Making our enemies pay for doing bad things to us is a good thing, a moral thing, a necessary thing, and a hilarious thing. Remember, nobody is above the law, though when we conservatives say it, we say it without the little asterisk that leads to a footnote reading “Unless it’s either a Democrat or a former Republican the Democrats like because he hates Trump.”
The recent ransacking of the opulent house of John Bolton was a terrific example. Bolton, who’s hoping his mustache doesn’t turn state’s evidence against him, famously left the Trump administration and proceeded to badmouth it. A fixture on MSNBC (AKA MS NOW for some reason), the war-dodging warmonger did a celebratory dance when the Democrats tried to frame Donald Trump and rummaged through Melania‘s underwear drawer. Now he’s looking at an indictment and it couldn’t happen to a more tiresome guy.
Look, you don’t need to be ashamed of how satisfying it is to see the tables turned on this turncoat. There’s nothing wrong with taking pleasure in the misery of someone who richly deserves to be miserable. While crying about hypocrisy is the act of the impotent, being a hypocrite is still bad, and it’s still fun to see hypocrites suffer righteous retribution. Trump’s playing for keeps – it’s highly amusing that they’re surprised the guy they tried to bankrupt, imprison for life, and murder won’t let bygones be bygones – so this is just the beginning of the dealing of the pain.
These people make it easy for us by being corrupt. I don’t know if Bolton is guilty of something. Even the NYT concedes he’s in real trouble, and the feds had to demonstrate probable cause to a magistrate or a federal judge to get the warrant, so something is going on. Now, let’s be clear that none of this is about framing people – that’s what Democrats do. This is about applying the same rules to them as they apply to us in terms of gleefully turning law enforcement on political opponents, instead of exercising extreme discretion when considering whether to do so. It is not about making up criminal charges against our enemies. Unilateral disarmament in the face of leftist evil is suicide, but we have a red line we cannot cross. The Ninth Commandment is crystal clear: “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.” We should have no part in framing people, even though they’ve tried to frame ours. That’s not being weak. That’s obeying our Creator.
Righteous retribution isn’t about bearing false witness, and the convenient thing about our enemies is that they are so utterly corrupt. They’re not careful about being corrupt because they never had to be good at graft. They knew they weren’t going to get looked at. They knew they weren’t going to get prosecuted. They knew they were never going to get held accountable, so they didn’t bother hiding it. This has led them to be arrogant and stupid. If Bolton still has classified material in his house after six years and after already having gone to the grand jury and lucking out by being ignored by Joe Biden’s corrupted DOJ, he deserves to be locked up for felony stupidity in the first degree.
The prosecutions of Letitia James and Adam Schiff, which are totally coming, will be glorious. They’re both particularly obnoxious creatures whose existence was made possible by a rotten establishment and a craven regime media. She ran on a platform of looking to find something, anything, to use to bankrupt Donald Trump. She almost succeeded, but the courts in New York have tossed out the ridiculous money judgment, and the next appeal will likely toss out the other findings. She didn’t have a problem with identifying an opponent and then embarking upon a fishing expedition to try to find a crime where none was apparent. We are not only right to return the favor but morally obligated to do so. That’s the standard. That’s the rule. Nobody is above the law, remember?
There was a time when I was against identifying a political opponent and then seeing if we could find something he’s done that’s illegal to take him out of the picture. That was the Old Rule, and I thought it was a good one. In a free country, politics should be about the issues, not about personalities. If a politician were corrupt enough, he/she/they would make it obvious; you didn’t have to go sifting through paperwork to find something. But people like James and Schiff felt differently. They thought it was a great idea to take their political opponents out of the picture using the justice system, a necessity in their cases because their own policies are such garbage.
So, the New Rule became that we look at our opponents and see if we can find where they’ve broken the law, and if they have, we use the full weight of the government against them. I want to reiterate that I was against this New Rule. I was against all the New Rules that changed the way we conduct politics in America. I even wrote about it 10 years ago right here at Townhall. I’m particularly proud of this prescient part:
“Today in America, we have a liberal president who refuses to recognize the majority sent to Congress as a reaction to his progressive failures, and who uses extra-Constitutional means like executive orders to stifle the voice of his opponents. We have a liberal establishment on a secular jihad against people who dare place their conscience ahead of progressive dogma. And we have two different sets of laws, one for the little people and one for liberals like Lois Lerner, Al Sharpton, and Hillary Clinton, who can blatantly commit federal crimes and walk away scot-free and smirking.
"Today in America, a despised minority that is really no minority is the target of an establishment that considers this minority unworthy of respect, unworthy of rights, and unworthy of having a say in the direction of this country. It’s an establishment that has one law for itself and another for its enemies. It’s an establishment that inflicts an ever-increasing series of petty humiliations on its opponents and considers this all hilarious. That’s a recipe for disaster. You cannot expect to change the status quo for yourself and then expect those you victimize not to play by the new rules you have created. You cannot expect to be able to discard the rule of law in favor of the rule of force and have those you target not respond in kind.”
Yeah, I called it. A decade on, we’re past the “Screw Us” phase and well into the “Screw You” phase. The left protests, feebly, that what they did is totally different than what we’re doing. It’s a credit to modern conservatives that we don’t bother arguing with them because we’ve learned that facts and evidence don’t really matter. Our opponents are concerned with power, so they will do and say whatever gets them the slightest advantage at that moment, even if they were doing and saying exactly the opposite thing 15 minutes ago. And they will do it shamelessly. In fact, it’s not even clear that they understand their own hypocrisy. There’s always an open question of whether they are stupid or whether they think we are stupid enough to believe what they’re saying.
So, for the foreseeable future, we’re going to have to continue with our policy of retribution, using the tools we’ve been given by the people who forged them. Remember, righteous retribution is proper, and it is the foundation of any functioning civilization. Wrongdoing must be punished, or all you’ll have is wrongdoing. The idea that we should somehow hand-wave away what they’ve done, maybe shaking our heads and tsk tsk tsking a bit, but definitely not taking any concrete action, is ridiculous. History bears this out. If you keep taking Schiff, all you’ll ever eat is Schiff sandwiches.
I don’t understand why some conservatives came out against retribution. I was not consulted on this 180° change from what conservatism is. But I know why the bow-tied incel virgin coterie of George Will-channeling femboys charted that course. They’re afraid to fight. Most of them have never been in a fight, at least one that didn’t involve slapping, pinching, and pulling hair. Imposing retribution means conflict, and they’re much happier typing out testosterone-free white papers on how perverted weirdos dressed as women reading sexually charged stories to kindergartners is a blessing of liberty. We’ve all seen what that leads to.
Retribution is just. Wrongdoing should be punished. But there’s also the practical matter that we must show the people who support us that they’re not going to get pushed around, that we’re going to take their side, that we’re going to make anybody who screws with them pay. The Fredocons of the 2000s, whose rule sputtered out when Jeb! begged stone-faced Republicans to “Please clap,” never understood this. If you want to lead, you’ve got to convince the led that you’re going to protect them. Demanding that your followers submit to gentlemanly defeat at the hands of screaming blue-haired barbarians ain’t gonna cut it if you presume to lead real men and women instead of Beltway neuters.
Now, I would be willing to return to the Old Rules. The Old Rules make society more stable and place the emphasis on policy above personality. But we can’t unilaterally return to them. It takes two to tango, and game theory requires us to match our opponents’ moves. Both sides must agree, but both sides are not equally responsible for the present situation. There must be accountability. They changed the rules, so they’re going to pay a price if they want the Old Rules back now that they realize that the New Rules are a jagged little suppository.
First, I’m going to have to require their unequivocal and public concession that it was wrong to change the Old Rules, that the New Rules are a bad idea, and that the Old Rules should be restored. There can be no evasion of responsibility or double-talk about what happened and what needs to happen. They must accept responsibility and admit fault; otherwise, it will be too easy to backslide once they have the power to enforce the New Rules again.
But the second requirement might strike them as harsh, which is too bad. They’ve got to pay for what they did. There’s no free pass. There must be a modicum of suffering that stems from their misbehavior. It’s called accountability, and to a Democrat, that’s the same as garlic to a vampire. Too bad. No pardon. No clemency. We must enforce the New Rules long enough to make it so painful that they’ll fear the consequences should they change the rules again.
After all, we are conservatives. We believe in righteous retribution. And we must have it.
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