November 02, 2015

Source: Shutterstock

A Department of Justice official recently announced that radical Islamists pose less of a threat to the country than “€œanti-government and hate groups.”€ You heard right: Online trolls are a bigger danger than fanatics who chop off heads.

The feds are reacting to this rise in homespun activist coteries by creating a special counsel that will “€œcoordinate the investigation and prosecution”€ of these “€œdomestic terror groups.”€

In other words, if you disagree with the prevailing attitudes toward government and culture, you”€™re on a list.

As Kurt Andersen wrote in the Gray Lady a few years ago, the 1960s ruined everything. The one-two punch of the sexual revolution and the civil rights movement vastly altered American culture and pushed it further toward societal egalitarianism. “€œWhat has happened politically, economically, culturally and socially since the sea change of the late “€™60s isn”€™t contradictory or incongruous,”€ Andersen professed. “€œIt’s all of a piece.”€

And what piece was that? “€œSelfishness,”€ according to Andersen. “€œGoing forward, the youthful masses of every age would be permitted as never before to indulge their self-expressive and hedonistic impulses.”€

“€œIf you disagree with the prevailing attitudes toward government and culture, you”€™re on a list.”€

With same-sex marriage the law of the land (and progress soon to be made on the polygamy front), it only makes sense for the left to impose its moral relativism on the rest of the country. Progressives won the culture war; now come the spoils. That means using the government to crush anyone who thinks outside the box on race, sex, culture, and creed.

Like Canada and Great Britain before it, America is slowly marching down wind of Orwellian thoughtcrime. Soon we”€™ll see tribunals for anyone who dares to broach uncomfortable topics. The accused will lose their respected status to fully participate in society while also being cut off from earning a livelihood. Their objections will not be up for discussion; it will be silence, sharp and swift.

It’s happened already. Once-venerable publications purge unorthodox thinkers. Companies fire traditionalists from management roles. Big banks survey employees on whether or not they support sexual deviance. Mom-and-pop pizza shops receive death threats for living their faith.

This ain”€™t a conspiracy, folks. It’s as real as Justine Sacco’s tarnished life. Now Washington will start playing a role in shushing insubordinate voices.

The government’s focus on domestic rabble-rousers is nothing new. Years back, when President Obama first took office, the Department of Homeland Security warned that white-power militias were on the rise. Back in the “€™90s, the Clinton administration fretted over “€œPatriot”€ groups who took offense at the unneeded deaths of 76 Branch Davidians (including women and children).

Going back further, paranoia over dissidents switched political aisles, and you had Republican senator Joseph McCarthy harassing communists. McCarthy may have been right”€”Soviet-sympathizing communists had infiltrated the Roosevelt administration, including Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White“€”but that didn”€™t stop today’s liberals from appropriating the late senator’s intimidation tactics.

Columnists

Sign Up to Receive Our Latest Updates!