alt Hacker NewsWhy would anyone be opposed to the IRS catching tax cheats? This seems like such a bone-headed take.
In any case it’s also historically illiterate, the IRS has long been used as a political weapon, infamously against “Tea Party” activists.
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> Why would anyone be opposed to the IRS catching tax cheats? This seems like such a bone-headed take.
And ICE says they only go after illegals.
Speaking of historically illiterate...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRS_targeting_controversy
> Conservatives claimed that they were specifically targeted by the IRS, but an exhaustive report released by the Treasury Department's Inspector General in 2017 found that from 2004 to 2013, the IRS used both conservative and liberal keywords to choose targets for further scrutiny.
There's nothing wrong with catching tax cheats as long as due process is followed and the person's rights are not infringed. However, selective enforcement can be used as a weapon - never investigate people "on your side" and always investigate "enemies" even if there's no evidence of fraud. Another way to weaponise enforcement is to have a law that is almost never prosecuted and rarely followed (e.g. only using bare hands to eat chicken in Gainesville, Georgia), so then a law enforcement officer can threaten to prosecute for it unless the victim complies.
I feel like you can both want illegal aliens to get deported, but not approve of how ICE is executing protesters in the street, entering homes without warrants, and kidnapping people in unmarked vans.
Similarly, you can think it would be good to catch tax fraud, but think that it should be handled without executing folks.
> infamously against “Tea Party” activists
that claim was disproved by the way
but, it is famously how the feds managed to get Al Capone
No, they went after tax cheats and it wound up that there were a lot more people cheating taxes hiding behind conservative-sounding fronts than there were hiding behind liberal-sounding fronts.
This was spun as "targeting conservatives".
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"Why would anyone be opposed to deporting criminals" is verbatim what I've read from conservative commenters.
That isn't the issue being discussed. This is illustrating that armed, masked goons as a political weapon is a pandora's box that will get turned against everyone, regardless of status. Some people just don't care about the violence in Minnesota because it isn't happening to them.