Secret Police in Portland Are the Opposite of ‘Law and Order’

Rep. Adam Schiff:

Federal officers wearing camouflage, using unmarked vans, arresting and detaining peaceful protestors, over the objections of local authorities, isn’t “law and order.”

It’s the exact opposite.

And it’s un-American and unacceptable.

My friend and lifelong Portlander Cabel Sasser:

p.s. I could’ve sworn one of the top 5 fantasies for gun owners was to bravely prevent an armed federal occupying force in unmarked vehicles and without identification from invading a city — super weird how quiet they are now.

The longstanding argument of rightwing gun nuts that they’re ready to defend liberty for all Americans in the event of some ever-imminent power grab by no-badge no-warrant “jackbooted” government forces, is quite obviously nonsense given their collective reaction — which ranges from silence to vocal support — of the Lafayette Square fiasco in Washington D.C. six weeks ago, and their continuing silence/support of what’s now happening in Portland. But more than mere hypocrisy or even fantasy, it’s projection: “attributing one’s own unacceptable urges to another”. Rightwing nuts live in constant fear of an armed fascist crackdown from the left because they assume the left would abuse such power against them in the ways they would abuse power (and now are) against the left. It’s always been obvious but now it’s transparently so.

★ Friday, 17 July 2020