During the 1920s, the emerging individualists and libertarians — the Menckens, the Nocks, the Villards, and their followers — were generally considered Men of the Left; like the Left generally, they bitterly opposed the emergence of Big Government in twentieth-century America, a government allied with Big Business in a network of special privilege, a government dictating the personal drinking habits of the citizenry and repressing civil liberties, a government that had enlisted as a junior partner to British imperialism to push around nations across the globe. The individualists were opposed to this burgeoning of State monopoly, opposed to imperialism and militarism and foreign wars, opposed to the Western-imposed Versailles Treaty and League of Nations, and they were generally allied with socialists and progressives in this opposition.
All this changed, and changed drastically, however, with the advent of the New Deal. For the individualists saw the New Deal quite clearly as merely the logical extension of Hooverism and World War I: as the imposition of a fascistic government upon the economy and society, with a Bigness far worse than Theodore Roosevelt (“Roosevelt I” in Mencken’s label) or Wilson or Hoover had ever been able to achieve. The New Deal, with its burgeoning corporate state, run by Big Business and Big Unions as its junior partner, allied with corporate liberal intellectuals and using welfarist rhetoric, was perceived by these libertarians as fascism come to America. And so their astonishment and bitterness were great when they discovered that their former, and supposedly knowledgeable, allies, the socialists and progressives, instead of joining in with this insight, had rushed to embrace and even deify the New Deal, and to form its vanguard of intellectual apologists. This embrace by the Left was rapidly made unanimous when the Communist Party and its allies joined the parade with the advent of the Popular Front in 1935. And the younger generation of intellectuals, many of whom had been followers of Mencken and Villard, cast aside their individualism to join the “working class” and to take their part as Brain Trusters and planners of the seemingly new Utopia taking shape in America. The spirit of technocratic dictation over the American citizen was best expressed in the famous poem of Rex Tugwell, whose words were to be engraved in horror on all “right-wing” hearts throughout the country:
I have gathered my tools and my charts,
My plans are finished and practical.
I shall roll up my sleeves — make America over.
Only the few laissez-faire liberals saw the direct filiation between Hoover’s cartelist program and the fascistic cartelization imposed by the New Deal’s NRA and AAA, and few realized that the origin of these programs was specifically such Big Business collectivist plans as the famous Swope Plan, spawned by Gerard Swope, head of General Electric in late 1931, and adopted by most big business groups in the following year. It was, in fact, when Hoover refused to go this far, denouncing the plan as “fascism” even though he had himself been tending in that direction for years, that Henry I. Harriman, head of the US Chamber of Commerce, warned Hoover that Big Business would throw its weight to Roosevelt, who had agreed to enact the plan, and indeed was to carry out his agreement. Swope himself, Harriman, and their powerful mentor, the financier Bernard M. Baruch, were indeed heavily involved both in drafting and administering the NRA and AAA.1
Here we have it. They are going after EVERYONE who has a gun or ammunition. They are deeply concerned about a revolution and they want to know every person who has a gun or ammunition. The object of this bill will be to identify every person who has a gun. They will be able to revoke a license and confiscate the gun under rules to be created by the Attorney General. Biden swore he would end the NRA. He was not joking. Like a diverse license, once they create this federal license, they effectively limit the Second Amendment claiming if you obey all their regulations which they can change at any time, then you have that right. But all such rights are eliminated whenever they say so.
922(dd)(1) It shall be unlawful for any person to possess ammunition that is 0.50 caliber or greater.
Whoever knowingly violates section 922(dd)(1) shall be fined not less than $50,000 and not more than $100,000, imprisoned not less than 10 years and not more than 20 years, or both
‘‘(B) Whoever knowingly violates section 922(dd)(2) shall be fined not less than $10,000 and not more than $25,000, imprisoned not less than 1 year and not more than 5 years, or both.’’
Although there are legitimate critiques about the efficacy of said sanctuary movements, gun owners are at least getting into the right mindset of using local action to effect change as opposed to waiting for the Executive Branch or the Supreme Court to save them. Moreover, some have rocked the boat even further by suggesting state lines be redrawn.
The State of New York has wasted no time reminding Americans about its pathological disregard for personal freedom.
Its covid-19 lockdown policies were among the most heavy-handed responses implemented by a state government in the country. Controversies surrounding the state government’s decision to place recovering covid patients in retirement homes, arguably a major factor behind the state’s deadly retirement home outbreak, were major black eyes for Governor Andrew Cuomo’s administration. The Empire State’s overreach hasn’t been confined to covid-19, though.
New York policymakers are taking crisis opportunism to another level by attempting to dissolve the National Rifle Association. Led by New York State attorney general Letitia James, the State of New York moved forward with a lawsuit last month in an attempt to gut the organization during a time when the NRA is mired in financial scandals. The New York suit alleges that the NRA has been involved in extensive cases of misallocation of funds and corruption, therefore requiring the state to dissolve America’s oldest and most powerful gun lobby.
How Bureaucrats Target Their Ideological Enemies
While state governments have the power to investigate organizations for potentially defrauding donors, the case the State of New York is pursuing against the NRA reeks of political grandstanding. The NRA is an easy target for the Left, which is ecstatic about any opportunity to demonize gun owners and institutions that encourage lawful use of firearms. In the case of New York attorney general James, her record of antigun crusading speaks for itself. While in her previous position as a public advocate for New York City, James attempted to force banks to break their ties with firearms manufacturers after the Pulse nightclub shooting in 2016. James is a politician with an ax to grind, and the current covid-19 lockdown hysteria gives her an opportunity to poke a “deplorable” group in the eye.
The NRA is no steadfast paladin of gun freedom, at least when compared tohard-line rivals or the manygrassroots organizations that don’t rely on big donor money to stay afloat. Be that as it may, its recent confrontation with New York’s state government should concern any organization advocating for even stronger firearm-related freedoms.
Previously, I wrote about the increasingly politicized nature of the political speech and activities that nonprofit organizations participate in. Historically, politicians have used the levers of tax power to harass political organizations that rub them the wrong way. It wasn’t too long ago that the Obama administration’s IRS made went after Tea Party organizations and excessively scrutinized their internal operations. While the IRS issued an apology for its behavior during the Obama years, the threat of government sticking its nose in the affairs of political organizations is still present at all levels. For now, activist state governments will be more than happy to make people’s lives miserable.
Gun owners face threats from all corners—from state and nonstate actors. To mitigate these threats, it would be wise for Second Amendment organizations to go where free speech and political organization are treated best. As riots across have vividly demonstrated, we cannot assume all jurisdictions will uphold their side of the proverbial “social contract” and protect basic liberties. Mises Institute president Jeff Deist candidly observed, “Selective prosecution and selective nonprosecution are terrifying features of the crappy US justice system. Any of us could have our lives ruined tomorrow by a political DA.”
Politicians are picking up on the divergent political paths states are taking. South Dakota governor Kristi Noem made a name for herself by refusing to enact a statewide lockdown. Similarly, Arkansas attorney general Leslie Rutledge came to the NRA’s defense by penning a piece for NBC News condemning her New York counterpart and demonstrating how her state offers more favorable conditions for gun owners and advocacy for the concept. After all, Arkansas is a constitutional carry state and is not going to go out of its way to persecute political organizations for wrongthink by using the excuses of campaign finance violations or trumped-up charges of misuse of funds.
The NRA’s current dilemma is emblematic of our political era—mass polarization and a widening gulf between the values of states dominated by major urban centers and those with more rural constituencies. Let’s face it: New York hasn’t been a gun-friendly jurisdiction in recent decades. From New York City’s assault weapons ban during the early 1990s to the passage of the SAFE Act in 2013, which established universal background checks and broadened the definition of so-called assault weapons, the State of New York has demonstrated a clear antipathy toward gun ownership. It is no surprise that it’s ranked dead last according to Guns and Ammo magazine’s annual rankings for gun friendliness.
The Benefits of Decentralization
America’s federalism still provides a fallback option for Americans living in states that are hostile to economic and cultural interests. If states become overzealous in their policymaking, people can vote with their feet by moving to states that are friendlier to personal and economic freedoms. We are already witnessing this trend in action, as 6 million Americans have already left states like California in the past decade for more business-friendly and affordable places such as Arizona, Colorado, and Texas. So, the movement of people is not just a hypothetical scenario in today’s climate of polarization.
President Donald Trump sagaciously suggested the NRA move its headquarters to Texas, a state known for its gun culture and policies that are receptive toward lawful gun ownership. From 2020 and beyond, many gun owners will have to grapple with the grim reality that certain jurisdictions will not be amicable toward wedge issues that span the spectrum from abortion to gun ownership. A number of gun owners have already gotten the memo and have begun to explore unorthodox ways of getting around the existential threat of gun control in their respective localities. Some have launched the notorious Second Amendment sanctuary resolutions movement. Although there are legitimate critiques about the efficacy of said sanctuary movements, gun owners are at least getting into the right mindset of using local action to effect change as opposed to waiting for the Executive Branch or the Supreme Court to save them. Moreover, some have rocked the boat even further by suggesting state lines be redrawn. For example, West Virginiainvited rural counties of Virginia to join the state, while disgruntled residents of Oregon and Northern California are attempting to break away from their respective states to become part of a Greater Idaho that better represents their values.
More states should make it a point to differentiate themselves from progressive bastions. Americans can see for themselves that there are other jurisdictions in the country that treat certain freedoms better than others. The potential loss of a significant portion of their tax base could be enough for blue states to start to reconsider their divisive policies. The question is, Are they ready to see the error of their ways?
José Niño is a Venezuelan American freelance writer. Sign up for his mailing list here. Get his e-book The 10 Myths of Gun Controlhere. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter, or email him here.
As the history of government expansion has shown, government agencies such as the IRS have a nasty way of sneaking into other parts of our lives. What originally started out as an agency solely focused on taxes has morphed into an omnipresent government body that can control political behavior.
Things got even more heated when the New York attorney general decided to investigate the group for “financial improprieties” and threatened to strip the organization of its nonprofit status. None of the investigations have resulted in concrete actions, but the NRA’s interaction with the New York State government illustrates that even the most milquetoast of advocacy groups isn’t safe from the clutches of regulators.
The US purports to be the land of free speech, but you can always expect politicians to carve out exceptions. Just look at how government agencies such as the Internal Revenue Service can slither their way into the political affairs of individuals and organizations.
Americans generally associate the Internal Revenue Service with the hassle of filing income taxes every April. Of course, this is an annual ritual that Americans have been accustomed to for over a century, and it represents one of the numerous ways the federal government violates Americans’ economic freedoms. Income taxation is also one of the main enablers of government growth thanks to its ability to extract hundreds of billions of dollars from hardworking taxpayers annually. In 2019 alone, the IRS collected nearly $3.5 trillion in tax revenue.
The IRS’s misdeeds aren’t just limited to economic activity, though. Most would be surprised to find that the IRS is a violator of free speech rights. When IRS agents aren’t finding ways to squeeze as much revenue as humanly possible from taxpayers, they try to make the lives of America’s most civically engaged miserable.
The IRS as a Political Tool
Former congressman Ron Paul shed light on the IRS’s anti–free speech activity last year in a piece voicing concerns about income tax privacy. In 2019, House Democrats tried to pull every legislative stunt possible to get President Trump to hand over his tax returns. Although these efforts did not materialize into anything substantial, the New York Times published some of Trump’s tax returns from the 1980s and 1990s. The Times’s publication of the returns raised speculation about a potential leaker in the IRS handing this information over to the news outlet.
Right off the bat, Paul understood the bigger picture. As the history of government expansion has shown, government agencies such as the IRS have a nasty way of sneaking into other parts of our lives. What originally started out as an agency solely focused on taxes has morphed into an omnipresent government body that can control political behavior. Paul cited several examples of IRS politicization, including Franklin Roosevelt’s auditing of New Deal opponents, John F. Kennedy’s use of audits against political opponents, and the agency’s investigation of a church hosting an antiwar sermon during the Bush era. One of the more recent cases of IRS harassment of political opponents occurred when it placed Tea Party groups under increased scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status.
The IRS’s history shows that its abuses go beyond partisan politics, seeing how the agency has been used as a cudgel to smash opponents from across the political continuum. From a big-picture perspective, political advocacy in America is excessively regulated. Thanks to so-called campaign finance reform, now political organizations have to worry about complying with a whole set of new regulations—as if the IRS breathing down their necks wasn’t enough.
Just a minor slipup could have IRS or other regulatory agents storming an organization’s office. This is typical of the administrative state era we live in, in which filing the wrong paperwork could land someone behind bars. Because we all know that those dastardly political rabble-rousers not hitting the right bureaucratic checkboxes present a clear and present danger to the rest of society.
State Governments Have Followed the Federal Government’s Lead on Political Harassment
Even after the Supreme Court case Citizens United v. FEC—which ruled that the First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting the ability of political organizations to use independent expenditures for political communications—government entities still find creative ways to stifle political speech. At the state level, governments have taken advantage of regulatory functions to poke and prod organizations that cause too much trouble. Politicians launch “ethics reform” campaigns, where they use ethics commissions and similar bodies to muzzle speech. Politicians will construct narratives saying that they’re fighting against corruption, when all they’re really doing is curtailing the efforts of dissident groups to expose the political class’s dirty laundry.
In 2014, a grassroots gun rights organization, Palmetto Gun Rights, faced harassment from the most unlikely place—the office of then Republican governor Nikki Haley. The South Carolina governor was supporting an ethics reform bill (H 3945) that would have forced an organization or an individual making an “an electioneering communication” to report the “top five donors to the reporting person” to the State Ethics Commission. “Electioneering communication” in this case meant “any broadcast, cable, or satellite communication or mass postal mailing or telephone bank” referring to “a clearly identified candidate for elected office” and that is publicly “aired or distributed within sixty days prior to a general election or within thirty days prior to a primary for that office.” So, if a political organization in South Carolina had some mean things to say about a politician in the finals days of election season, their biggest donors could potentially be fair game for political harassment.
On the other side of the spectrum, groups such as the National Rifle Association have recently witnessed government agencies launch politically motivated investigations against them. Despite what the media says about the NRA, they’re no extremists on the gun issue. However, that has not kept states such as New York from trying to snoop around their private affairs. Twenty nineteen was a rough year for the NRA due to various episodes of internal drama and leadership disruption. Things got even more heated when the New York attorney general decided to investigate the group for “financial improprieties” and threatened to strip the organization of its nonprofit status. None of the investigations have resulted in concrete actions, but the NRA’s interaction with the New York State government illustrates that even the most milquetoast of advocacy groups isn’t safe from the clutches of regulators.
The regulation of economic activity in this stage of American history has undeniably evolved into a mechanism of behavioral control. It’s no longer about whether an individual will have X amount of dollars left after the government takes its share of the loot. Now, people’s political activities, such as their speech, can be subject to political micromanagement.
It’s not enough to just talk about the numbers when making the case against economic regulations. These regulations are ultimately enforced by massive government agencies, which politicians can manipulate in clever ways to suit their own ends. Add in the round-the-clock growth of government agencies, and you’re now dealing with institutions that have the power to branch out into other activities.
By limiting themselves to ho-hum discussions about tax policy, advocates of government restraint ignore some of the biggest threats coming from bureaucratic mammoths. A crusade against bureaucracy is long overdue in America.
The “war on terror” was a disguise for an attack on the US Constitution, an attack that has succeeded. The worst act of treason in history is the US government’s destruction of the US Constitution.
The era of tyranny has begun. Elections cannot stop it.
A fish rots from the head. In the Western world rot is accelerating. The rot in Washington is swiftly spreading to state and local governments and abroad to the Empire’s vassal governments.
Washington’s attack on journalism represented by the illegal arrest of Julian Assange has now spread to France. The US government’s policy of sanctions against sovereign countries that do not follow Washington’s orders has spread to the state of New York, where the governor has threatened sanctions against financial institutions that do business with the National Rifle Association.
In France the vassal president Macron has ordered three journalists — who revealed that Macron’s government knowingly and intentionally sold arms to Saudi Arabia and the UAE to be used for the slaughter of women and children in Yemen — to report for police questioning. The report proves that Macron’s government deliberately lied when it said it was unaware that French weapons were to be used for attack rather than defense use in violation of the Arms Trade Treaty of 2014. The journalists are under investigation by the French gestapo for “compromising national defense secrets.”
In other words, when the French government lies, it is a violation of national defense secrets to report it.
The entire Western world is adopting Washington’s approach to Assange and criminalizing the practice of journalism, thus protecting governments’ criminality. If you reveal a government crime, as Wikileaks did, you will be prosecuted by the criminal government for doing so. It is like permitting a criminal to prosecute the police and prosecutor who want him arrested…
Cuomo revealed that his threat of sanctions against financial organizations has the purpose of putting “the NRA out of business. We’re forcing NRA into financial jeopardy. We won’t stop until we shut them down.” The tyrant Cuomo knows that the NRA cannot operate without a bank account and insurance coverage.
To be clear, Washington’s success in weaponizing government against the people has spread throughout the empire and down into the state governments of the United States.
When we add to this the mass spying on citizens made possible by the digital revolution, we have as the result the death of liberty…
Amazon is taking its ball and going home, and New York Democrats are actually celebrating.
I wasn’t a huge fan of the deal New York and Amazon worked out. I don’t like corporate welfare, and the race among municipalities to bribe businesses to set up shop in their backyards has a lot of problems. The news that Amazon is spurning the Big Apple and searching for a different location will undoubtedly spark an unseemly frenzy among other cities, reminiscent of the search for the last golden ticket in “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.”
But what’s just astounding to me is how Democrats can (almost in one breath, figuratively speaking) champion a Green New Deal that would use the powers of the state — taxes, subsidies, regulatory bullying, etc. — to herd whole industries into alignment with their vision of a just and green society, and at the same time denounce these very tactics when actually put into practice.
The most prominent architect of the GND is New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Under her proposal, cows might suffer, but humans will thrive thanks to all the wonderful new jobs and free health care her utopian scheme would provide.
AOC, as she’s ubiquitously called, rejects the idea that traditional market economics or fiscal bookkeeping should be any hindrance to her scheme.
“I think the first thing that we need to do is kind of break the mistaken idea that taxes pay for 100 percent of government expenditure,” she recently told NPR’s Steve Inskeep. “It’s just not how government expenditure works. … Government projects are often financed by a combination of taxes, deficit spending and other kinds of investments — you know, bonds and so on.”
When Inskeep pointed out to her that deficit spending is “borrowing money that has to be paid back eventually through taxes,” AOC reversed herself with an impressive lack of embarrassment, saying that’s OK because this isn’t spending, it’s investing. Borrowing tens of trillions for her “investments” will pay for itself, “Because we’re creating jobs.”
On a steamy Sunday last July, at about half-past noon, a caravan of unmarked SUVs exited the FBI’s Washington, D.C., field office, an eight-story concrete building that exudes all the charm of a supermax prison. The cars moved swiftly across the city; speed was critical. There were indications that the target, who had canceled the lease on her apartment and packed her belongings, was about to take flight.
Just before one o’clock, the SUVs turned off Wisconsin Avenue and into a parking lot at 3617 38th Street NW, a low, red-brick apartment building near American University. Armed agents in bulletproof vests filled a narrow corridor outside apartment 208. Inside, Maria Butina was watching the Wimbledon men’s final on TV and preparing for a long drive in a U-Haul truck to South Dakota. Having just graduated from American University with a master’s degree in international affairs, she was about to start working as a consultant in the cryptocurrency industry. Her boyfriend of five years, a 57-year-old Republican activist named Paul Erickson, would be traveling with her to his home in Sioux Falls.
“Everything was boxed up,” Erickson told me. “The last thing to do was to pack the electronics, to unplug the TV and the internet. And then pound! Pound! Pound! I answered the door, and there was a team of six agents in the hallway.” Three of the agents surrounded Erickson while the other three went after Butina. “The team went in, dragged her out, spun her around, cuffed her in the hallway, and announced her arrest,” Erickson said. …
Instead, all Delta’s getting is some accolades from people who already hate them and will soon hate them all over again because it’s a big company and these people will always hate big companies. Bastian doesn’t seem to get that. Sooner or later, the anti-gunners will hate you for something else you did that they didn’t approve of, even if it has nothing to do with guns.
But the Second Amendment advocates have a longer memory. We tend to not get as distracted by shiny objects. Once you earn our enmity, you keep it.
Seriously, some people still won’t buy a Smith & Wesson because previous ownership signed a deal with the Clinton administration. Do you think we’re going to forget the middle finger Delta gave us? Not likely.
It’s often thought to be beyond question that black political power is necessary for economic power and enhanced socio-economic welfare. That’s an idea that lends itself to testing and analysis.
Between 1970 and 2012, the number of black elected officials rose from fewer than 1,500 to more than 10,000. Plus, a black man was elected to the presidency twice. Jason Riley, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, tells how this surge in political power has had little beneficial impact on the black community. Read the rest of this entry »
MCViewPoint 