Progressive Senate bill threatens to nationalize the police

Some rabid, statist liberals in the Senate introduced one of the most unbelievably sly and insidious measures of centralized federal government power I’ve seen in a while. Of course, we all know how liberals and progressives always support more state power and more central planning and control whenever possible, even when they speak against oppression and even against local police power.

In fact, especially when they speak against local police power. They then covertly leverage the emotional support of conservatives for law enforcement and law and order in order to bind it to the strings of federal regulation and power.

We all know this back door tactic: highlight some particular social or political ill; pull on the emotional strings of the need for law and order; provide federal funds; give special federal protections; make federal promises; then before you know it, federal regulation is federal control.

This is exactly the pattern begun by this proposal in the Senate. It is called “Back the Blue,” and it is a dangerous step in a federal takeover of local police. Leveraging the emotional shock of attacks and murders of local policemen, these Senators proposed a bill to make it a federal crime to kill police officers in districts that receive federal funding (which is most of them).

Do you see the back door here? Do you see the opening? Do you see the emotional issue being leveraged? Do you see what such a step will lead to? In fact, we’re already deeply into federal strings attached with things like sharing of federal revenue from drug interdiction efforts and asset forfeiture. Local police are already deeply intertwined with all kinds of federal grants, programs, funds, and equipment. This bill adds yet another step—a significant one—of federal protection to local police, effectively bringing all covered agencies (most of them) under the wing of the federal government. It’s simply one more step toward the nationalization of police.

We’ve seen this movie before. What ObamaCare is to private insurance, and what Common Core is to education, “Back the Blue” is to local police. Indeed, what the Dick Act of 1903 was to the total nationalization of state militias (“national guards”), so this bill is to the nationalization of local police.

At least one state-level representative in Texas has spoken out against the dangers of this unnecessary bill, arguing that “Back the Blue” will “open the door to federal overreach.” He’s not only right, the danger of a police state is far greater than he states.

The worst part of all of this is what I said in the opening sentences above. The rabid statists trying to implement this federal takeover are not the liberal progressives you would normally have in mind. Yes, it was originally people like Obama and Rahm Emanuel who talked about having a nationalized civilian police force to rival the size and strength of the military. Scary, Soviet stuff, that!

But no, this is not the normal cast of open progressives. No. The people who introduced this Orwellian step toward Soviet-style police are:

John Cornyn (R-TX) and co-sponsor . . . wait for it. . . .

Ted Cruz (R-TX)

Among several other Republicans who allegedly stand to fight against federal government overreach.

Indeed, my own Senator from Georgia, David Perdue, has spoken out against Common Core as “overreaching” and “should be abandoned,” yet he co-sponsors this bill which would strengthen the exact same type of overreach between the feds and local police. It doesn’t make sense.

Among this list, however, it is the alleged expert on the Constitution and champion of states’ rights (when it’s convenient) Ted Cruz that really takes the cake here. This guy just got done trotting all over the U.S. trying to become president while proclaiming himself a “passionate fighter for limited government.” I always suspected him, despite the fact that he deceived millions of Christians into believing it. I warned people that his rhetoric on taxes was misleading, his plan to help homeschoolers would lead to federal regulation for them, and that from day one, he was wed to the establishment. The co-sponsorship of a bill that would further federalize police fits the mold perfectly.

This does not mean the alternatives we’re presented are any better. Just this week, Trump called for the expansion of the “proactive” police measure called “stop-and-frisk,” was which was widely abused under the color of suspecting particular individuals looking “suspicious,” and resulted in the harassment of hundreds of thousands of innocent folk—mostly blacks—in his home city of New York before some federal judges were able to dig deep into the dustbin of their law school education to remember this thing called the Constitution. Of course, any officer allowing his personal judgment to fudge, even just a little bit, what he considers to be “suspicious” or “danger,” and by that standard stopping and frisking an individual, is actually committing and assault on that person. But the color of law, and the way it is left to individual officers’ discretion to justify it, makes it perfectly legal. This is a dangerous precedent, and Trump wants to expand it.

In the end we see that virtually no matter who the great Conservative candidate would have been (perhaps excepting Rand), we would still be facing the prospect of a growing police State. Except that one of those self-vaunted champions of limited government is still in the Senate, and is co-sponsoring a bill that will further nationalize police. Perhaps if the stars of statism align just right, we’ll see the Cruz-backed bill pass and President “Stop-and-Frisk” sign it into law. There will be peace and harmony in the GOP at last. Maybe Cruz would finally come out and fully endorse Trump after all.

The real problem is, of course, the constituencies of these power-drunk maniacs have such emotional support for law enforcement that they will set aside every principle of limited government, localism, and true federalism, and rush headlong into further centralized power and money to support their pet issue. They’ll build a police state while calling it America. They’ll enslave us all while singing the land of the free.

That’s why people like Cruz and Trump speak freedom and enact tyranny. They are the perfect representatives of their people. Supply and demand is dangerous when the demand side is immoral.

What to do? All I can say, again, is read Restoring America One County at a Time. Then stick to your principles, and kick out the politicians who don’t, no matter how Christian they talk.