Dear Federal Agent,
With the recent confirmation that you are, indeed, keeping an eye on this thread, I thought that I may as well take a moment to speak to you. I do not mean this as an indictment or accusation against your person, but I would beseech you to hear me out.
To start, I'm curious what you were told when you were assigned to watch over us. Did they tell you we were a haven for Right-Wing extremists? That one mass shooter already came from here, so be on the lookout for another? Did they call us a hive of Neo-Nazis? Or did you simply receive your orders to monitor this thread with no further explanation? Hell, could you even be my or someone else's personal tard wrangler, and you simply stumbled upon SIGSEGV's post by happenstance?
I don't presume that I'm going to get an answer, but that highlights my real concern: I don't know what you and your agency are up to, and that scares me. I distrust authority, for I know that people do the wrong thing all the time, be it out of malice, self-interest, or simple negligence. Instead, all I have to go on is the actions of your agency and the actions of the Federal Government, and must draw my own conclusions from there, and what I see is, in a word: Evil. I see a government that continually attempts to limit our access to firearms, tacking more exceptions onto a right deemed paramount, citing safety and a desire to save lives, heedless of the fact that government have, do, and will continue to kill more than crime will ever accomplish. I see a government that gives itself the power to invade our privacy, monitor our communications, and track our locations, once again, for our own safety. I see a government that tells us to stay at home for two weeks, so that emergency facilities can be set up and the millions of people that are going to die from the second coming of the Spanish Flu can die in proper hospital facilities, and the next thing we know, nine months have gone by and we are being told that we can't have our families over for Thanksgiving or Christmas, lest the millions of deaths finally arrive. I see a government that threatens to not restore my civil rights and liberties unless I submit to mandatory body modification. I see a government that props up monopolies in the universities, media and technology industries, and in return these sectors do the things that the government cannot, controlling the spread of information and ideas into something that supports the government. I see a government that will blatantly violate the Will of the People to ensure that the first man in a century to present a real threat to it is removed.
Perhaps these things came of a deliberate plan, or perhaps they were the end result of tens of thousands of people making millions of decisions, collating into a discernible pattern. I wish to assume the latter, but as the years have gone on, the line between malice and negligence has become increasingly blurry, and decreasingly relevant. I don't say this as an indictment of America, if there is one constant to humanity, it is that given enough time, all forms of governance will trend towards tyrrany. I do say this as an indictment of the Federal and State governments, who continue seeking to oppress us, ostensibly for our own good, to preserve our lives at the expense of all that makes life worth living.
Maybe you've already moved on, content that I'm just another far-right anarchist nutjob. If not, then I sincerely thank you. Like you, I once took an oath of alliegence unto the Constitution, to defend it against enemies both foreign and domestic. Perhaps that was a red flag for you, perhaps I am one of those oathkeeper psychos. But I ask you in return, do you believe that the general path of our government is one that treats the Constitution as a guide to be followed, or as an obstacle to be overcome? When a judge makes an interpretation of the Second Amendment so far removed from both its text and intent that is may as well be a rewrite, is that following the Constitution, or replacing it? When a law enforcement officer enforces that ruling, is that following the Constitution, or ignoring it? Here is my stance: if a civil conflict should erupt between the Federal Government and a faction that seeks to restore the sovereignty of the Constitution without the layers upon layers of judicial activism, bureaucratic bullshit and flagrantly unconstitutional laws, I intend to throw in my lot with the latter. Have I just gone too far? Is Null going to wake up to another phone call about one of his members acting up? Or does that not need to be done because your agency already knows who I am? I have been very lax in my cybersecurity over the years, it would not be hard to figure out who I am. Hell, for all I know, there is already a bug on my computer, reporting this as I type it. What is to stop the FBI, CIA, NSA or DHS from creating a spyware program and ensuring that the antivirus programs make an exception for it? Do you have the faith in your peers and superiors to have the moral grounding to say "no, this is too far, security is not worth this"? Am I already on a threat list somewhere? Will I get a knock on the door the day shit kicks off, or will I be shot in my bed like Duncan Lemp, a tragic victim of a negligent discharge? I don't know, and that scares me. Let me put it this way: you don't get the option to assume that somebody is joking, if SIGSEGV had truly been serious about what he said, and you neglected to report it on the grounds that it was clearly a joke, what would have happened would have been, at least in part, your fault. Similarly, it would be negligent for me to assume that power is not being used; if your agency can do a thing, then why would it not? You may say "because it's wrong", but I would counter that you, as a law enforcement officer, should know better than most that relying on people to act in a just manner is a fool's errand.
I suppose that I will close with this: where is the point where you will draw the line? What will it take to make you say "no, this is too far, security is not worth this"?
I don't know, and that scares me.
Sincerely,
A Patriot