Jack-booted thugs

[Bootstrap]

I have lived through several periods where government agents were portrayed as jack-booted thugs whose goal was to make life difficult for good citizens.

I don’t think the goal of “jack-booted thugs” is mainly to make life difficult for ordinary citizens. That’s a result, not the goal.

The real goal is power. Often it isn’t about keeping order at all — it’s about showing how much force they can use and get away with. Sometimes they even create chaos on purpose, because fear and confusion make people easier to control.

What looks like cruelty or disorder from the outside feels like strength and dominance from the inside. Intimidation isn’t a mistake. It’s the point.

We use the phrase “jack-booted thugs” for a reason. We know that "jack-booted thugs" should alarm us. So how do we know them when we see them? Here's my first attempt to put this in words:

You’re probably looking at jack-booted thuggery when:

• Power is used to intimidate, not to protect.
• Fear is the goal, not a side effect.
• Force is used to show who’s in charge, not because it’s necessary.
• Rules are enforced selectively — friends are protected, critics are punished.
• Chaos is often created on purpose, then used as an excuse for more force.
• People are treated as enemies, not as neighbors or citizens.
• There is little or no accountability for abuse.
• The display of power matters more than the result.

Mike, is that the kind of thing you had in mind when you used the phrase? Is there a more accurate way to think of this?

[JohnH]

Boot,

Can you be honest about whether your intent with this thread actually belongs in Politics or Current Events?

But going on a historical topic, Woodrow Wilson and FDR are good examples of jack-booted thugs:

- Rammed through an income tax with promises it would only tax the rich. Now it taxes everyone from their first dollar. The amendment was never properly ratified but Wilson just basically forced it through. Jack booted thugs show up to seize you from your home if you don’t pay income tax.
- Created the Federal Reserve, ostensibly to create economic stability. 6 years later the Depression happened. We are still stuck with the Federal Reserve today.
- The Depression saw many farmers lose all their savings in the banks thanks to the bank runs, yet the loans to the same banks remained due. Many farmers lost everything to this deliberate financial engineering. Jack-booted thugs would show up to force farmers off their farms. (See Richard Werner’s excellent talks on this topic.)
- FDR vastly expanded the federal government and had a rubber-stamp Supreme Court. Part of FDR’s legacy was forcing people not to grow crops: a farmer wanted to grow wheat to feed his own pigs. FDR stopped him. Jack-booted thugs showed up to force farmers not to farm and actually forced him to destroy his wheat he had grown. (See Wickard v. Filburn.)

You’re right: it is indeed about power. And we can look at certain Presidents that felt they had unlimited power.

Wilson ran on a platform of staying out of the war. Then he got us into the war and drafted millions of American boys to go engage in a pointless, fruitless war. Christians who refused to fight were thrown into prison.

FDR did something even worse: he ordered the creation of the atom bomb so that America could utterly crush its enemies (after also getting us into World War II). “Jack booted thugs” like nothing better than the threat of mass incineration to keep people in line, and sometimes just do it anyway to prove they can.

I could go on. LBJ decided to get us entangled in the Vietnam War which killed tens of thousands of American boys - and millions of Vietnamese. When he wasn’t expanding ruinous wars, he was busy greatly expanding the federal government with his “Great Society”: creating the welfare state that is widely credited with destroying two-parent, married, American families. Jack-booted thugs would show up at a welfare recipient’s home to make sure the mother and father weren’t in the same. Single mothers got paid; married mothers didn’t. Likewise, jack booted thugs showed up at the rest of our houses to demand money to pay for it.

Maybe you’re part of an odd religious cult. Jack booted thugs will show up to light the building you are in on fire with all the women and children inside. (Waco)

Maybe you have a friend who is a federal informant who keeps demanding you make him an illegal shotgun. You refuse. Jack booted thugs show up and shoot your wife whilst she has your baby in her arms. (Randy Weaver)

Shall we go on? Or shall we simply accept what Jesus said in relation to governments with armies of jack booted thugs? We serve a far more powerful king who offers them both repentance and forgiveness.

And our king is not only just, and does not employ jack booted thugs - but any who reject him will find themselves justly condemned and cast into the lake of fire.

[Bootstrap]

But going on a historical topic, Woodrow Wilson and FDR are good examples of jack-booted thugs:

How would you define that term? You seem to be using a different definition - can you say what it is?

[JohnH]

But going on a historical topic, Woodrow Wilson and FDR are good examples of jack-booted thugs:

How would you define that term? You seem to be using a different definition - can you say what it is?

If you read my post, I gave examples:

- burning women and children alive by deliberately setting a building they are in on fire
- lighting thousands of Japanese people on fire
- shooting a woman holding a baby because you’re mad her husband won’t break the law when a federal informant tries to get him to do so
- seizing farms from farmers who can’t pay their debts after you arrange the economy so their savings vanish
- destroying wheat that could be fed to hungry pigs - or people - during the depression
- drafting people to fight in wwi
- drafting people to fight in wwii
- drafting people to fight in Vietnam
- barging into a family’s home to make sure the father doesn’t live there

[ohio jones]

- Rammed through an income tax with promises it would only tax the rich. Now it taxes everyone from their first dollar. The amendment was never properly ratified but Wilson just basically forced it through. Jack booted thugs show up to seize you from your home if you don’t pay income tax.

From the 16,100th dollar per taxpayer, this year.

Presidents can use their persuasive powers to influence the adoption of constitutional amendments, but the power to adopt them rests with Congress and the states. Arguments that the states did not properly ratify the 16th amendment in 1913 were not even raised until the 1970s. Those arguments are not worthy of serious consideration and put their proponents in the questionable company of tax evaders and frauds.

[Bootstrap]

- Rammed through an income tax with promises it would only tax the rich. Now it taxes everyone from their first dollar. The amendment was never properly ratified but Wilson just basically forced it through. Jack booted thugs show up to seize you from your home if you don’t pay income tax.

From the 16,100th dollar per taxpayer, this year.

Presidents can use their persuasive powers to influence the adoption of constitutional amendments, but the power to adopt them rests with Congress and the states. Arguments that the states did not properly ratify the 16th amendment in 1913 were not even raised until the 1970s. Those arguments are not worthy of serious consideration and put their proponents in the questionable company of tax evaders and frauds.

So to you, what is the difference between this and jack-booted thugs? How would we know if we have a jack-booted thugs problem?

[R7ehr]

- Rammed through an income tax with promises it would only tax the rich. Now it taxes everyone from their first dollar. The amendment was never properly ratified but Wilson just basically forced it through. Jack booted thugs show up to seize you from your home if you don’t pay income tax.

From the 16,100th dollar per taxpayer, this year.

Presidents can use their persuasive powers to influence the adoption of constitutional amendments, but the power to adopt them rests with Congress and the states. Arguments that the states did not properly ratify the 16th amendment in 1913 were not even raised until the 1970s. Those arguments are not worthy of serious consideration and put their proponents in the questionable company of tax evaders and frauds.

So to you, what is the difference between this and jack-booted thugs? How would we know if we have a jack-booted thugs problem?

By looking at their feet? Are they wearing jack boots? Or are their feet beautiful?
How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!

[JohnH]

- Rammed through an income tax with promises it would only tax the rich. Now it taxes everyone from their first dollar. The amendment was never properly ratified but Wilson just basically forced it through. Jack booted thugs show up to seize you from your home if you don’t pay income tax.

From the 16,100th dollar per taxpayer, this year.

Unless one is Amish, it is more like from one's 400th dollar.



And, of course, for people who are employed (which is the vast majority of people) it starts at once they have earned their first 7¢, as do employers who also have to pay tax merely because they employ someone.

Presidents can use their persuasive powers to influence the adoption of constitutional amendments, but the power to adopt them rests with Congress and the states. Arguments that the states did not properly ratify the 16th amendment in 1913 were not even raised until the 1970s. Those arguments are not worthy of serious consideration and put their proponents in the questionable company of tax evaders and frauds.

I am simply highlighting how Woodrow Wilson tended to play fast and loose with the law, to the point his pivotal work (before he got us into World War I) being the income tax constitutional amendment which was sloppily ratified.

Since it was originally promised to never be more than 1% other than at the very highest brackets, and only applied to the top 1% of wealthy earners in America, there wasn't too much concern about it back then.

[Bootstrap]

Unless one is Amish, it is more like from one's 400th dollar.

I'm confused. What definition are you using for jack-booted?

To me, high taxes are not the same thing as, say, disappearing people without any due process, without even telling their relatives where they are, then holding them without access to a lawyer.

Jackboots are also military gear, so I think military-style forces are an important part of the definition. When people first started using “jack-booted” as a political insult, they were almost always thinking of German and Russian troops. The knee-high leather boots worn by the Wehrmacht, SS, and Gestapo, Red Army troops and NKVD secret police.

I think it implies things like paramilitary troops, mass arrests, disappearances, denial of basic rights and due process. Ruling by threats, intimidation, and power, not by the consent of the governed, without accountability, without respect for the rule of law.

[ohio jones]

- Rammed through an income tax with promises it would only tax the rich. Now it taxes everyone from their first dollar. The amendment was never properly ratified but Wilson just basically forced it through. Jack booted thugs show up to seize you from your home if you don’t pay income tax.

From the 16,100th dollar per taxpayer, this year.

Unless one is Amish, it is more like from one's 400th dollar.

[Schedule SE]

And, of course, for people who are employed (which is the vast majority of people) it starts at once they have earned their first 7¢, as do employers who also have to pay tax merely because they employ someone.

Presidents can use their persuasive powers to influence the adoption of constitutional amendments, but the power to adopt them rests with Congress and the states. Arguments that the states did not properly ratify the 16th amendment in 1913 were not even raised until the 1970s. Those arguments are not worthy of serious consideration and put their proponents in the questionable company of tax evaders and frauds.

I am simply highlighting how Woodrow Wilson tended to play fast and loose with the law, to the point his pivotal work (before he got us into World War I) being the income tax constitutional amendment which was sloppily ratified.

Since it was originally promised to never be more than 1% other than at the very highest brackets, and only applied to the top 1% of wealthy earners in America, there wasn't too much concern about it back then.

[1913 Income Tax Form]

FICA and Medicare, as assessed through the self employment tax and employer withholding, is a tax on a form of income, but they are not the income tax instituted through the 16th amendment. FDR and LBJ get the credit for that. I thought Amish were generally SS-exempt, so Schedule SE would not apply.