Don's Tuesday Column

        THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson  Red Bluff Daily News   2/22/2022

Cross-border despots, tyrants, fascists

These things never start out that way: the crowded, closed room’s oxygen level declining; the car’s exhaust leak that induces drowsiness and, eventually, death; the ill-placed generator or charcoal grill causing the demise of hapless occupants. The proverbial frog that fails to jump out of a warming pot of water until it’s too late is more mythical; the other examples are not.

We’ve seen—via top-down, extra-constitutional, COVID-inspired lockdowns, stay-home orders, and mask and vaccine mandates here and in Canada—acceptance of despotism, tyranny and fascism rationalized by assertion of authority over a so-called “emergency” that’s killed relatively few that aren’t old, sick and obese already. Basic constitutional and legal norms have been abandoned, ushering in rule-by-fiat.

The initial emergence of a fairly lethal (to those categories) new virus rightfully justified extreme caution. However, “15 (or fill-in-the-blank) days to stop the spread” has, for over a year since vaccines were widely available, ceased being a legitimate justification for authoritarian disruption. Witness W.H. Occupant Joe Biden mindlessly extending the now-unjustified 2-year “emergency.”

 Citizens should beware the abandonment of respect for, adherence to, and acceptance of the limitations of civic authority where the use of force—whether legal, political, financial or weaponized brutality—is monopolized by the government. Our federal and state constitutions enshrine the ultimate power of the people in their ability to remove those they’ve place in that authority in the next election.

Hence, those with malintent to retain power in such electoral systems have, throughout recent history, used machinations to manufacture voting results, even voters themselves, in corrupt schemes to “just win, baby.” They thus escape the voters’ revenge, dodging accountability and repercussions over malfeasance, which may simply be graft, self-dealing or favoritism to family or friends from accumulated monies and power.

A more sinister motive may rear its totalitarian head when citizens, who tolerated a bit of corruption and dishonesty, decide to “throw the bums out.” While illegitimacy and electoral corruption may simply be in the eye of the losing beholder, intransigence over transparent audits to ferret out actual mischief should suggest that there’s something to hide.

The benefactors of voting fraud now seek to implement systems to assure themselves of perpetual power. That has transpired in the 2020-21 cycle of pandemic-inspired voting rules, especially drop boxes for between 40 and 60+ million “mail-in” ballots. Previously illegal, it was implemented only on unconstitutional authority of governors, judges, election boards and health officials, not state legislatures (Constitution: Article 1, Section 4).

The legitimacy of Joe Biden’s election is arguable on that count alone. Attempts to institutionalize those illegal practices—through federal congressional mandates, the (Not) For-the-People Act, an end-run around the states’ authority—is a transparent ploy to perpetuate fraud-enabling rules, by objective analysis. Pray they fail; if they succeed, America will never have another election above suspicion; Democrats will rule in perpetuity.

Among the “disappeared” and downplayed stories: 1) The attempted assassination of a Jewish, Louisville, KY mayoral candidate, Democrat Craig Greenberg, by suspect Quintez Brown, a young Black man, gun control and Black Lives Matter activist; he was a “race issues” columnist for the Louisville Courier, and an anti-capitalist advocate who praised Che Guevara and Mao Tse-Tung on Twitter. Hypocritically, a “Former Biden campaign staffer tried to blame the attempted assassination on ‘Right Wing Rhetoric.’” (Las Vegas Sun and Daily Caller) When the facts don’t fit the leftist-preferred narrative, they just make “stuff” up.

2) The “making stuff up” tactic was displayed by the usual cable, network and NPR-type propagandists over revelations by Special Counsel John Durham mentioned last week. His case, if proven (though it’s solid), puts Hillary Clinton et al at the center of dastardly efforts to make fallacious assertions of “Russian collusion” by Donald Trump, the cause of first, his electoral loss in 2016, and then, the pretext for investigations, impeachments and/or prosecutions of Trump, his family and associates.

To the extent those illegal, clandestine (CIA?) tactics extended into Trump’s presidency, they constituted an attempted coup, a literal insurrection to remove an elected President Trump from office. News media, who had every reason to be skeptical of those sources and stories, ran endless (false) “breaking stories.”

And yet, the only Russian connections were the shadowy sources for British national Christopher Steele’s “dossier” of unverified and fabricated anecdotes, including phony accusations of Russian bank deals. Democrat/Clinton aligned lawyers were spinning in full “bull pucky” mode for the die-hard Trump haters.

The hypocrisy of double-standards demands attention over anti-government, primarily anti-mandates, protests here and in Canada. The moment that medical authorities and, by extension, the government, lost credibility among most Americans was the shameless flip from “anti-lockdown protests are bad super spreader events,” to “systemic racism is such a social disease that BLM protests over George Floyd’s demise are exempted from otherwise essential ‘social distancing’ rules.” More next week.

“Our greatest domestic threat: pro-government extremists—Republican leaders should vow to…commence a clean sweep of the swamp’s pro-government extremists,” (Americangreatness.com). “U.S., Canadian governments are invoking terrorist label to quell ‘threats’—Protests and misinformation are now behaviors being targeted, raising concerns of government overreach threatening civil liberties,” (John Solomon).

Note that Justin Trudeau and Canada’s government condemned 1) Cuba’s violent crackdown and jailing of free speech protesters; and 2) India’s violent crackdown on protesters in 2020. Now, Trudeau and his mouthpieces are lying about the “Freedom Convoy,” and cancelling Canada’s “Charter on Rights and Freedoms” by proclaiming an “Emergency,” the equivalent of “war” on protesters—taking their freedom, rights and bank accounts. They’re dismissing reasonable, legitimate demands to end the mandates. Police are violently assaulting peaceful men and women, and their vehicles, while no cops are injured.