(Kurt Schlichter) Liberals will tell you that the IRS scandal is a “phony scandal,” apparently because using the federal government as a tool of oppression against one’s political opponents is A-OK as long as the ones using it are liberals and the ones being oppressed are conservatives.
Remember, scratch a liberal and it’ll bleed fascist brown.
So why not start off your discussion with your liberal conversationalist pal by posing that basic question:  Is it okay, or is it not okay, to use federal agencies to harass and persecute your political opponents?
Now to us, because we are decent people and real Americans, the answer is “No,” but most hardcore liberals truly believe that it’s absolutely acceptable for Barack Obama to oppress his political opponents using the federal agencies under his control.  To them, the rules and rights that protect all Americans only protect all Americans that they agree with.
In my new book, Conservative Insurgency, one of the key factors that leads to the eventual victory of conservatism is the systematic bureaucratic abuse of Americans’ rights by the Obama and Hillary Clinton administrations.  Yeah, Hillary Clinton – in my speculative history, things get a lot worse before they get better.
Now, of course, very few liberals will actually come out and say, “Why, yes, I think it’s a great idea to use federal agencies to oppress Obama’s political opponents.”  Harry Reid would, but he also thinks the border is secure, that global warming is making the unicorn extinct, and that the Koch Brothers are behind his sexual dysfunction.
Mostly, your liberal pals will shimmy and shake trying to avoid making a clear and unequivocal statement of principle.  Use that unwillingness to highlight to those listening to your conversation the most important point: liberals care only about power.  To them, rules and rights are obstacles to their dominance and are therefore meaningless.
Pressure your opponent on that point.  If people disagree with you, do you have a right to do anything you want to them?
They won’t want to say it, but the answer is “Yes.”  Liberals really do think that anything they do is justified.  This gets really unpleasant when liberals evolve to their natural collectivist endstate of either communism or fascism.
On the meat of the issue, you’ll always get the argument that, “There’s no scandal and you can’t prove anything and doing it was totally cool anyway.”
Well, the IRS’s own Inspector General found a problem.  And back before Lois Lerner started hiding behind the Fifth Amendment – hey, the liberals finally found a right that they like that’s actually in the Constitution! – she personally apologized for targeting conservatives.  Mention those little facts, along with how siccing the IRS on his enemies was one of the looming impeachment charges against Barack Milhous Nixon.
And there’s the little problem of the missing emails and other computer data.  “Oh,” you’ll hear, “Emails get deleted all the time.”  Leaving aside the inherent unlikelihood that the disposal of Lois Lerner and her co-conspirators’ data would be the one time in recorded history that government acted quickly and efficiently in the ordinary course of business, this is just stupid.
As someone who actually does trials and gathers evidence in high-stakes civil litigation in federal courts, this is what we lawyers call “crazy talk.”  If you get warned, as the IRS did, that you’re going to be involved in a civil or criminal case and you mysteriously “lose” the relevant electronic data, it’s called “spoliation of evidence,” and it’s really, really bad.  (read more)