Let’s All Spy On Our Neighbors

In an article I wrote on January 16th, 2013, I said the following, “Back in the early sixties when folk music was the rage, there was a group called the Chad Mitchell Trio that recorded a song called “The John Birch Society.” It was a great song. Some of the lyrics stated:

Oh, we’re the John Birch Society, the John Birch Society

Here to save our country from a communistic plot

Join the John Birch Society holding off the Reds

We’ll use our hand and hearts and if we must we’ll use our heads

Do you want Justice Warren for your Commissar?

Do you want Mrs. Krushchev in there with the DAR?

You cannot trust your neighbor or even next of kin

If mommie is a commie then you gotta turn her in.”

I don’t necessarily agree with the slam on the John Birch Society, but unfortunately what they were singing about back then is happening today.

On January 4th, Newsbusters posted the following:

Wednesday’s edition of the PBS NewsHour featured veteran journalist Judy Woodruff cheering on an obsessive group of “citizen investigators” who have teamed up with the media’s favorite domestic surveillance organization to turn in people who entered the U.S. Capitol building on January 6, 2021: “How citizen investigators are helping the FBI track down Jan. 6 rioters.”

One suspects these unlabeled, left-wing activist “Citizen investigators” would have been condemned as troubling vigilantes by PBS if they were crowdsourcing video for Black Lives Matter rioters and thieves in 2020.

Host Amna Nawaz: The federal investigation into 2021’s January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol is the largest FBI operation in history. More than 1,200 people have been charged and over 900 convicted so far, and hundreds more charges are expected before the investigation concludes. But it has stretched the bureau’s resources, and it’s often had to rely on the work of a bipartisan group of citizen investigators who came to be known as sedition hunters….

“Sedition hunters.” The tolerant left’s lexicon certainly sounds McCarthyite these days. This is a “public broadcasting” trend. NPR touted the “sedition hunters” last year at this time.

Woodruff interviewed someone who spends her every waking hour playing detective, seemingly determined to put everyone who walked into the Capitol on January 6 in prison. She won’t give her name, or show her face, but she exposes everyone else.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. It is chilling.

We Thought It Was A Joke

During the folk music craze of the 1960’s, the Chad Mitchell Trio released a song called “The John Birch Society” which made fun of the organization and accused the society of finding Russians under every bed. I grew up in a house where that idea was accepted, and it wasn’t until much later that I learned that the John Birch Society was actually on to something.

These are some of the lyrics from the song:

[Spoken]
Do you want Justice Warren to be your Commissar?
Do you want Mrs. Khrushchev in there with the DAR?
You cannot trust your neighbors, or even next-of-kin

If mommy is a Commie then you gotta turn her in

Well, it took a few years, but here we are.

Yesterday Breitbart reported the following:

President Joe Biden’s administration announced their plans to create ways for Americans to report radicalized friends and family to the government, in an effort to fight domestic terrorism.

In a conversation with reporters, one senior administration official explained the importance of stopping politically fueled violence before it started.

“We will work to improve public awareness of federal resources to address concerning or threatening behavior before violence occurs,” the official said.

The official cited the Department of Homeland Security’s “If you see something say something” campaign to help stop radical Islamic terror as a domestic possibility.

“This involves creating contexts in which those who are family members or friends or co-workers know that there are pathways and avenues to raise concerns and seek help for those who they have perceived to be radicalizing and potentially radicalizing towards violence,” the official said.

Biden began his presidency with a stark warning in his inauguration speech about the “rise in political extremism, white supremacy, domestic terrorism that we must confront and we will defeat.” On June 1, Biden described the threat from “white supremacy” as the “most lethal threat to the homeland today.”

The Biden administration said it would also work with large technology companies on “increased information sharing” to help combat radicalization.

Increased information sharing–you mean like unmasking the phone calls of political opponents? You mean like putting people in solitary confinement because they were arrested on January 6th while dismissing the cases against people who looted and burned businesses in the name of Black Lives Matter last summer?

The article concludes:

The official added the Biden administration was taking the threat of domestic terrorism seriously and would redirect the focus of intelligence agencies on internal threats.

“We are investing many agencies of the government and resourcing them appropriately and asking our citizens to participate,” the official said. “Because, ultimately, this is really about homeland security being a responsibility of each citizen of our country to help us achieve.”

The lyrics should read, “If mommy is a conservative, you gotta turn her in.”

If Mommy Is A Commie Then You Gotta Turn Her In…

Back in the early sixties when folk music was the rage, there was a group called the Chad Mitchell Trio that recorded a song called “The John Birch Society.” It was a great song. Some of the lyrics stated:

Oh, we’re the John Birch Society, the John Birch Society

Here to save our country from a communistic plot

Join the John Birch Society holding off the Reds

We’ll use our hand and hearts and if we must we’ll use our heads

Do you want Justice Warren for your Commissar?

Do you want Mrs. Krushchev in there with the DAR?

You cannot trust your neighbor or even next of kin

If mommie is a commie then you gotta turn her in.

It was a great song, with some really good harmony. The last line illustrates the way I feel about one aspect of President Obama’s new gun control policy initiative. Any conversation I have with my lawyer is considered confidential by law. My children’s medical records are not accessible to me once my children are eighteen. There are measures taken to protect the privacy of medical patients with certain diseases. Why then are doctors being asked to rat out their patients who have guns?

The Weekly Standard posted an article today outlining the President’s gun control policy concerning the role of doctors.

The article states:

Protect the rights of health care providers to talk to their patients about gun safety: Doctors and other health care providers also need to be able to ask about firearms in their patients’ homes and safe storage of those firearms, especially if their patients show signs of certain mental illnesses or if they have a young child or mentally ill family member at home. Some have incorrectly claimed that language in the Affordable Care Act prohibits doctors from asking their patients about guns and gun safety. Medical groups also continue to fight against state laws attempting to ban doctors from asking these questions. The Administration will issue guidance clarifying that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit or otherwise regulate communication between doctors and patients, including about firearms.

The law further states that there should be no restriction on doctors and healthcare officials warning law enforcement about threats of violence. Another part of the law states, “We should never ask doctors and other health care providers to turn a blind eye to the risks posed by guns in the wrong hands.” Exactly what does that mean?

In theory this may seem like a good idea, but the intrusiveness of the law is breathtaking. The federal government is telling your doctor what to talk to you about. If you are a legal gun owner, that is no one’s business but your own. Again, how is this going to stop a disturbed person from shooting up a movie theater or a school?

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