20 November 2019 — 1525 mst
Friday is a double senator day in Kalispell
Democratic Sen. Jon Tester will be at Flathead Valley Community College for an open to everyone town hall. It starts at noon in Room 139 of the Arts and Technology building, and is scheduled for two hours.
Republican Sen. Steve Daines will meet with local law enforcement officials at 1400 at the Flathead County Sheriff’s Posse Center to discuss efforts to reduce the use of methamphetamine. He’s bringing with him U.S. Attorney General William Barr, perhaps the nation’s worst attorney general since John Mitchell, who besmirched his office during Nixon’s administration and served 19 months in prison for conspiracy, perjury, and obstruction of justice.
The Daines-Barr-constables meeting is closed to the public. Anyone who tries to crash it probably will end up in the slammer. I’ve received no word on whether it will be picketed.
Five days ago, Barr delivered a chilling speech to the Federalist Society. Here are two excerpts:
Immediately after President Trump won election, opponents inaugurated what they called “The Resistance,” and they rallied around an explicit strategy of using every tool and maneuver available to sabotage the functioning of his Administration. Now, “resistance” is the language used to describe insurgency against rule imposed by an occupying military power. It obviously connotes that the government is not legitimate. This is a very dangerous – indeed incendiary – notion to import into the politics of a democratic republic. What it means is that, instead of viewing themselves as the “loyal opposition,” as opposing parties have done in the past, they essentially see themselves as engaged in a war to cripple, by any means necessary, a duly elected government.
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The fact of the matter is that, in waging a scorched earth, no-holds-barred war of “Resistance” against this Administration, it is the Left that is engaged in the systematic shredding of norms and the undermining of the rule of law. This highlights a basic disadvantage that conservatives have always had in contesting the political issues of the day. It was adverted to by the old, curmudgeonly Federalist, Fisher Ames, in an essay during the early years of the Republic.
In any age, the so-called progressives treat politics as their religion. Their holy mission is to use the coercive power of the State to remake man and society in their own image, according to an abstract ideal of perfection. Whatever means they use are therefore justified because, by definition, they are a virtuous people pursing a deific end. They are willing to use any means necessary to gain momentary advantage in achieving their end, regardless of collateral consequences and the systemic implications. They never ask whether the actions they take could be justified as a general rule of conduct, equally applicable to all sides.
Barr’s notion of a loyal opposition is a group that bills itself as the opposition but abdicates its function as a political counterweight by remaining completely loyal to the administration in power. In Barr’s world, there are loyal Americans who love Trump, and treasonous Americans who do not.