America is Already Enduring a ‘Cold’ Civil War
This article is an opinion piece from Bill Lockwood. Catch American Liberty with Bill Lockwood weekly at 11 a.m. Saturdays on NewsTalk 1290.
The FBI raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Florida residence signals that we are right now in a “Cold Civil War.” Marc Elias, who served as Hillary Clinton’s campaign lawyer in her 2016 presidential run, spilled the beans this week on the reason for the raid. It has nothing to do with “national security” of documents, regarding paperwork taken but with the fact that the FBI is trolling through Trump’s papers to discover a reason why Trump should not be able to run for president in 2024.
The United States Code Title 18, Section 2071 states: "Whoever, having the custody of any such record …proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both; and shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States."
Marc Elias, an assumed insider of the "Deep State," reveals more than he intended. That an arm of the Justice Department is openly and brazenly being used to by the Democratic Party to influence the outcome of the election demonstrates that a Rubicon has been crossed.
The Crisis of the Two Constitutions
These are dark and hazardous waters, where, as Charles Kesler explains in The Crisis of Two Constitutions, we "may be leaving the world of normal politics and entering the dangerous world of regime politics — in which our political loyalties diverge more and more, as they did in the 1850's, between two contrary visions of what constitutes the country."
The distinction between "normal politics" and "regime politics" is typically defined by political scientists as the difference between that which occurs within the boundaries of an accepted constitutional order and that which unsettles any existing order. "Regime politics" is about who has power to rule. We have entered into the arena of a Civil War in America — albeit a "cold" one — for now.
The only disagreement I have with Kessler’s assessment, which appeared in print in 2021, is to say that Kessler is about 75 years behind. We entered into "regime politics" at least during President Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration, but it was mostly hidden from public view. We are now experiencing a perilous police state where the powers of the federal government are unapologetically and openly being used to squash dissent.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Administration
Texas Congressman Martin Dies wrote an expose in 1940 entitled "The Trojan Horse in America," which recounted the way that Franklin Roosevelt continued to brow-beat Dies for his "supposedly excessive concern about Communist infiltration." As Dies began to shed the light on communism in American political machinery, which was his assigned role as head of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, the commie-coddling administration of FDR brought out brutal tactics, including audits by the IRS.
When John T. Flynn, a part of the America First movement to keep America out of World War II, published a number of articles encouraging neutrality, FDR was enraged. Flynn was then blacklisted by almost the entire publishing industry.
Likewise, FDR tried to destroy the famed aviator Charles Lindbergh who had been a leading speaker in the America First organization. When Lindbergh later tried to join the military, he could not; FDR had issued orders forbidding the military from accepting his enlistment.
Congressman George Hansen
Moving down the timeline, Congressman George Hansen of Idaho, in his 1984 book, "To Harass Our People," details an "incredible story of brute force, harassment, lies and cover-up," pertaining to the IRS which, as he put it, has created a nation of people who are "afraid and frightened by a runaway government" and at the same time "angry" because their constitutional rights have been stripped away.
That was before President Joe Biden’s Democratically-controlled IRS started stockpiling arms and munitions and more than doubling its size. If one were to guess, this sounds like the brownshirt "citizen army" that Barack Obama promised, which would be larger than various branches of our military.
Hansen warned Americans that the IRS can invade the privacy of a citizen without court process of any kind; can seize property without a court order, can force a citizen to try his case in a special court governed by the IRS, and much more. From appearances, John Q. Citizen may suppose that the "Deep State" is gearing to make the cold war into a hot one.
Now the Justice Department under Merrick Garland goes on a fishing expedition against Donald Trump to keep him out of the White House in 2024. Apparently, Democrats believe that their stratagem of massive voter fraud, documented in Dinesh D’Souza’s movie "2,000 Mules," is not insurance enough. America, beware!
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