Elie Mystal, for The Nation: Abolish ICE or GTFO

[Celerity]

Every authoritarian regime throughout history has employed a roving band of armed thugs who operate outside the law to enforce its strongman’s will. Caesar had his Praetorian Guard, Francios Duvalier had his Tonton Macoutes, Hitler had his Gestapo. Donald Trump has ICE.

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/newsletter-abolish-ice-conway/

https://archive.ph/SCYg3



ICE is functionally a paramilitary organization, armed and empowered to harass citizens, brutalize opposition, and murder people who get in their way. Like any paramilitary apparatus, its chief aim is to strike fear in the population. It does this not only through feats of violence, false imprisonment, and kidnapping but also by repeatedly showing us it can’t be held accountable for its actions. ICE agents can seemingly do anything they want, and no one is allowed to stop them: They know it, and they want us to know it.

When we look at the historical record, the horrifying reality of these thug paramilitaries is that they do not naturally melt away when the strongman is finally deposed. They stay on. They align themselves with the next strongman, or the strongman who wants to overthrow the republican government that deposed the previous strongman. The next guy in office tends to want to keep them around anyway, because having a terrorist apparatus able to operate outside the law is something that leaders of nations consistently find useful.

These paramilitaries can be dismantled, but only when the people demand it, over and over again, and refuse to support any politicians or regimes who would keep them in place. ICE can be stopped, but we do not elect people to power who actually want to stop ICE; we tend instead to elect people who want to “fund” ICE, control it, and use it for their own purposes. And that is why we fail. ICE must be abolished, root and stem, by the next Democratic administration. As a stopgap, it must be defunded by the current collection of Democrats, should the party take power in the upcoming election.

ICE is the one true litmus test for an incoming post-Trump administration. The Democrats will likely not be inclined to do this. Again, paramilitary thugs have their uses to leaders the world over, and Democrats are traditionally afraid of looking “weak” on immigration or actually dismantling the tools of the enemy. Democrats, if they’re going to do this, must be forced to do this, by the people whose support they seek. I’ve liked to think of myself as a single-issue voter, with that issue being Supreme Court expansion. But no longer. Abolish ICE, or GTFO of my primary.

snip

[dlk]

1. Well said

The purpose of ICE is to terrorize Americans into submission.

Only criminals wear masks, not legitimate law enforcement.

[yellow dahlia]

2. Bookmarking

[La Coliniere]

3. Rec x 100