I Didn’t Want To Believe It
Francis W. Porretto

…but I no longer have the privilege of disbelief.

It’s written in the sort of bureaucratese that’s intended to flummox persons outside those halls. But it does authorize the Secretary of Defense to deploy and employ elements of the armed forces against the civilian populace. From page 13:

[3.3.2(c):] (c) Assistance in responding with assets with potential for lethality, or any situation in which it is reasonably foreseeable that providing the requested assistance may involve the use of force that is likely to result in lethal force, including death or serious bodily injury. It also includes all support to civilian law enforcement officials in situations where a confrontation between civilian law enforcement and civilian individuals or groups is reasonably anticipated. Such use of force must be in accordance with DoDD 5210.56, potentially as further restricted based on the specifics of the requested support.

This contravenes the Posse Comitatus Act. The get-out-of-jail-free card is that useful word insurrection. There is no precise definition for what constitutes an insurrection. In practice, an insurrection is in progress whenever the president says so.

But the ironies don’t end there:

Unable to articulate her own positions, let alone run on them, Kamala Harris has turned to a tried and true Democrat schtick-Donald Trump will use the military against anyone who doesn’t support him….next step, internment camps!
While speaking to a crowd in Pennsylvania, a state that sees the two candidates neck and neck in the polls, Harris warns, “He’s talking about the enemy within our country, Pennsylvania.”
“He’s talking about that he considers anyone who doesn’t support him or who will not bend to his will an enemy of our country. It’s a serious issue.”
“He is saying that he would use the military to go after them. Think about this.”

Kamala Harris just told a crowd in PA that Trump will put them in camps pic.twitter.com/i3URwv4UM3

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) October 15, 2024

     Her running mate is singing from the same sheet of music:

Tim Walz said President Trump “will use the U.S. Army against people who disagree with him,” while speaking to college students at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire. pic.twitter.com/etzQh5X3eD

— RedWave Press (@RedWave_Press) October 15, 2024

I’ve been told that Karl Marx recommended exactly this tactic: accuse the enemy of doing whatever foul things you’redoing. The Democrats have been using it nonstop. It didn’t start with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, but it seems to have peaked with them.

But the threat is real: American armed forces deployed against American citizens, in support of a criminal regime determined to retain power no matter the cost.

As I contemplate this, I find myself wondering why thousands of Venezuelans have fled here. Will they discover that they’ve leaped from the frying pan into the fire? Or does the regime intend them to become its front-line enforcers?

I suppose we’ll all know soon enough.

I was born in 1952. That makes me an old man by the standards of the Internet. That is not an achievement. As that great sage Julius Henry “Groucho” Marx has written, anyone can get old; all you have to do is live long enough. Having attained a ripe old age should not be taken to connote authority.

I’ve lived essentially my whole life in New York State, the greater part of it on Eastern Long Island. Mine is not the Long Island of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s imagination. Oh, a few rich folks still have houses in the Hamptons, but most Islanders are either middle-class working stiffs or retirees from that condition. I’m one of the latter and enjoying it immensely. But as with age, having managed to retire in comfort should not be taken to connote authority.

I do have some achievements. However, they’re all in fields that few persons are even aware of. Moreover, they’re all well past and growing more remote with each passing day. Neither those achievements nor the field in which they lie are my subjects here. Here, I write social, economic, cultural, religious, and (of course) political commentary. Achievements in one field should not be taken to connote authority in any other field.

I write fiction as well as the drivel I post here. The subjects I confront in my fiction are intellect-and-conscience-taxing matters that often differ from the ones I address here. That’s a great part of the reason my fiction readers are few in number. That doesn’t bother me: a good thing, as it will probably continue to be the case.

www.libertystorch.info