One of the first things the Bolsheviks did after seizing power in Russia was to take “defunding the police” to its ultimate end. They abolished the existing police force. Policing responsibilities were taken over by the Cheka – the forerunner of Stalin’s NKVD, and the current KGB. It quickly became apparent that the role of the Cheka was to enforce conformity to socialist doctrine.
The socialist-controlled legislature then passed a new criminal code, which included the infamous “Article 58″ which Stalin used to populate the slave-labor camps described so graphically by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in his Nobel-winning opus The Gulag Archipelago. Article 58 criminalized any political deviation from the socialist government’s approved doctrine – including “thought crimes”. It was the law under which Solzhenitsyn was himself convicted of a thought crime.
Using the power of government to prosecute thought crime is the modus operendi of socialist totalitarian regimes from Stalin to Hitler to Mao to Castro. Unfortunately, it is now expanding its evil reach into non-totalitarian countries.
So why am I bringing this up? Because opponents of President Trump are attempting to employ government against those who merely express support for him. In Ohio, a store owner who offered discounts to Trump supporters was threatened with a boycott. But more insidiously, Trump opponents threatened to call the health department. If your business supports Trump, we will use government regulators to shut you down.
And that is not an isolated incident. Here in my own neighborhood, there is a ‘battle of the signs” going on between two of my neighbors. One has a dozen Biden signs and banners in her yard, and an adjacent neighbor has nearly an equal number supporting Trump. It was all funny to the rest of us on the block – until…
According to the Trump guy, he and the Biden lady took their rivalry to Facebook, and as could be expected it turned ugly. No one made any threats, or posted anything remotely criminal — but when he made one too many derogatory comments about her, she decided it was time to call the sheriff’s office. They promptly told her it was not a law-enforcement matter.
We’ve lived in the neighborhood with this woman for nearly 30 years. We’ve learned to avoid any discussion of politics with her. She’s generally friendly, but when it comes to politics, especially Trump, she is unhinged. She could be the poster-child for Trump Derangement Syndrome. So it was no surprise to learn she had called the police over a political dispute. She actually believes our other neighbor should be arrested for his outspoken support of Trump. The idea of her, and her fellow Trump haters such as those threatening the Ohio store owner, being in charge of the police-power of government scares the hell out of me. Simply disagreeing with them could get us arrested.
That is what this election is all about.
Gary Beatty lives between Florida and Pagosa Springs. He retired after 30 years as a prosecutor for the State of Florida, has a doctorate in law, is Board Certified in Criminal Trial law by the Florida Supreme Court, and is now a law professor.