Plunging into an authoritarian state

Our continuing descent into a police state seems to be picking up steam with no end in sight. Let me take that back: There is an end in sight, wherein every last shred of personal freedom is expunged in favor of the authoritarian state.

Previously unheard of examples of invasions of personal life are becoming routine. Dozens of armed agents raiding a former president’s house? Why not! Government working hand in glove with Big Tech to censor and de-platform folks whose views do not reflect current government policy? Why not!

The latest egregious example — as I write this — is the seizure of Mike Lindell’s cellphone. In case you’ve been away for a decade or so, Lindell is the “My Pillow” guy. Lindell is also a vocal supporter of Donald Trump and — horror of horrors — does not think that the 2020 election was as pure as the driven snow. Obviously, such a person is a semifascist, a potential white terrorist and a grave threat to our democracy. How grave a threat, you ask? Well, he wants to set elections back a century to when we all voted in person and used paper ballots. Maybe not quite a century, since I voted in person with paper ballots back in the ’60s, but still.

Why does he advocate for this? Because it makes election fraud much more difficult. Not impossible, mind you, since stuffing the ballot box has a long and disgraceful history, but paper leaves an audit trail. However, since voting in person — and on Election Day — requires more effort, this means that vast swathes of minorities will be disenfranchised and is another foul plot to assert white privilege, such as voter ID laws. (Parenthetically, I’ve always wondered at the low opinion progressives have of minorities who they allegedly champion.)

So what’s on his phone? Apparently calls he has made in furtherance of his attack on democracy, which is now  deemed a crime.

The manner in which the phone was seized is also interesting. The FBI could have come to his home, knocked on the door and requested his phone with no muss or fuss. Instead they followed him as he came back from a vacation and cornered him when he pulled up to a Hardee’s drive-thru window. Three cars trapped him in a most public manner. The FBI could have come to Mar-a-Lago with a couple of agents and collected the documents in dispute. After all, they knew where they were. Has not Merrick Garland himself — head of the Justice Department — said they wish to accomplish searches and seizures in the least intrusive way?

Intrusive searches, arrests and other confrontations, however, are part of the punishment for the crimes alleged.  Intimidation is most helpful in warning others away from the ideas and behaviors no longer acceptable to the powers that be. Even if eventually no crime can be proven in court, the expense, time, incarceration while waiting for trial and other forms of intimidation and harassment will have accomplished their purpose. On the other hand, real crimes against property and persons in many jurisdictions have the perpetrators back on the street promptly without bail.

For a long time now progressives, to whatever extent they can seize power, use it to dictate every aspect of life. They know much better than you how your life is to be lived and take a dim view of anyone who questions their actions or their motives. Take time, right after you read this, and reflect on anything in your life that the authorities do not, in some fashion, control or at least heavily influence. I look around me. The house I live in, the car I drive, the food I eat, the clothes I wear, the health system my aging bones require more often, are all regulated from top to bottom.

We shall vote shortly. Ask yourself if more progressivism is really what you want in your life.

Meanwhile, I’m glad I never removed that tag from my mattress.

Charles Milliken is a professor emeritus after 22 years of teaching economics and related subjects at Siena Heights University. He can be reached at milliken.charles@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Charles Milliken: Plunging into an authoritarian state