The ICE Goon Patrols, Who the Hell Are These People?

The United States is a nation of laws. we’ve always prided ourselves on that, with a few exceptions like the Ku Klux Klan.

Part of that contract with Americans is ‘representation before a jury of our peers’ and access to reliable legal council.

The phrase “a nation of laws, not of men” comes from John Adams and was meant to define a government where laws apply equally to all, where power is constrained by legal principles, and where no one—not even the president—is above the law.

Sounds like a sick joke lately, so what happened on the road we insist on calling representative government? Well, it is representative, but selective enforcement plays a part as well. In practice, laws are enforced differently depending on wealth, power, and political position. A poor man can be jailed for shoplifting. A rich man can defraud thousands and face a fine—or none at all. Police enforcement, prosecutorial discretion, and judicial outcomes vary wildly depending on who you are and who you know.

Hence the well-known statement that quotes Anatole France: “The majestic equality of the laws prohibits the rich and the poor alike from sleeping under bridges, begging in the streets and stealing bread.” Yet only one class goes to jail for it.

From Nixon to Trump, presidents skirted or outright defied legal accountability. Corporations commit environmental, financial, and labor violations with slap-on-the-wrist settlements.

When did you last see the CEO of a major (or even minor) bank go to the slammer? The Supreme Court enabled a version of legalized corruption with Citizens United, equating money with speech, and adding that to their recent crimes against society.

For their part, Congress writes laws dictated and shaped by lobbyists who, in turn, are paid by Jeff, Elon, Zuck, and the PAC that enables the Orange Man. Regulatory agencies are “captured” by the industries they’re meant to regulate. The justice system is overrun with plea bargains for the poor (who can’t afford a defense) and endless delay tactics for the wealthy, who can.

Law becomes weaponized.

One party blocks judicial nominations for years, then packs the courts when they regain power. Investigations are ignored, subpoenas defied, and norms shattered. If accountability is partisan, it ceases to be real.

So, what happened to being a nation of laws?

We still say it, we just don’t live it. It slipped away somewhere, down between the sofa-cushions, along with what was once small change and is now major fraud and corruption. There’s nothing surer, the rich get rich and the poor get poorer. In the meantime, in between time, ain’t we got fun?

But the better question now is, where did our police and enforcement professionals go, and how did we end up with masked and unidentified Nazi Goon Squads hustling the innocent into unmarked black vans, while deporting them without trial?

This is not yet Hitler’s Germany, but the time is now to ask how we came this far.

Who the hell are these people, and on whose authority are they indiscriminately rounding up, imprisoning and deporting both immigrants and American citizens without trial?

Those who peacefully protest find themselves arrested as well.

An American Gestapo is among us.