Speaking with supporters during a "virtual" town hall recently, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) blamed rioting at the U.S. Capitol — and most everything else — on white supremacy.  She stated: "The white supremacist cause is futile, it's nihilist — it will never be realized.  The path forward for all of us is a multiracial democracy that fights for the economic and civil rights of every American."

That is stating the obvious.  Virtually no one disagrees with that sentiment.  Ocasio-Cortez said of the elusive white supremacists, "Their world will never exist.  That's why we're seeing violence right now."  (Note to Ocasio-Cortez: "Their world" hasn't existed for a great many years, and that has nothing to do with "violence right now."  Quite the opposite.  Everyone agrees that "Black Lives Matter," but if one states that "White Lives Matter," too, one is likely to be called a racist hate-monger.)

Then the ridiculous rep went completely off the rails, saying taxpayer funds should be used to "deradicalize" those whom she considers "white supremacists."  In her mind, "white supremacist" refers to anyone who supports Trump, believes in America's founding principles, thinks white lives matter, too...or disagrees with her on a wide range of political issues.  Just last week, she suggested that the entire Republican Party may be guilty of harboring dreams of white supremacy.

Occasional-Cortex then opined, "We need to double, triple or quadruple ... funding for these deradicalization programs en masse."

That seems wise.  Yes, let's use taxpayers' own money to tell roughly half of them they are scum and must be brainwashed and indoctrinated for their own good.  Hello, Third Reich.  Hello, Soviet Union/Gulag Archipelago.  This is the opposite of the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and natural law.  This violates property rights...and most every other right long held sacrosanct in this nation.  It is, in fact, the vilest form of tyranny imaginable.

Leftists are brilliant at hurling the words "extremist" and "radical" at those whose only qualification for the epithets are that they disagree with leftists, usually in that they think things are pretty good as they are.

Here are a few dictionary definitions of "radical:"

ADJECTIVE

1. (especially of change or action) relating to or affecting the fundamental nature of something.
2. advocating or based on thorough or complete political or social change; representing or supporting an extreme or progressive section of a political party.

NOUN

1. a person who advocates thorough or complete political or social reform; a member of a political party or part of a party pursuing such aims.

SYNONYMS: revolutionary, progressive, reformer, revisionist, leftist, left-winger, socialist, militant, zealot, extremist, fanatic, diehard, ultra, red.

Of whom do you think this is a more accurate description: Trump-supporters, strict constructionists, those who believe that all lives matter (up to and including those of the unborn), those who disagree with Ocasio-Cortez...or Ocasio-Cortez herself?

Progressives are always on the offensive, conservatives always on the defensive.  Progressives routinely propose the most preposterously radical plans, such as the Green New Deal, plans that will obviously be enormously detrimental to America and most of its citizens, and then blast those who dare to question them as "radical," "far-right," "extremist," "white supremacists," "haters," etc., etc., who must be "deradicalized."  It is a sad commentary on our society that they routinely get away with this.

Image: nrkbeta via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.