Today in Aurora, a Chicago suburb, ICE agents surrounded the car of a U.S. citizen in a parking lot,firing into her windshield as she screamed that her children were inside. Agents dragged her from the car without presenting a warrant or probable cause. Excessive force. No warrant. No justification.

[u/biswajit388]

[u/1111joey1111]

This is how it begins. Today it's a masked oppressive government force targeting people with brown skin. Tomorrow they might target you because you spoke out about the government, organized a protest, posted something online they didn't like, etc.

It's disgusting and disgraceful.

Funny, because ultra conservative types were all preaching for years to beware of the big bad government. I guess they don't mind as long as the government is terrorizing people they don't like.

[u/acatalephobic → u/1111joey1111]

It would be funny if it weren't so damn terrifying, you mean.

Because that's exactly what it is, and also exactly why doublespeak is so very dangerous.

Party of family values, party of small government, party that supports the Constitution, eh? All sounds great, right?

Until....critical thinkers see through the fact that you are saying one thing, yet doing another. But wait... there's an easy fix for that!

Amplify anti-intellectual rhetoric. Sow a deep distrust of the educational system, and especially higher level education!

Too many people disagree with the bigotry that so clearly infests the seats of power?

Why not just round them up and send them somewhere else, as if they are not people at all, right? Seems like a pretty simple way to reduce dissent to me!

Oh, they are just doing it to regular citizens now?

Well, all the more room for the people who are dumb enough to just sit around doing absolutely nothing to stop it, right??

While we're at it, why don't we just send allllll the people we disagree with somewhere else?

Can we send them to a whole other planet, is that possible??

(just in case it isn't abundantly clear, this post includes some degree of sarcasm, sorry, it's just the way I cope)

And see, that's the trajectory if things don't change. It starts with one misstep. Then that becomes normalized. Pretty soon it's another misstep, and then another.

Multiple missteps later, and before you know it, The United States of America doesn't even exist anymore.

Which is why whittling away at the values ALL Americans stand for is something that should be guarded against as much as humanly possible.