Don's Tuesday Column

         THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson   Red Bluff Daily News   2/11/2020

Fanaticism, its costs and tendrils

Part of me feels empathy, even sympathy, for those consumed by “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” an obsession with President Trump, who just plain hate his guts, and believe any report of perfidy, truth be damned. There is a place for fanaticism and unrestricted emotion, devotion and anathema—sports, where the term “fan” is shorthand for “fanatic.”

Nevertheless, the definition: “a person with an extreme and uncritical enthusiasm or zeal, as in religion or politics,” applies to excessive, overly exuberant support of something. We can live with such positive, uncritical or irrational zeal. What crosses the line and undermines civic harmony is not a recent phenomenon, as our Founding Framers, who established or “constituted” our system of self-government, knew from history.

The French Revolution demonstrated that hundreds of thousands, even millions, could be slaughtered by the unrestricted fanaticism, of all-powerful leaders and their followers, to punish perceived enemies—damn the law. To this day, the guillotine is reviled for enabling that wholesale slaughter.

The Founders went to great—and greatly debated—lengths to assure that their form of representative self-government, “a republic if you can keep it” (Ben Franklin), would be resistant to the perversions and oppressions in forms of government seen up to that point. By the time our Constitution was finalized and presented to the “United States” for approval, previous governments had been seen, analyzed and rejected: feudalism, monarchy, parliamentary and, most importantly, pure democracy.

The power of the dominant tribe is to impose its will on the less powerful, even obliteration by force. Or, where 51 percent of the people can vote to oppress the 49 percent, without protections of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (or property).” Crudely put, the kind of democracy wherein 3 men in a group of 5 can vote for demanded intimacies with the 2 women.

Having fought the Civil War, freed the slaves (thank Republican President Lincoln), and labored for decades to assure the protection of racial minorities—while enacting imperfect but ultimately peaceable treatment of Native Americans—America now finds itself at the threshold of divisiveness rarely seen in our history. It would be ideal to this writer if an independent-minded citizen could pick between two or more parties and know that that choice would, within the constitutional protection of rights, not open us up to the loss of property, commercial, political or social freedoms.

The adage—about how the government that can provide all you need can, by that same power, take it away—is worth remembering. One political side blithely proclaims its intention to abolish private health insurance and impose “Medicare for all;” or mandate every detail of personal, business, industrial and energy policies or practices under the “Green New Deal.”

Or to effectively ignore not only borders but also the deportation of those who’ve illegally entered this country, regardless of the crimes they have committed. Illegals cost every other resident $2,000 to $6,500 (net after income to the state) due to ill-conceived “sanctuary” laws. What good is the right to self-defense of one’s family if the authorities refuse to protect society and our citizens from illegal aliens free to destroy, harm, kill and usurp our collective resources.

In this context, consider the obsessive crusade by Democrats to effectively undo the 2016 election, through impeachment of President Donald J. Trump (without, of course, actually replacing him with Hillary Clinton). It has become not only an exercise of raw legal and political power (even to imprison), but also a means to marshal collective fanaticism to destroy enemies, as determined by their hat slogan or opinion.

To Democrats, Donald Trump didn’t legitimately win, or now govern, based on Constitutional representative choices over purely democratic ones. Of course, both terms of the last Republican President, George W. Bush, were rejected by many Democrats for similarly convenient reasons. The leftist thought- and political-leader class has assumed (to the Democrat electorate) an unassailable authority to pronounce not only what is to be fervently believed or rationally accepted, but also what is—by nothing other than simple assertion—true and factual.

For example: I’ve heard it asserted numerous times (recently by ABC’s authoritative Terry Moran) that the Trump campaign could not have been illegally spied on or “wiretapped” because the FISA (foreign intelligence court) warrant used against Carter Page was authorized when he was no longer a campaign staffer. Perhaps you’ve heard and believed that, to the detriment of Trump’s and his supporters’ truthfulness.

While seeming irrefutable, it is a partial truth serving a total falsehood. Yes, Page was no longer involved in the Trump campaign when the warrant was approved, but the facts of a FISA surveillance warrant are this: The FBI and any other agency covered by the warrant are permitted to investigate not only current activities and communications but also activities, contacts, calls and emails going back to and including the period when he was on Trump’s campaign.

The surveillance authority then follows the tendrils of subject Page to those with whom he interacted or called, thus giving agents a blanket permission to surveil not only his network post-campaign but also the entirety of his contacted people up to and including the candidate, and ultimately president, Donald Trump.

We now know that those warranted surveillance activities were illegally obtained, primarily by dozens of lies, misrepresentations, and omissions in at least two of the four FISA warrants—as testified to by the Inspector General, the Attorney General and the FBI Director. There will, if this nation’s justice system is worth the blood and sacrifice of our Founders and warriors, be accountability, judgements, fines and prison.

Calendar item: Doug LaMalfa “meet and greet,” Feb. 20, 4 to 7 PM, Hampton Inn & Suites, Adobe Road.