Daedalus Shrugged: The Mounting Resistance to the TSA's Grope Gauntlet

The function of any "security" checkpoint, as Richard Ben Cramer observes in his valuable book How Israel Lost, "is to show who's boss."

"I know of one school headmaster, a dignified older man, who passed the same checkpoint every morning, and was made to undress -- not once but often -- and stand naked while his students passed by," relates Cramer. "This was richly humorous -- that old man was (formerly) so conscious of the honor of his position." 

 The elderly man's residual sense of dignity made him an irresistible target for the power-intoxicated armed bullies he confronted while traveling to and from work. 


During one of his visits to Israel, Cramer asked a checkpoint guard (a recent arrival from Russia) why such humiliation was inflicted on elderly and obviously harmless people.


"Because [of] the bad attitude -- you know?" replied the thug. "If they are acting like they are good, [then] we are the bad one. Then, you must show them control."

You must show them control.

You must make them submit.

Or, as one TSA commissarina repeatedly bellowed when 71-year-old Robert Perry complained about his mistreatment at an airport checkpoint: "I have power! I have power!" That outburst was triggered when Perry -- who, like the elderly Palestinian described above, had been forced to disrobe in public -- plaintively asked to speak with the supervisor of the tax-devouring chair-moistener who had abused him.


 



Each time a TSA drone places hands on a captive, he is committing an act of criminal assault. This was proven, in principle, when a victim of TSA-inflicted sexual molestation retaliated in kind against her assailant.


In 2004, 62-year-old Appleton, Wisconsin resident Phyllis Dintenfass was singled out for "secondary screening" when something she wore set off the metal detector at the Outagamie County Regional Airport. Mrs. Dintenfass put up no resistance as TSA supervisor Anita Gostisha used an electronic "wand" to scan for metal objects. But she understandably rebelled when Gostisha used the back of her hands to check the area beneath Dintenfass's breasts. 

According to Dintenfass, her reaction was to mimic the unwanted and uninvited physical contact while exclaiming, "How would you like it if I did that to you?"

Gostisha's version of the event is much more melodramatic. She claims that the middle-aged woman -- described by all who knew her as mild and not prone to violence  -- "slammed her against the wall." Leaving aside the fact that this would be an entirely justified response to a sexual assault, Gostisha's version was disputed by her victim and not corroborated by any other witnesses.

However, since Gostisha is a member of the Regime's punitive caste, her person -- unlike that of her victim -- is sacred. Accordingly,  Dintenfass was arrested and charged with "assaulting" a federal official. She was found guilty of that purported crime and sentenced to a year of probation and 100 hours of "community service."

Victorious federal prosecutor Tim Funnell insisted  that Mrs. Dintenfass "punished Anita Gostisha for doing her job." U.S. Attorney Steven Bispukic piled on, protesting that TSA officers, who perform a "vital function,"are "entitled to protection from assault" -- that is, they're entitled to "protection" from the same treatment they inflict on their betters. It's difficult to find a better illustration of the principle that government is simply a criminal syndicate that has achieved impunity. 


At the time Mrs. Dintenfass was molested in Appleton, the treatment she endured was exceptional. As of October 29, it is the norm. The new pat-down procedures bear the ominous adjective "enhanced," an overtaxed official euphemism last pressed into service to normalize torture. TSA functionaries are now instructed to use open hands and fingers "to go over one's body, including the genital area and breasts," explains a protest letter filed on behalf of a group of airline pilots disgusted with the expanded checkpoint ritual. 


The TSA insists that "security" considerations prevent them from telling potential victims what to expect next time they're sentenced to commercial air travel. Capt. Mike Cleary, head of the US Airways pilots union, was able to summarize the new molestation protocol on the basis of conversations he had with TSA personnel. 

"Security" drones are now instructed "to run their hand up the inside of your leg until they meet resistance" -- ideally in the form of a right cross, but I suspect the expected "resistance" would be anatomical in nature. "In addition," continues Cleary's description, "they are to use a circular pat-down routine from the small of the stomach, around through a person's crotch, and up into the small of the back."

Some comedian -- most likely the perceptive and much-missed George Carlin -- once speculated that football may be an elaborate ruse to justify the action of one man putting his hands between the legs of another. While that isn't true of football, a similar principle might well be at work in the TSA's new guidelines for airport molestation. After all, the fetid, Stygian talent pool from which the Homeland Security apparatus skims its population of peepers and gropers abounds in people of the sort who shouldn't be permitted to place hands on others under any circumstances.

Exhibit A is a former TSA employee known as Robert Joe Harrison Jr. who was a TSA security screener in Ketchum, Idaho.

In April 2006, Harrison was arrested by the local police after he had brought home a 10-year-old boy whom he had enticed into his pickup truck. After they arrived at Harrison's home, the adult put in a movie and left the room. The youngster quite sensibly bolted the premises, fled to his home and and described the incident to his mother, who called the police.

When police searched Harrison's apartment, they found (in the words of an MSNBC report) found "four additional Social Security numbers and documents showing four other dates of birth." The TSA hired Harrison (as I'll call him for the sake of convenience) without even establishing his actual name and identity.

 “Harrison” -- who bears an uncanny resemblance to Jim Bonnick, a small-time con-man from the TV series “Magnum, PI” -- was one of several suspected pederasts discovered within the span of a few weeks in 2006. It makes me wonder how many of the Department's officials belong to the department's “Aqualung Club.”

 Harrison's arrest -- and the presence of other degenerates on the TSA's payroll -- shouldn't lead people to make unfortunate generalizations about the agency, insisted Dough Melvin, Federal Security Director for Idaho.

“TSA is a large organization with a large workforce, [and] unfortunately we have an individual who does things that are truly inappropriate, things that are intolerable for TSA,” insisted Melvin, who assured the public that the agency had a “zero tolerance” policy for behavior of this type. He didn't explain how a suspected pederast with five aliases and sets of personal ID could pass a federal background check. We simply had to take his word on the matter. After all, he was a clean-cut, respectable sort. 

As it happens, less than a year after Harrison's arrest, Mr. Melvin was forced to resign as a result of his own public sexual misconduct.

“The now former Director of the Transportation Security Administration in Boise was arrested last week at an Idaho Falls hotel,” reported Boise's CBS affiliate KBCI on February 27, 2007. “Doug Melvin was busted after staff and hotel guests say they saw him walking around naked.” 

The police report on the incident recorded that “Melvin entered the swimming area and removed his clothing before walking around, exposing himself.... Melvin was also reportedly masturbating while in front of the windows directly in view of the main elevator.”

Melvin -- whose surname is one of God's little practical jokes --is not the only significant Homeland Security figure who publicly indulged in the behavior made famous in Philip Roth's most significant novel.

Frank Figueroa, the former head of a federal anti-molester initiative called “Operation Predator,” was arrested at an Orlando shopping mall on October 25, 2005. He was charged with exposing himself to a 16-year-old girl while, ah, manipulating himself. 


Confronted by mall security as he tried to flee the scene, Figueroa whipped out something else he was unduly proud of: The badge identifying him as the special agent in charge of the Tampa office of the Department of Immigration and Customs enforcement – one of the main appendages, as it were, of the DHS.

Figueroa was a repeat offender: He was hired by the DHS and given specific responsibility to deal with child sexual predators despite a 1977 arrest on a charge of public sexual misconduct in Buffalo. Thanks to an incredibly generous deal struck with an inexplicably lenient judge, Figueroa was given a year's probation and a withheld judgment -- meaning that there is no record of his conviction.

It's worthy of mention that Figueroa's "punishment" for preying on an underage girl was less severe than that inflicted on Phyllis Dintenfass for reciprocating the supposedly innocuous behavior of the TSA agent who felt her up.

Today, as millions of productive people struggle to feed and shelter their families, Figueroa continues to receive a taxpayer-subsidized pension.

Given Figueroa's area of responsibility in the federal hierarchy, and his private inclination toward the very behavior he was assigned to investigate, I find myself wondering if he had any personal or professional dealings with former Homeland Security honcho J. Brian Doyle.

The same week that "Robert J. Harrison" was arrested in Idaho, Doyle was arrested in Silver Spring, Maryland. For several weeks Doyle had been conversing by way of an internet a chatroom with someone he believed to be a cancer-stricken pre-adolescent girl. Eventually he tried to arrange a sexual liaison with his correspondent, unaware that he was being set up by a detective from the Polk County, Florida Sheriff's Office.

At the time, Doyle was the second-highest ranking official in the Homeland Security Department's propaganda directorate. He did nothing to disguise his identity while making overtures to what he believed was a potential victim; in fact, he even used his position at Homeland Security as a come-on.

“What has this nation come to if bragging about being a spokesman for a federal agency can supposedly help a guy get laid?” asked the redoubtable James Bovard after the Brian Doyle story broke. While there have been “gross abuses in some previous online porn stings,” Bovard notes, there is reason to believe that “Mr. Doyle could be on the other end of the wand for a long time.” Given Doyle's behavior in an official capacity, it's difficult to feel so much as a particle of sympathy for him.

 “After air marshals gunned down Rigoberto Alpizar outside of a plane in Miami [in] December [2005], Doyle justified the killing to the media: `He threatened that he had a bomb in his backpack,” Bovard recalls. “Other TSA spokesmen claimed that Alpizar had shouted that he had a bomb as he ran up and down the plane aisle. None of the passengers on the plane heard Alpizar say anything about a bomb.”

 None of this was true: Alpizar, who suffered from bipolar disorder, simply bolted from the plane in a moment of panic and was murdered by the TSA's armed goons. Of course, as Bovard wryly comments, “false statements by federal spokesmen are a public service, not a federal crime.”

 TSA personnel tend to be heavy-handed in conducting airport checkpoint molestations while being light-fingered in dealing with the personal effects of their victims. From its inception, the agency offered secure, well-compensated employment for people with criminal backgrounds. This shouldn't be surprising; after all, we're dealing with an element of what were called the "Security Organs" in the Soviet Union -- the sword and shield of the Regime. In any society, the political police attracts people from the  most degenerate elements of society.

"This organization is rotten to the core," observed Bolshevik official Serafina Gopner in a March 22, 1919 letter to Lenin complaining about the Cheka, the ancestor of the KGB. The Chekists were "common criminals and the dregs of society, men armed to the teeth.... They steal, loot, rape ... practice extortion and blackmail, and will let anyone go in exchange for huge sums of money."

"The Cheka are looting and arresting everyone indiscriminately," reported a Bolshevik regional secretary in Yaroslavl on September 26th of the same year (in a letter cited -- as was Gopner's protest -- in the authoritative Black Book of Communism). "Safe in the knowledge that they cannot be punished, they have transformed the Cheka headquarters into a huge brothel.... Drunkenness is rife. Cocaine is being used quite widely among the supervisors."

In policy, practice, and the proclivities of much of its personnel, the TSA -- like the department that spawned it -- is distant but unmistakable kindred to the Cheka.  The growing rebellion against the agency's new airport molestation protocols is among the most heartening developments in recent memory -- assuming, of course, that it doesn't evaporate in the immediate aftermath of the next false flag or blowback-induced terrorist incident.

Any help you can offer to keep Pro Libertate on-line is very much appreciated. Thanks, and God bless!

Dum spiro, pugno!

"Your Papers, Please" -- Simplified

(A quick note: There is a brief update on the Derek Hale case at the end of this essay.)

Deltha O'Neal, the Pro Bowl cornerback for the Cincinnati Bengals, was arrested at a DUI checkpoint last December. When O'Neal showed up at he municipal courthouse in Batavia, Ohio a few weeks later to attend a pre-trial hearing, he was asked for his Social Security number by a deputy sheriff; the information was entered into a hand-held Mobilisa m2500 Sentry scanner.

“The check mark that flashed onto the device's 3.8-inch color screen indicated O'Neal had no outstanding local warrants, wasn't among the FBI's most wanted, and also wasn't on Interpol's terrorist watch list,” reported the Cincinnati Enquirer. “Data from more than 140 sources – including the US Drug Enforcement Agency and Customs Enforcement – were cross-checked by the device to determine whether deputies should detain the pro football player.”

O'Neal was permitted to pass through the metal detector and enter the courthouse without further complications. That wasn't the case for many other courthouse visitors, dozens of whom were cited or taken into custody as a result of random ID checks.

The Sentry device is a black hand-held multi-function computer that looks a bit like an over-sized hand phaser from Star Trek.

It is equipped with a scanner that can read the magnetic strip or barcode that is a standard feature in state-issued licenses and ID cards, as well as passports and military IDs. The unit can be customized for license plate recognition or crime scene documentation as well.

Database updates are downloaded by the Sentry when it is docked with its charging bay, and the unit can send and receive data through a wireless network when used in the field. The device is – to use the grotesque military neologism -- “ruggedized,” meaning that it can be used in the rain and won't be broken if it is dropped.

The Sentry scanner is, quite literally, a garrison state technology. Originally developed as a security measure for military bases, the Sentry began law enforcement field tests last September when Mobilisa donated three units to the Clermont (Ohio) County Sheriff's Department: Mobilisa chairman John W. Paxton, Sr., a former New Hampshire state trooper, lives in the county and is a personal friend of the sheriff.

Micheline Mendelsohn, Communications Director for Mobilisa, explained to me that the while the Sentry system is being used at 23 military bases (including Andrews Air Force Base), the Clermont County Sheriff's Department is the only civilian law enforcement agency to use the scanners so far. But this is likely to change soon.

“The Ohio example really excited people and started a snowball effect,” Mendelsohn told me. “And this really began with the military trials. Somebody looked at the device and said, `Hey – this would be great for law enforcement,' so we went in that direction. And it really is ideally suited for police when they're conducting traffic stops, for example, since the officer doesn't have to turn his back when he's trying to access the information.”

Mobilisa is working to make the Sentry even more user-friendly, according to Mendelsohn: “We have in development an even smaller hand-held device that would be about the size of a cell phone, and could be clipped to a belt.”

According to promotional literature from the company, in 2003 Mobilisa “requested funding for a project to secure our nation's military bases....” When asked about additional federal funding to develop and distribute the Sentry system, Mendelssohn replied, “We're just starting on that road. We've gotten great response from the military, which was the original intention behind developing the technology.”

She did agree that local police departments would find the Sentry technology a very attractive choice when looking to spend federal homeland security grants. (It's interesting that the first use of the Sentry system came during a federally subsidized DUI checkpoint in Ohio last fall.) As with other technologies, we can expect to see the Sentry become commonplace very quickly, and for police departments to resort to its use quite promiscuously.

From the perspective of those concerned with civil liberties, the real mischief inherent in this system is not found in the technology itself, but rather in the data streams it can channel to police officers considering whether or not to “detain” an individual.

There are 29 entries on Mobilisa's list of “Persons-Of-Interest Databases,” many of them drawn (predictably, given Sentry's origins) from various military investigative agencies. The FBI, ATF, DEA, ICE, and other alphabet agencies are well-represented, as are the State Department, Secret Service, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, two state Corrections Departments, and the Postal Service. The information available through Sentry, boasts the company, is "virtually limitless."

The twenty-ninth data source is the provocative catch-all category, “Various Other Local Law Enforcement Inputs.” This would include information on criminal records and driving histories, as well as other unspecified details fed into various databases by police agencies. Information of this kind has a very long half-life, and can make an individual radioactive where freedom of movement is concerned.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist C.W. Nevius recounts the experiences of several US citizens who found it difficult or impossible to visit Canada because of ancient misdeeds unearthed by the new Smart Border Action Plan, which “combines Canadian intelligence with extensive US Homeland Security information. The partnership began in 2002, but it wasn't until recently that the system was refined.”

Canadian customs officials “can call up anything that your state trooper in Iowa can,” observes Canadian attorney David Lesperance.

This is why some Americans wanting to travel to Canada on business or for recreation have been turned away, or forced to undergo lengthy and detailed additional scrutiny, because of long-forgotten drug or drunk driving convictions, or other misdemeanors. One of Lesperance's clients was turned away at the border for a 20-year-old shoplifting conviction that resulted from a fraternity prank. Another case involves an American deemed inadmissible to Canada because he was convicted of possessing marijuana more than thirty years ago.

Lesperance points out that the data-sharing agreement between Washington and Ottawa “is just the edge of the wedge,” since similar agreements are being negotiated with countries across Europe and Asia that are familiar destinations to business travelers.

Through the dubious miracle of the Sentry scanner, state troopers in Iowa and security police abroad will enjoy instant access to a data pool containing ancient transgressions of the sort described above, thereby creating all kinds of potential pretexts for harassing and detaining decent and otherwise law-abiding US citizens.

After describing the case of a friend who was denied access to Canada after the new system went into effect last January, libertarian commentator Wendy McElroy points out that data-sharing protocols of this sort mean that some “travelers may well be denied entry [to their chosen destinations] on a global level because of a youthful indiscretion or an arrest for unlawful assembly (e.g. an anti-war rally).”

Taking names? A police cruiser from Department of Homeland Security kept watch at a recent anti-war demonstration outside Speaker Pelosi's office in San Francisco. (Courtesy AntiWar.com)



McElroy's chosen example is a particularly timely one, given the recent experience of Walter F. Murphy, a retired Marine Colonel (who was decorated for valor during the Korean War) and professor emeritus of Princeton University.

As recounted in a letter posted on Mark Graber's blog, Balkinization, when Murphy attempted to check in for a March 1 American Airlines flight to Newark, he discovered that his name had been placed on a “terrorist watch list.”

“I presented my credentials from the Marine Corps to a very polite clerk for American Airlines,” recalled Professor Murphy. “One of the two people to whom I talked asked a question and offered a frightening comment: `Have you been in any peace marches? We ban a lot of people from flying because of that.' I explained that I had not so marched but had, in September, 2006, given a lecture at Princeton, televised and put on the Web, highly critical of George Bush for his many violations of the Constitution. `That'll do it,' the man said.”

Consider, briefly, what this incident says about the reasons for which a person can be detained (as Murphy was, briefly, for additional security screening) – and, therefore, the potential applications of the Sentry scanning technology:

Murphy wasn't prevented from boarding because of a crime he had committed, even a long-buried youthful indiscretion. His presence on a “watch list” didn't come about because he had been arrested for “unlawful assembly,” or even for peaceful participation in a legal protest march. His name was enrolled on that infamous list because of a speech he had given criticizing the Dear Leader.

It's likely that the identities of peace protesters – who are, remember, frequently banned fliers, according to the official with whom Murphy spoke – were almost certainly compiled by local police, including undercover operatives. Who took down Murphy's name and fed it into the database? Some low-level Republican Party functionary who read a news account of the speech, perhaps? Could it have been an overzealous campus security drone, or an offended audience member who called a hot line? We'll never know.

What we do know is that Mobilisa's uber-slick new gadget will certainly simplify things for State agents (whether here or, eventually, abroad) who trying to “find a reason” to lock up troublesome citizens – and complicate life tremendously for those of us on the receiving end of this system of human inventory control.

Derek Hale Update

The attorneys who have filed suit on behalf of Derek Hale's widow, orphaned stepchildren, and parents are working pro bono. However, there are many other expenses involved in a civil suit, particularly one filed against intransigent government agencies that can fob those costs off on local taxpayers.

Accordingly, a legal defense fund has been established on behalf of Derek Hale's survivors:


The Derek Hale Defense Fund
c/o Dr. David Crowe
1736 Broadway
Cape Girardeau, MO 63701


Stephen J. Neuberger, a Wilmington, Delaware civil rights attorney involved in the lawsuit, explained to me that Dr. Crowe "has known Derek since he was a little kid," and wants to do what he can to help his family see that justice is done. Neuberger also promised me that "Any donations to the fund will go to pay out-of-pocket costs, and not attorneys' fees."


Please visit The Right Source for the latest news from the freedom battlefront.

The New Conservatism: Chekists and Collaborators

A multi-use facility: One of the newly constructed immigration detention centers that could very easily be used to pen protesters, dissidents, or draft resisters.

Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo, a Republican presidential hopeful, is the House's most conspicuous advocate of border enforcement. He is also a stalwart defender of the Warfare/Homeland Security State.

Last September, Tancredo voted in favor of both the Military Commissions Act – which destroyed the habeas corpus guarantee – and a “reform” of the Insurrection Act that gives the president the power to use the National Guard as his personal army. Interestingly, Tancredo is also a devoted supporter of Iran's so-called Iranian People's Mujahadeen (MEK), a bizarre terrorist cult whose official ideology is a fusion of Marxism and Sufism. The Warmakers in and around the Bush Regime have embraced the MEK as an ally in the low-intensity war underway between Washington and Tehran.

It seems to me that people genuinely concerned about border security would be wary of cultivating foreign wars, which inevitably generate streams of refugees and an appetite for retaliation – both of which are bad for the cause of secure borders. Thus it appears to me, at least, that Rep. Tancredo's positions are in conflict – unless his focus is on empowering Washington at all hazards, in which case his apparently contradictory positions would make some sense.

I've made this point before, but it bears repeating: The movement-wide conservative obsession with immigration reflects a successful effort to seduce “limited government” activists into supporting the creation of a garrison state -- and Tom Tancredo embodies that order of priorities perfectly.

Former Congressman Bob Barr recently made the same point in a Washington Times op-ed column referring to efforts by Tancredo and other House Republicans to pass legislation “prohibiting financial institutions from extending mortgages to anyone who cannot establish their bona fides by producing a valid Social Security number.”

Does anybody else remember – perhaps through a glaze of sepia-tinted nostalgia – that bygone era when conservative Republicans opposed the use of Social Security numbers as a de facto national identification number? Barr does, and he criticized Republican congressmen for trying to compel “private financial institutions to do the heavy lifting of combating illegal immigration because government has failed in its responsibility to properly police and monitor our borders.”

“Where, for example, will the mandates they seek – forcing businesses to determine if a person is in this country lawfully before extending credit or selling a product for which that person is otherwise eligible – be next applied?” continues Barr. “Will a bill be introduced that prohibits automobile dealers from selling a motor vehicle to anyone who cannot produce a valid Social Security card? Will landlords be forced to rent their property only to those who possess a Social Security card? Would it not make just as much sense for these advocates to require presentation of a Social Security card prior to bedding down for the night at a local Marriott?”

What Barr is describing through illustration here is a foundational principle in every surveillance society: The government must compel its subjects to act as the eyes and ears of the State. Embraced with a passion by most of the Establishment-led Right after 9-11, that principle is attracting new converts now thanks to concerns over border security.

Likewise, many of those limited government conservatives who kept their wits about them when 9-11 inspired calls for creation of an even larger “national security” leviathan have surrendered now that the police state pretext du jour is the immigration crisis.

The Denver Post points out that the new “immigration control” campaign has led to “the biggest border prison boom in decades [and created] the federal government's larges enforcement arm” -- the latter being the expanded Border Patrol, which is now an appendage of the Department of Homeland Security.

Dozens of new federal prosecutors are being hired to prosecute immigration cases. Thousands of armed federal enforcement agents are being hired and trained. Huge sums of taxpayer money are being sluiced into the coffers of the Corrections Corporation of America, Geo Group Inc., and other penal system profiteers.

All of these assets and personnel, it should be remembered, are fungible. The newly hired federal prosecutors targeting Mexican agricultural workers today could very easily be tasked tomorrow to prosecute American citizens for violating some arcane provision of the tax code or some exotic permutation of the Patriot Act. Border Patrol Agents could be seconded to other federal agencies – say, the Marshals Service in the event that muscle is needed to back up the Selective Service when the draft is reinstated. Prison spaces now filled by immigrant families could come in quite handy if the Regime decides it needs to deal roughly with dissidents or draft resisters.

For supporters of the new border initiatives, “it's a long-overdue effort to establish the rule of law,” notes the Post; “for foes, it's a slow militarization built on prison shackles and razor wire.”

Which view is accurate? That depends on whether we assume that it's possible to cast out Beelzebub by the power of Beelzebub, since the same regime that has brought us torture, military tribunals, executive rule through “signing statements,” illegal domestic surveillance, and other garrison state innovations is building the new “border security” regime.

Not your Daddy's idea of Border Security: U.S. Coast Guard Port Security Unit 311 trains at Camp Lejune, N.C.

It is irrational to believe that the same Leviathan state that waging war on liberty both at home and abroad can be trusted to use these expanded powers only for the purpose of securing our borders. We should view the DHS as America's embryonic Cheka, an assumption fully warranted by both its structure and widespread corruption. It's worth recalling, once again, that the Soviet Cheka had a large, well-armed, and very competent Border Guards Directorate – and the Soviet Union had no problem with illegal immigration.

Too many on the Right – I'm irresistibly tempted to call them Chekist Conservatives – are abetting our descent into unalloyed despotism in the name of border security. That cohort includes, alas, some people for whom I've had great respect and affection.

Shortly before I underwent an involuntary career change last October, one of my associates – a JBS official who is involved in defining that organization's agenda – explained to me in an e-mail why fighting the creation of an American Reich simply wasn't a priority for the Society:

“If a police state happens in America, and we are unable to stop it, which version do you think will be worse: 100 million Americans armed to the teeth within a walled-in country fighting against a corrupt regime? Or a tri-national police state [through the so-called North American Union] that has folded in the Mexican government and drug cartels ... into the Department of Homeland Security, with more terrorists flowing in across Latin American borders from elsewhere? Which one would you prefer taking your chances with? We don’t want either, but I go back to what I said to you elsewhere. We have a chance at winning the immigration issue and in the process drawing a lot of people to our ranks (even if the Repubs are cynically exploiting it to their own advantage), which will allow us to have more influence to stop the police state from fully blossoming.”

Why a "walled-in" police state would permit us to keep our firearms to fight the "corrupt regime" it was created to protect, my friend didn't say. Nor did he explain how it would be possible to "win" on "the immigration issue" -- as "victory" is currently defined -- without actively abetting the growth of the very police state that would suffocate what remains of our liberty. If we lose on the police state "issue," we get all of the horrors my friend describes -- and others too gruesome to describe.

It must be said: The statement quoted above (which wasn't shared with the Society's membership at large) is the authentic voice of collaboration. Every collaborator insists that he is working within the system to bring it down, and disavows the actions of more radical elements who actually take the fight to the enemy.

Most collaborators have surrendered after the State has begun to exercise its consolidated powers; in this case we see preemptive capitulation as a cynical marketing strategy. What is really painful about this particular example is that we still have a chance (an infinitesimal one, to be sure) to abort the creation of an American Reich before it comes to term, and the only alternative to outright servitude would be a gallant but doomed recourse to arms.

Chekist conservatives are more interested in building up the State than in preserving constitutional freedom. And the sad truth is that you can't expect leadership for freedom from collaborators.


Please be sure to visit The Right Source -- a collaborator-free zone for freedom-centered news, commentary, Kevin Shannon's radio program, and -- brand new! -- our Action Agenda for citizen activism.