The Wild Wild West

Fans of Seinfeld will remember one of the earlier episodes in which George decides to “slip [his boss] a mickey.” On the show, George is frustrated by the way his entitled boss acts, and thinks it would be amusing to do this as it sounds like “something people do in the movies,” and he even manages to enlist Elaine in the project. Fortunately, even though he makes the attempt, it does not work as intended, and all is forgotten. In real life, this is conspiracy and attempted murder, both of which are felonies, and he and Elaine would have spent time in jail.

Last week, in the United States, the anarchist known as Steve Bannon, openly issued a death threat against Dr. Anthony Fauci and his family. I read about it. I heard the tape on the David Pakman show. I’ve discussed it with a co-worker. I know it happened. This is a credible threat issued by a man (although his manhood is in question) who is currently out of jail appealing a conviction for contempt of court. So why has he not been arrested and put in jail?

Quite apart from the fact that running for President might have been a Russian-inspired lark for Dump, and the fact that he was the worst president in the history of history itself, what he has managed to do since 2015 is make a mockery of our political system as well as of our judicial and law enforcement systems. There was a time before Dump hurled himself onto the political scene that people who made credible threats in the hearing of others would be arrested. Convicted felons’ credible threats are made more credible by the fact that they have already been convicted of crimes. So why is the anarchist Bannon still out and about?

There is something about Dump and his Russia connections that reeks of conspiracy, threats and payoffs. If not, why would law enforcement not be pursuing this felon and imprisoning him? After all, he is a convict. And imprisoning him would serve two important purposes:  1. to keep this dangerous person off the streets, and 2. to keep his mouth closed. No more pronouncements on his show. No more unpunished threats to his listening public. The fact is that every single time he makes a threat and is not arrested, his listening base believes that doing so is penalty-free, and they copy him.

Hence, the subsequent attack on Paul Pelosi, husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Far from law enforcement being a deterrent of crime, it is no longer taken seriously and violence is becoming the norm for conflict resolution (with the exception of Dump, who still prefers the tort).

I am far from a conspiracy theorist. It has always been my perception that conspiracy theorists tend to suffer from either paranoid schizophrenia or paranoid personality disorder, and I am 100% reality-based. But I am sensing an undercurrent of something in the law enforcement community that is making me uneasy. I am not one of those people who believes in “defunding” law enforcement or doing away with them; in fact, law enforcement serves a number of important functions in this society, one of which is arresting and charging lawbreakers. But if arresting and charging a known convict with a new crime – making a credible threat against a public servant and his family – is not acted upon, we have descended into lawlessness, and America has once again become the Wild Wild West.

(c) 2022  S.Schimek / mypoliticalself