“Dangerous Rhetoric” is Dangerous Rhetoric

Claiming that there is such a thing as “dangerous rhetoric” is itself dangerous rhetoric. The concept that there is such a thing as “dangerous rhetoric” is always an attack on freedom of speech.

The Guardian:

A handful of Republican governors have criticized the “outrageous rhetoric” of their party colleagues in the US Congress, who have accused federal law enforcement officers of a politicized attack on former president Donald Trump after executing a court-approved search warrant on his Florida home this week.

Maryland governor Larry Hogan, a Republican moderate, described attacks by party members as both “absurd” and “dangerous”, after a week in which certain Republicans have compared the FBI to the Gestapo and fundraised off the slogan: “Defund the FBI”.

Speaking to ABC News on Sunday, Hogan described the comparisons of the FBI to Nazi Germany’s secret police, made by Florida senator Rick Scott, as “very concerning to me, it’s outrageous rhetoric”.

He added: “It’s absurd and, you know, it’s dangerous,” especially after an armed man enraged by the raid was killed in Ohio when he tried to invade an FBI office. “There are threats all over the place and losing faith in our federal law enforcement officers and our justice system is a really serious problem for the country.”

Claiming that it is “dangerous” to criticize the FBI is just a total outrage after these same people running the government supported a movement to “defund the police” in response to the George Floyd hoax.

The George Floyd thing was a total hoax, and even if it hadn’t been, the narrative was completely insane. These people claimed that black people only commit crimes because police exist, and the solution is to get rid of police.

I am not a big fan of the police in general, but at least local police used to get drug addicts off the streets and protect people from black violence. They did serve some practical purpose. Conversely, the FBI does not serve any practical purpose at all, and aside from spying on everyone and making all kinds of outrageous threats against individuals, their main agenda seems to be manipulating mentally ill people into doing terrorism.

These people are saying that it is morally wrong in principle to think that federal law enforcement could ever do something bad. We have to have “faith” in them, as if they are a deity, and believe that the threat is not the unchecked political police with a blank check to use espionage and violence for any purpose they wish, but people asking questions about that arrangement.