Authoritarian politicians wasted no time using the recent shootings in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas, to justify new infringements on liberty. Just days after the Buffalo shooting, the US House of Representatives passed a law creating new domestic terrorism offices in the FBI, the Justice Department, and the Department of Homeland Security.
This is a step toward achieving the longstanding goal of many progressives of focusing the national security state on “domestic terrorists” and “right-wing extremists.” Supporters of these efforts have used the Buffalo shooter’s mention of “replacement theory” in his “manifesto” to attack prominent conservative commentators, most notably Tucker Carlson. Carlson and others are accused of spreading the replacement conspiracy theory because they have pointed out that the Left has for years celebrated the coming “replacement” of the white majority population. The goal is to stigmatize, intimidate, and even criminalize those expressing views or facts that contradict the cultural Marxists or the Democrat party establishment.
Painting the Buffalo shooter as a conservative requires ignoring his self-description as an environmental-fascist and his disdain for “Fox News conservatism.” The mainstream media also ignores the shooter’s use of the same neo-Nazi symbol used by the Ukrainian Azov brigade. This may be because they do not want the American people to realize their tax dollars are supporting actual Nazis in Ukraine.
The push to use the police state against “right-wing extremists” is supported by many progressives who (correctly) oppose the national security state’s civil liberties abuses of Muslim and other minorities. Conversely, many conservatives who have defended all infringements on liberty done in the name of the “global war on terror,” (correctly) oppose federal crackdown on “right wing extremists.”
Both sides fail to realize that a violation of any individual’s liberty is a threat to everyone’s liberty.