About Those Masks...

Is law enforcement cowardly, or is intimidation the point? Either way, it's not good.

We’ve all seen them at this point: a group of ICE agents descends upon a job site or a residence and proceeds to arrest one or more brown skinned people. Sometimes they throw them to the ground, a knee in the small of the back as they put them in handcuffs. The masks might be actual balaclavas, like those worn while skiing or mountaineering, or they may be bandanas of sorts, or even T-shirts thrown over the face of the law enforcement officer.

The justification proffered by the administration is that there could be repercussions, doxing, harassment, or even threats made towards law enforcement officers participating in immigration roundups. Let’s come back to that in a minute.

This is a picture of Timothy McVeigh being perp-walked after he bombed the federal building in Oklahoma City, actually killing 168 people including over 100 federal employees.

Here is El Chapo, Mexican head of the Sinoloa Cartel, a global narcoterrorist.

John Gotti, head of the Gambino crime family.

Notice anything about the Law Enforcement surrounding these men?

What I notice is that here, with actual criminal and terrorist masterminds, each of whom could easily (in theory) have had other members of their various plots and criminal activities target arresting officers, the law enforcement is walking the criminal in with their face exposed for the world to see. As it should be.

Masked agents of the state are customary in Latin American dictatorships, or under the Khmer Rouge, or in Russia… not here.

American LEOs have, throughout our history, stood bold, proud, and unafraid of the men they are arresting for the worst crimes in our national history. So did they become cowards overnight? Or is something more sinister afoot? Like they’re being told to do it.

I don’t buy the doxxing argument, and neither should you. The masking is intentional, and its purpose is to push fear into the public’s response to government renditions of people in this country, both illegally and legally. The men in masks swooping in under the cover of darkness is a trope that some organizations, like the Ku Klux Klan, exploit because they know it terrifies. This is the uniform of vigilantes, anarchists, and fascists. It’s what Patriot Front does. It’s what the Klan does. It’s what the Nazi’s did. When those sworn to uphold the law are ordered to do it in a way specifically designed to terrify the citizenry, we’ve crossed into something much closer to what we find so revolting in other places around the world where the law, and due process, are not rights but words on paper.

The cops need to take their masks off. Are there dangerous individuals in America? Yes, but the State is more dangerous, especially when it decides intimidation is the right tool for its citizenry.

Speak out.