Tucker Carlson: Governments go after religious people first
Tucker makes the case that there is a war against Christians happening in America on 'Tucker Carlson Tonight.'
You always imagine in your mind's eye that it's evil men who destroy society: wild-eyed, spit-flecked dictators pounding the podium to demand the annihilation of their enemies. That's the Hollywood version of it, but in real life, people like that rarely get very far. They're too obvious. It's not the cartoon demons you've got to worry about. It's weak men in positions of power. They're the most dangerous, men with no principles but the desire for self-preservation. Hollow men who live in terror of being revealed for who they really are. Men who will do anything to save themselves. That's who you should be afraid of.
And you can see that in our current moment. The weakest are the most destructive. How much of his childhood do you think Adam Kinzinger spent hanging from the wedgie nail? How many swirlies did Eric Swalwell endure in high school? How old was Adam Schiff before a girl other than his sister kissed him voluntarily? It makes you shudder to think about it. These are sad, insecure, broken men filled with envy and bitterness from their lonely childhoods. They hate you because they hate themselves. It's not their masculinity that's toxic, it's their lack of it.
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That's really the story of the Biden administration. The weakest president in history joined forces with the weakest attorney general in history to create a police state. Shocking? Well, once you understand the principle, it shouldn't really surprise you. And it's funny now to remember that the smart people in Washington once told us that Merrick Garland was a moderate. They thought that apparently because when Garland's promised Supreme Court seat didn't materialize, he cried. "Oh, he's crying," they thought. "He's so sensitive and thoughtful." But no. Merrick Garland was crying for himself because he is a self-pitying careerist with no perspective on his own life, whose job is everything to him. He is, in other words, literally the last person you would ever put in charge of the Department of Justice.
So naturally, Joe Biden did, and that turned out to be a pivotal decision. Merrick Garland has presided over the most aggressive attack on civil liberties, in particular, an attack on the practice of traditional Christianity, that any living American has seen. Now, Garland would never say that in public, of course. That would be too straightforward. His approach is feline, not canine. Every word is a weasel word. But under sustained questioning, the real Merrick Garland emerges, and it is filthy and dishonest. Here he was in the Senate yesterday, facing off against Mike Lee of Utah.
MIKE LEE: DOJ has announced charges against 34 individuals for blocking access to or vandalizing abortion clinics, and there have been over 81 reported attacks on pregnancy centers, 130 attacks on Catholic churches since the leak of the Dobbs decision, and only two individuals have been charged. So how do you explain this disparity?
MERRICK GARLAND: We apply the law equally. I will say you are quite right. There are many more prosecutions with respect to the blocking of the, of the abortion centers, but that is generally because those actions are taken with photography at the time, during the daylight, and seeing the person who did it is quite easy. Those who are attacking the pregnancy resources centers, which is a horrid thing to do, are doing this at night in the dark.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland. ((Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images))
In case you didn't follow that, we "apply the law equally." We just can't, for some reason, manage to investigate crimes that occur after dark. It's the sundown rule, well known in legal circles. It's hard to believe that Merrick Garland actually said that in a Senate hearing until you remember that, of course, he will say anything, and he does.
"We're not persecuting Christians," he'll tell you. Then, he'll send the FBI after Mark Houck. Houck is a pro-life lay preacher who was praying outside an abortion clinic when a pro-abortion extremist harassed his 12-year-old son. So as any father would, Houck shoved the man out of his son's face. That's what happened. It was not a crime. We know that because no local prosecutor pursued it. And it is certainly, without question, not a federal felony to push a lunatic out of your 12-year-old son's face. But under Merrick Garland, it is now a felony. Almost a year after that happened, Garland sent armed men to arrest Mark Houck in front of his family.
MARK HOUCK: On Sept. 23, about 6:45 in the morning, that's when those 20 so-called agents, full SWAT gear, heavily armored vests, ballistic shields, helmets, battering ram, banged on my door.
Yesterday, Josh Hawley asked Garland to explain that behavior, the utterly indefensible totalitarian behavior. And Merrick Garland, of course, in his soft-spoken way, was delighted to defend it.
JOSH HAWLEY: Let's take a look at the hardened criminals that your Justice Department sent these armed agents to go terrorize on that morning. Here they are. Here they are at mass. Here's the seven children with Mr. Houck and his wife. He has offered to turn himself in, and this is who you go to terrorize? You are the attorney general. Give me your answer. Do you think that it was objectively reasonable and they followed your guidelines in sending 20 to 30 armed agents to terrorize these people? Yes or no?
MERRICK GARLAND: The facts I have, which are those presented by the FBI, are not consistent with your description.
JOSH HAWLEY: So you think it was reasonable?
MERRICK GARLAND: I'm saying the facts are not as you describe.
JOSH HAWLEY: You use an unbelievable show of force with guns that I just note liberals usually decry. We're supposed to hate long guns and assault-style weapons. You're happy to deploy them against Catholics and innocent children.
He doesn't care. He's got no soul, obviously, and if anything, Josh Hawley's description is too narrow. It's not just Catholics that Merrick Garland has targeted with force. It's anybody who expresses a belief in biblical Christianity in public. But it is true that Catholics do seem to be getting a disproportionate share of federal law enforcement attention under Joe Biden. The FBI, as you may know, just drafted a memo claiming that radical, traditional Catholics are somehow a national security threat presumably because they tend to pray outside of abortion clinics.
In March of 2021, Paul Vaughn and 10 others were peacefully praying at an abortion clinic in Tennessee. They didn't damage any property. They hurt no one. More than a year after they dared to do that, to pray, Merrick Garland sent the FBI to terrorize Vaughn and his 11 children at their home.
BETHANY VAUGHN: No. I want to know why you were banging on my door with a gun. You're not going to tell me anything? No, you didn't. You did not try.
A woman praying in a church (AP)
You have to wonder when you see a tape like that, where are so-called Christian leaders? Where's Russell Moore and all the other breastfeeding Christians as that happens, as the U.S. government cracks down on Christianity, on prayer? Silent. Paul Vaughn and his co-conspirators now face more than a decade in prison. Meanwhile, just in case you want to know what the scale is for punishment, the Department of Justice, under Joe Biden, let half the rioters go who tried to torch a courthouse in Oregon. No charges whatsoever.
Of 99 cases that the Portland U.S. attorney brought over that courthouse siege for crimes like assaulting federal officers and civil disorder, more than 47 were dropped by DOJ. The most serious penalties for most of the defendants who pleaded guilty turned out to be community service.
So the DOJ under Merrick Garland absolves Joe Biden voters of actual terrorism while doing everything they can to terrify, humiliate and destroy people who pray in public. They're targeting specifically anyone who is religious, humiliating them in front of their children. Now, why are they doing this? Well, because on some level, all governments hate religious people because it's competition. And revolutionary governments, totalitarian governments go after religious people first. It happened in the French Revolution, happened in the Bolshevik Revolution and it's happening now. That's why parents who dare to complain about their children being sexually indoctrinated and openly sexualized are attacked, in some cases by the DOJ.
Again, you can see why. Young people raised to believe that God is in charge are much harder for the government to control as they grow up. They won't worship the government. But by contrast, if a child is raised to be a narcissist, someone who thinks, "I can change my gender," he will grow up confused, weak and reliant on the people in charge of the state. It's a very simple principle. It's why the Maoist government went after Tibetan monks. Anyone who sincerely believes in God is a threat, and that is the measure of a free country in the end. Are you allowed to believe that there's an authority higher than the people in charge of your government? That has always been the hallmark of America: religious liberty. It's in the First Amendment.
But in Canada, of course, that's all disappeared. Canada has now become an atheist, totalitarian state with amazing speed. And in Canada, it's now a crime to object to sexualized drag shows for children. You're not allowed to say a word. Late last month, a pastor in Calgary was violently thrown out of an all-ages — in other words, for children — drag queen story hour for daring to object to the sexualization of children.
Who committed the violence in that video? The guy on the ground was the pastor. Before we answer the question, some context will remind you that in Canada, showing any disloyalty at all to the Trudeau government could get your bank account frozen and your truck seized. So maybe you're not surprised to learn that that man on the ground, his name is Pastor Derek Reimer, who showed profound disrespect for Justin Trudeau's ongoing efforts to sexualize children and mutilate the genitals of children, woke up yesterday to the police banging on his door and telling him he was going to be arrested.
DEREK REIMER: Why are you showing up at my home? You guys could've called me. You could have called me.
POLICE OFFICER: We need to talk about what happened over the weekend at Seton, right?
DEREK REIMER: Why do we need to talk about it?
POLICE OFFICER: Because you're going to be arrested for it and charged. So we can deal with it this morning, or I can just put warrants out for you.
DEREK REIMER: Charged with what?
POLICE OFFICER: Mischief and causing a disturbance.
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Where are all the professional Christians? You have to wonder that again. Where's David French and Beth Moore and Tim Keller and all these people who are defending Christianity as actual Christians are being arrested for being Christians? Hmm. Not a word. Well, today, Pastor Derek Reimer confirmed that a warrant was out for his arrest for hate crimes, and he was right about that. He was not overstating it because this afternoon, he was literally arrested.
That doesn't look like the Canada you thought you knew. All Molson and sled dogs or some stormtrooper in sunglasses won't answer a question before you provide your I.D. And then the pastor sitting in a car with bars on the windows getting hauled away to jail for being thrown to the ground at drag queen story hour.
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