And don’t tell me you find the analogy a poor one. You constantly tell us that little people like the Occupiers are just useful idiots being manipulated by shadowy forces with long term goals and limitless ambitions.

Admit it,TB. You don’t want me to agree with you on this issue. You smell blood in the water and you want it all, now. The total annihilation and humiliation of your enemies.

It’s a bit premature for that. There haven’t even been any arrests yet.

“I don’t use those words lightly, I am specifying tactics which they use to legitimize their positions by defining them and themselves in such a way that any dissent or criticism is unpatriotic.”

This entire thread is about an immensely powerful government using that power to suppress dissent and criticism against a specific Party.

I would probably label that “fascist” a lot sooner than a little old lady in a park with a “Taxed Enough Already” sign or some redneck with a snake flag.

It is unconstitutional, unAmerican and immoral, and should be prosecuted under the fullest extent of the law, even if it comes to impeaching a liberal president which I support. (Assuming, of course, he is actually guilty of that crime.)

That doesn’t mean I have to change my opinion on neofascist hypernationalist sleazebags. Oh, and don’t forget “demagogue.”

I don’t use those words lightly, I am specifying tactics which they use to legitimize their positions by defining them and themselves in such a way that any dissent or criticism is unpatriotic.

It is precisely that smug self-righteous tendency of the Right to wrap itself in the flag, and by implication, accuse anyone who disagrees with them of treason, that I find most offensive.

I also have every constitutional right to select the adjectives I find appropriate to describe those I find offensive. I don’t have the right (or for that matter, the authority) to target their tax status because I don’t like them.

Along with “sleazebag” and “hypernationalist.” Keep it in mind.

“Attack” is not a synonym for “debate” either.

It’s not the words I object to, it’s how they’ve been co-opted. It’s like some Communist hellhole calling itself the Peoples’ Democratic Republic of…etc. There’s nothing wrong with people, democracy, or Republics, but I am always suspicious of that kind of pious over-demonstrative and self-conscious patriotism.

But even if American sleazebag right wing groups cloak themselves in this kind of hyper-nationalist verbal masturbation, that does not give even the most enlightened and benign liberal statesman the right to use the power of the tax arm of the state to single them out for punishment.

If I had been an IRS official trying to prioritize my tax investigations, having only limited resources to investigate thoroughly all applicants, I would simply have put all the petitions for special tax status in a blind list, decided how many I could afford to investigate carefully, and then pulled that number out at random.

I don’t buy the IRS story. This was done to screw these people over deliberately. Imhofe got it right, (God, I thought I’d never catch myself saying that), in a flash of deliciously unconscious irony : “This is positively Nixonian”.

But my thoughts on the patriotic language stand. It’s got a name, you know? Fetishism.

“I’m with the Constitutional Freedom Party. If you’re not with me you’re against the Constitutional and don’t believe in Freedom.”

But even neo-fascist sleazebag fetishists have real rights that deserve to be protected by the Constitution.

The abusers of State authority used to illegally go after people who were demonstrably hostile to our way of life and political culture. This is not an excuse for the abuse, just a description of the state of things back then.

Now words like “patriot,” “Constitution,” and “We the People” are what put red lights on the boards of those who are running this nation.

I see this as an unsettling development.

For what it’s worth, the American Civil Liberties Union, also chimed in with a disapproving tone. “Even the appearance of playing partisan politics with the tax code is about as constitutionally troubling as it gets,” said Michael Macleod, chief of staff at the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office. “With the recent push to grant federal agencies broad new powers to mandate donor disclosure for advocacy groups on both the left and the right, there must be clear checks in place to prevent this from ever happening again.”

http://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/2013/05/10/irs-to-tea-party-were-sorry-we-targeted-your-taxes/

Seriously, I am as concerned about this as you are, this is really nasty stuff and someone needs to hang for it. At the very least, the head of the IRS (which is, by the way, an independent gov agency, not in the Cabinet chain-of-command) should be fired for incompetence for not knowing this was going on.

If she learned after-the-fact it happened and tried to cover it up, she should be severely punished. And if she had anything to do with setting it up, she needs to go to prison.

If the trail leads any higher, heads should roll there, too, Even if it should go all the way to Obama himself. This is intolerable.