heat the skin sufficiently to cause incapacitating pain but not an actual burn. A newly developed argon laser beam can be aimed at a window or windshield and will turn the glass opaque green, thereby preventing a sniper from seeing his target or a driver from speeding away. High energy pulsing strobe lights can be employed to disorient suspects, and optical hand grenades, like giant flash bulbs, can be used to create a flash that will blind a person for about 30 seconds.
But it’s not dated, and stuff from around 2009 indicates that some of these things have probably not been fully developed or put into use.
I like the sticky foam strategy, and we did use it in Somalia, but it has not been in use for two reasons: One is that if the foam covers a face the person could suffocate, and the other is that the foam doesn’t harden quickly enough to stop someone from moving. However, the videos show it creating a problem in moving, and the videos are of only one man being sprayed. I could imagine it being pretty effective if sprayed low, on legs and lower torsos, at people bunched up close together. After all, we don’t need to completely immobilize people, just slow them down and make it harder to get away till they are individually restrained and arrested. Put a tagging agent in the foam so foamed people can be detected by scanners or dogs even after they have cleaned up (and cleaning up is a real job, requiring lots of scrubbing and use of baby oil) and you have a pretty effective control mechanism.
This has some video of the foam being used https://www.howitworksdaily.com/experimental-crowd-control-riot-foam/
This list is for all sorts of things, but I like the ability to fire multiple tasers and the last thing on the list.
TOP TEN CRAZY NON LETHAL WEAPONS
Excellent post by Ben Crystal.
Spook, your link won’t open
(fixed)
Here’s what the Israelis use on rioters.
“Odortec”—what a great name.
I think one goal has to be to discourage the casual onlooker/participant from getting anywhere near these demonstrations. In a video I saw of the Berkeley riots, a young woman was being interviewed when a rioter charged in and sprayed her right in the face with pepper spray. I’m guessing she went to see what was going on, perhaps with a certain sympathy for part of the emotion but clearly not to riot. These people make it harder to deal with the hardcore rioters, get in the way, and become collateral damage which is played up to the hilt by the Complicit Agenda Media. Let a few hundred of them have to throw away their $150 Uggs and North Face hoodies because they stink and they might be so eager to get in the middle of these actions again. So I would spray, spray, spray, everyone in a large area, wherever there is a crowd gathering. It is not lethal or even harmful, just unpleasant.
Do it one time, then make it clear that the policy will be to spray any gathering of more than a few people within blocks of the riot. And BTW, I would not call any of these actions “protests”. We know what protests look like, and we know what riots look like. I would make it public that spraying will take place within blocks of the riots themselves, and more aggressive measures will be taken against those who engage in property damage, violence, or interference with traffic and/or commerce.
I would give a simple message: If you are there when trouble starts, get the hell out of there, fast and far, and stay away. If you are curious and want to see what is going on, be prepared to pay the price, probably just ruined clothes and burning eyes but no promises. If you participate, be ready for whatever may come your way, and if you are caught—-and you probably will be—-you will be arrested, held until you post bail unless you are identified as a repeat offender in which case there will be no bail, and will have to pay for legal defense, fines, and possibly spend time in jail or prison, as well as acquiring a criminal record.
That would free up the police to deal with the hardcore, the real rioters, and the paid agitators.
And BTW, I would cut federal funding to any school that hires people with certain kinds of criminal records or backgrounds. Lib University wants to strut its Angela Davis/Bill Ayers faculty? Depend on donations, because Uncle Sam ain’t gonna pay for it.
Oh, when people get arrested, they get put in orange jumpsuits and their clothes and electronics are confiscated, as evidence. And held till after trials are finished, and kept if the people are found guilty, as tools used to commit the crime. Nothing says pain like not having a cell phone.
And here is a statement from the one of the tolerant leftists:
“I’m outraged that Milo has been given a platform at UC Berkeley, and there should be no place for him here,” visiting assistant art professor Samara Haplerin told the Daily Californian. “He should be scared that people aren’t going to stand for this.”
So the leftists at Berkeley will “not stand” for speech they disagree with. That much is clear. And this statement comes from one of America’s preeminent university’s that once was lauded for their tolerance and free speech. How far they have fallen.
As free speech of a political nature is guaranteed by the 1st Amendment, the federal government should (1) withhold any and all federal funding from any organization which bans it or interferes with it in any way and (2) file violation of civil rights charges against those who interfere with political free speech.
There are already laws against threatening people (if a threat is considered serious and the person threatened feels that the person making the threat is capable of carrying it out, that constitutes assault) and we need DAs with the integrity to carry out their duties.
(Back to making oaths of office binding…..)
Somewhere down the road we need to address the foolish SCOTUS rulings that apply the 1st Amendment to “art”, foul language, etc.
Another gem from Matt Walsh:
It’s striking that so many people on the Left have limitless compassion for refugees and illegal immigrants yet none at all for babies. I wonder if they might suddenly discover at least an ounce of humanity for the unborn if we started describing them as “fetal refugees” or perhaps “immigrants from the uterus.”
The masks continue to come off.
Do we need another reason to withdraw from the UN and ask them to move their headquarters? Maybe to somewhere desperately in need of the economic stimulus this would provide, such as Ghana—see how many elites rush to live there.
This op-ed appeared in our local evening newspaper, on-line edition. I think he’s right on the money, although naive to think that much of anyone on the Left is interested in engaging in meaningful dialogue anytime soon. Still, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.
It is funny, in a not-really-funny-way, that so many objected to Trump because of his history of vulgarity, and then his opposition made “vulgar” its official description.
Well, vulgar and immature, as these will probably come to be referred to by historians as the Tantrum Years.
The Left has definitely taken crude and vulgar to a whole new level. I’m at the point where I say, just let the Left be the Left as long as they don’t kill anyone. No amount of money could buy Trump the kind of disdain and bad PR the Left is heaping on itself.
Spook, I agree. The Left has long worked under the philosophy of “Divide and Conquer” and has been focused on changing our perceptions of ourselves as Americans to divided and divisive demographics which they then set against each other. So we have hyphenated-Americans, class warfare, sexual deviations identified with an alphabet designation so the conglomerate can be set against the rest of America and push for more divisiveness, we have ethnic groups urged to self-identify by that ethnicity instead of as Americans with different backgrounds, we have a whole range of “isms”, all of which have been under the Leftist/Democrat umbrella, and all of which have been counted on to vote Democrat. And this strategy has been very successful.
But now that umbrella is covering actions, and people, so ugly and so repellent and so blatantly not just un-American but anti-American, I think it has started to drive people away from the Democrat Party. Not a lot yet, but some, and I think that number will grow. I think now some of the groups under that umbrella are looking at some of the other groups under it and thinking “eeeuuww! I don’t even want to be associated with them!” and edging toward its outer perimeter. They are still under the umbrella, still thinking of themselves as Democrats, because that is what they have been for so long it is ingrained into their self-perception. But as “Democrats” are increasingly showing themselves to be vile, vicious, vulgar thugs who beat up on people and try to silence anyone who doesn’t agree with them, not to mention the growing awareness of the absolutely stunning levels of corruption, that identity is going to be less and less attractive to decent, well-meaning people. And the Democrat Party has made the decision to side with the radicals instead of assuring the good people that this is really a nice party with good intentions.
The problem here is twofold. One is that the Right has been so successfully demonized by the Left it doesn’t seem like a safe or desirable landing spot after slipping out from under the Dem/Leftist umbrella, and one is that so far we have not offered an open door and warm welcome to them. For a movement that includes so many Christians, it tends to fall short when it comes to the idea of redemption.
The Left is playing chicken with Trump and by extension with America. They feel pretty confident in doing so, because every time they have tried it in the past the Right has blinked, has dived for the ditch and given them the road. They are so used to this, they are overconfident in their belief that if they just escalate enough, just get violent enough and weird enough and scary enough, we will cave in again. It’s true that we on the Right have tended to elect people who do this, while we at home have seethed and wondered what it is about DC that sucks the backbone right out of the people we send there. The Left has come to see the entire Right as those spineless politicians we have, so far, elected, so they think the same old tactics will keep working. As Leftists say when we point out that Leftist governance has never worked, the only problem with it has been that it didn’t go far enough. We are seeing that attitude now in their escalating violence and ugliness—-the only reason it hasn’t achieved what they want is that it hasn’t gone far enough. So they keep going farther, for some deluded reason believing this will win the day for them.
So we can and should cheer their hubris and lack of understanding of people who don’t share their personality disorders, watching them widening the divide between the insane and the merely misled, but at the same time we need to offer an appealing alternative to Dems who don’t want to be associated with the hatred and the thuggery.
I think the left’s actions, though, are uniting everyone non-left against them. Saw this Tweet from @Oil_Guns_Merica:
That is pretty much it – was talking to a friend today who only voted Trump to keep Hillary out…in other words, someone who would probably have been more than willing to listen to a reasonable anti-Trump argument and then vote against Trump in 2018 and 2020. Now, she seems to be drifting towards MAGA. She’s an immigrant – and is just astonished at the way the left is portraying immigration. It just doesn’t make any sense: not to anyone who thinks about it.
As I’ve said, as a Christian I have an unlimited obligation to welcome the stranger – and that is what I wish to do, and to have our nation do. But for crying out loud, welcoming the stranger doesn’t mean changing our ways to suit him; nor does it mean he gets to be on welfare; nor does it mean I can’t take some precautions against bad actors slipping into the stream of good strangers. The Left doesn’t realize they are turning everyone off. If the 2020 Democrat candidate doesn’t denounce the so-called #Resistance then I’m doubtful that candidate will crest above 40% of the vote…
“….just let the Left be the Left as long as they don’t kill anyone. …” but each other.
Kind of like the plot line on last night’s Blue Bloods.
….as a Christian I have an unlimited obligation to welcome the stranger – and that is what I wish to do, and to have our nation do….
As a Christian, yes, you do have that personal obligation. As for our nation, no. A famous pastor said, a few years ago, that the federal government is not supposed to have anything to do with virtue. Its duties are limited and specific, and acts of charity are not included. Those are up to the states, when the people vote for their states to do something, and the people.
This is where we get into the weeds, when we want our government to do everything. It wasn’t set up that way and it doesn’t work well when we try to make it work that way.
Still not convinced that the Obama regime has been acting as a tool of the International Left? Hand in hand, of course, with Soros.
http://dailysignal.com/2017/02/03/its-time-to-reel-in-the-obama-appointed-ambassador-who-meddled-in-macedonian-politics/
Doug Mainwaring writes an excellent piece in Public Discourse, touching on something I have thought for some time now, and which I have brought up in discussions with people who support abortion.
While I have my own belief system regarding God and sin, I have thought it not only important but easy to argue against abortion without any reference to God or religion. One of my arguments is that the subliminal message that children have no intrinsic value of their own, and that their value and their very humanity can be decided by a parent, has to have an effect on how children are seen after they are born and through their childhoods. If a child’s entire existence is wholly dependent on the current desire and intention at any moment, for any reason, of a parent for the first nine months of its life, doesn’t that send a message that a parent has the “right” to continue to decide the value of that child’s life? Maybe not on a conscious level, but the insidious message underlying abortion is that the life of a child has no inherent value but only the value and respect and dignity and very right to live felt by the controlling parent. There might be societal regulations protecting the child after it is born (though not always, as we saw in Chicago) but the underlying message is still there—“This child is only as valuable and deserving of life as I think it is”.
What could be more insidious, more damaging to a young psyche than to know that mom was open to the proposition of ending your existence, banishing you from her womb, limb by limb, and then going on without remorse, as if you’d never existed?
As Mainwaring says, “You are expendable. You are lucky to be here.”
The other argument I have made is that of the incredible burdens of guilt and responsibility and uncertainty placed on the children who did survive pregnancy, after having a sibling or siblings destroyed. We know that children don’t see things the way we do, so it is not unlikely that a child, after learning that he or she is the survivor and another has died, might feel something like “He died because he was not convenient, so my life depends on never making Mommy think I am getting in her way” which, while tragic, is still better than feeling guilty because he lived while another didn’t. Mainwaring touches on this as well as other ideas.
http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2017/02/18474/
For a parent to admit support for abortion to his or her child is a form of child abuse. The admission snuffs out any notion on the child’s part of unconditional love of the parent for the child. Personally, I wouldn’t know how to begin to tell my kid, “We aborted your older brother and younger sister, but we kept you.” How does that not erode a strong foundational sense of parental unconditional love?
……………………………………….
The message to all children, beginning in a special way with millennials, is “You are expendable. You are lucky to be here.” Our throwaway culture has diminished us all more than we know.
The Left called Bush “Hitler”, and the same comparison has been made to Trump since the day he announced his run for President. I ran across this post from a link at another site. It is, without a doubt, the best Hitler comparison I’ve ever read.
That is an excellent article. Of course, as it makes sense and is based on fact, history and reason it will never resonate with the Left.
Says it all:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CvaTb8vWYAAf62n.jpg:large
Another encouraging update that I missed from several days ago from the Oath Keepers after-action report that I posted last week.
Good – it is way past time that those who riot start learning that rioting is actually illegal.
It will help if we stop calling riots “protests”.
It’s hard to tell from the limited information available, but it kind of looks like some of the suckers who got drawn in by the pros are now willing to roll over on them. Good. Along with making it harder for the pros to travel from one potential riot site to another and costing their sponsors a lot of money, it will help to discourage their volunteer pool from getting involved.
We may have some thoroughly pissed-off mommies and daddies having to come up with attorney fees.
And to think I almost turned it off in the middle of the 3rd quarter. Helluva game!
Arguably the best game ever – though the Chargers/Dolphins playoff game in 1982 is comparable. Didn’t want the Patriots to win because they’ve dared to beat my Chargers in playoff games…but gotta hand it to the team, they are the best.
While the game had a lot of “firsts” and will be remembered in many ways, the commercials were the absolutely worst I’ve ever seen. Even my daughter said; “It feels like I lost 20 IQ points just watching them”. Also, there were several commercials that struck a chord as distinct “leftist agenda”. For example, one commercial showed some $30,000 + of debt typical recent college grads are faced with. They then pushed the idea that “we” should be doing more for our future generations. It seemed obvious to me that the “we” they referred to was government, aka – taxpayers. There were other commercials too and wondered if anyone else noted the very outward push of the lefts propaganda?
I didn’t watch the game, though it was on in the other room and it sounded pretty exciting. I was just in the middle of something. I did stop for a bite to eat, which happened during halftime, and I was happy to see no militant anti-American anti-police demonstrations in the name of “entertainment”.
What I did see was an Audi commercial that turned my stomach. I was watching it, thinking “WTH??” and then when it turned out to be for Audi I thought “I hope this costs them millions”.
As for what “we” should be doing for future generation is bringing them up to be thinking, responsible adults. If “we” are determined to continue rearing spoiled brats with an entitlement/victim mentality, focused on stretching their irresponsible childhoods out an extra few years by running up debt for silly, useless but emotionally gratifying college courses, then that is the “we” that should be responsible for the bill.
Maybe if “we” were turning out adults instead of infants wearing grownup clothes, “we” wouldn’t have the problems we have now.
BTW, “we” pay for those Leftist propaganda messages, because those people know that “we” will always watch the Super Bowl, or the awards shows, and thereby guarantee them a platform.
I am really glad that Congress is looking at reform of the Civil Service system. I’ve thought for a long time that this system is one thing that is sapping the energy and resources of this country. It’s gone from a system that not only allows but rewards unproductive “workers” to a support system for a fourth branch of government controlled by the Left and working outside Congressional oversight or approval to an insurgency within the government itself working against the president and his administration.
Recent scandals in the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Internal Revenue Service demonstrated that it’s almost impossible to fire federal employees, many of whom reportedly intend to go rogue by not implementing President Donald Trump’s agenda.
Conservatives are hopeful the time has come for civil service reform that would rein in this permanent class of government workers who have voiced outright hostility to the new administration. Some have even called it the “fourth branch of government” or “alt-government.”
“It’s hard to argue we have an accountable government when someone can’t be fired for years at a time,” @bgwilterdink says.
http://dailysignal.com/2017/02/05/rogue-federal-bureaucrats-threaten-trumps-agenda
It will be interesting to see what changes / actions take place to resolve this obvious defect. It appears that even with majorities in both houses, the Republicans are still sitting on their hands, deflecting forward movement, or even working against the President’s agenda in some cases. While I wouldn’t expect all of them to accept everything the President does or proposes, undermining or opposing many of the things Trump is doing, especially related things like this, should be a career limiting move.
…undermining or opposing many of the things Trump is doing, especially related things like this, should be a career limiting move.
Yes, it should—but that depends on voters having memories and backbones. If the national GOP will not support someone who tries to undermine the president, that might help get that person replaced. But it always comes down to the voter.
The first thing to do is make sure the recalcitrant “Republican” is fully aware of the consequences of acting like a Democrat. This would involve schooling the “Republican” on the meaning of the term, in ideological terms and then letting him or her know that his or her constituency demands a Republican that acts like one.
Of course, this could lead to the “Republican” just changing parties, creating a whole new mess.