Burying James Madison

So the IRS has gone full-Nixon, targeting certain individuals who sought to "peaceably assemble" (as some dead white males once called it). To paraphrase the real-world of movies: never go full-Nixon.

Hell, even Nixon never went full-Nixon: he famously talked about sending the IRS out on a political witch hunt but he never actually did it!

Particularly angering is watching the people who run these government agencies pretend it's someone else's fault. At the very top of today's power structure are people who have shamelessly waged class war, culture war, and endless political campaign. The letter and spirit of their program is that we are absolutely not equal before the law:

• In the GM bankruptcy contracts were abrogated, subsidies allocated according to political criteria.
• As health care markets were further rigged, waivers were granted for favored interests.
• With private enterprise strangled in red tape politically connected firms got regulatory relief while others got enforcement actions.
• In the effort to perpetuate racial division (and the lucrative industries that arise from it) the DOJ dropped cases that were on the verge of yielding justice -- specifically to frustrate that unwanted result
• And who ever heard of a guy named VanderSloot anyway?

The detail of each injustice has been ignored but the tone has been unmistakably set. Thus the IRS abuse is no real surprise. Those who speak for government and media have explained in many ways that liberties are to be rationed, with party-members-in-good-standing going to the head of the line. People got elected on that. It is their program. They are directly responsible for every manifestation of that project. They'll say otherwise, even as they urge on further lawlessness.

That's what got me so depressed about last fall's election: the breakdown of law had been "ratified." I think the Founders would be depressed too. If you could dig up James Madison and show him today's IRS scandal he would almost certainly say:

"You asshats let the federal government usurp all those powers and didn't expect massive corruption? We did all that work modeling a true separation of powers and you morons let it unravel! Put me back in the ground."

Don't worry, President Madison, you will stay in the ground. Apparatchiks from every corner of the permanent bureaucracy will do whatever it takes to keep you buried.