Today’s persecution testimony
by digby
They’re on a roll. This one’s from the anti-marriage equality, the National Organization for Marriage:
Dear Marriage Supporter,
The road to tyranny is paved with incidents like this.
Private Citizen Harassed for Her Political Writings
For Prof. Anne Hendershott, the phone call to her home from the IRS came out of the blue in May 2010:
“The IRS calls my house and says … ‘I just wanted to let you know that we’re going to be auditing your business’ and I said ‘My businesses?’ and he said, ‘You know the expenses you take off for writing.”
Prof. Hendershott is a sociologist and a fierce Catholic critic of what she calls “fake” Catholic, Soros-funded groups supporting pro-abortion Pres. Obama and Obamacare’s mandates on Catholic groups.
Prof. Hendershott made very little money publishing a few pieces a year for places ranging from the Wall Street Journal to the Catholic Advocate.
But the IRS demanded she come to New Haven, Connecticut without her husband, met with her, and grilled her about every check she had deposited, demanding to know irrelevant questions like what kind of groups the money came from, etc.
The chilling effect of any abuse of the IRS’ power, terrifying to millions of ordinary American taxpayers, is very real. The tactic worked:
“I haven’t written for them since the audit, because I was so scared,” she said.
This is what tyranny feels like.
Because nobody ever gets audited unless they are anti-abortion. It’s just how it works.
All the liberal cognoscenti are pooh-pooing this scandal as being much ado about nothing and assuming that it will pass. I think they are missing the point. Just as Obaaaaahmacare got the troops all riled up in 2010, the GOP sees this as having a similar effect in 2014. The right wing already believes it is an oppressed minority — they believed it even when George W. Bush was president and they held both houses of congress and a majority on the Supreme Court. This could feed their persecution complex for years. (Also too: there’s money in it.)
There will likely be huge numbers of people they can drag out with similar tales as these. After all, people get audited all the time, even wingnuts.
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