Much has been made of the relationship between musician Taylor Swift and football tight end Travis Kelce in recent months. Theories vary, but the basic storyline is that Swift is some form of government asset whose purpose, through her relationship with Travis Kelce, is to persuade football fans to vote for Joe Biden in the upcoming presidential election. Jesse Watters reported elements of this theory on Fox News, while others seemingly have their origin with internet personalities.
I have no idea if any of the theories are true, but the mere phenomenon takes me back to where all of this began in the first place: Russiagate. Russiagate was our initiation into this confused and paranoid epoch, and Russiagate ought to be the context in which any of the more recent theories are examined.
So, when left-wing types decry the state of our current politics, it should be pointed out that, while correlation doesn’t prove causation, ever since the spy-novel-type claim that Donald Trump was a Russian agent, there has been one paranoid theory after another, each with varying levels of credibility. In fact, one might argue that, following Russiagate, we’re living in the Era of the Conspiracy Theory.
A potential remedy for this madness is through the legislative process. For there are laws — several, actually —that many claim are allowing many of the governmental acts perpetuating the paranoia.
The first is the Patriot Act. Arguably, it is the Patriot Act, more than any other legislation that has brought us into the era of the Surveillance State, a precursor to the Era of the Conspiracy Theory.
Designed to fight terrorism in the days following 9-11, the laws stemming from this act are being abused. Many of them make it legal to do all sorts of activities, such as monitoring and surveillance, which, up until 9-11, were deemed, not only illegal but un-American. Since much of the language in these laws only gives the government the right to act if the person is deemed a threat to national security, the door has been opened for political parties to brand their opponents as threats, the way the Biden administration has done. In fact, the Treasury Department recently admitted to monitoring the financial transactions of Trump supporters.
The Hatch Act should also be examined. Although this legislation was designed to prohibit certain federal employees from engaging in political activity, it is failing to live up to its purpose. This is seen through the more than 50 former intelligence officials who signed a document claiming that the Hunter Biden laptop was a piece of Russian disinformation, a gross lie seemingly planted in the middle of an election whose purpose was to influence the outcome of the latter. There are other abuses in this regard beyond Hunter’s laptop; in fact, there are too many to mention here.
Finally, the Smith-Mundt Act should be thoroughly scrutinized. Originally crafted to disallow U.S. citizens to be propagandized by the U.S. government, the act was “modernized” by Barack Obama, a move that critics say has opened the door for the government to outright lie to the American people.
“Dems have perfected the art of propaganda,” a recent “Revolver” article said, “so much so that their propaganda machine operates under the guise of being the arbiters of truth, with their ‘disinformation campaigns’ and ‘saving democracy’ pledges and whatnot, and we have Obama to thank for that.”
Now is the time for all decent and fair-minded citizens to become, perhaps first and foremost, Civil Libertarians. The Patriot Act ought to be repealed, or at least stripped down to something similar to what the laws were pre-9-11. The Hatch Act should be strengthened, as should the Smith-Mundt Act, whose “modernization,” wrought by Obama, should be repealed.
The Taylor Swift conspiracy theories were brought on by the average voter’s not unwarranted skepticism and paranoia of and toward the federal government. The Surveillance State has given way to the Era of the Conspiracy Theory. We can begin undoing this Orwellian nightmare by focusing on federal legislative reform.
Along with his father, Allen Keller runs a lumber business in Stevenson, Alabama. He has a Ph.D. in Creative Writing from Florida State University and an MBA from University of Virginia. He can be reached for comment at allen@kellerlumber.net.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News.
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