One o the most interesting things about secular leftists is their terrible fear that people who disagree with them will use coercion or force. But actually, if you look at secular left regimes throughout history, it’s the secular leftists who love to resort to coercion and even violence to force people who disagree with them into silence or compliance or worse.

Here’s the latest article from Christopher Rufo, writing for City Journal, the journal of the center-right Manhattan Institute.

He writes:

A few years ago, Texas Children’s Hospital made no secret of its support for transgender medicine. Its doctors proudly administered puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and other medical interventions to children who self-identified as “trans.”

Then the tone shifted. In the face of public pressure, CEO Mark Wallace announced that he was shutting down the child gender clinic. But doctors at the hospital, including Richard Ogden Roberts, David Paul, and Kristy Rialon, never stopped.

The public would not have known if not for a courageous surgeon, Eithan Haim, who felt morally obligated to expose the subterfuge. He contacted me about how the hospital had lied about terminating the transgender medicine program, and that doctors were, in fact, continuing to perform sex-change procedures on children as young as 11.

The story rocketed across the world. The hospital immediately went on the defensive. Within a week, Texas legislators passed a bill confirming that transgender medical procedures for minors were illegal.

But the story also attracted attention from another powerful source: federal prosecutors. The Department of Justice has not shied from targeting political opponents of the Biden administration: former President Trump; conservative school board protesters; persons praying outside of abortion clinics; and now, doctors who dissent from transgender ideology.

On the morning in June 2023 that Haim was to graduate from Texas Children Hospital’s residency program, federal agents knocked on his door. They had identified him as a potential “leaker,” presumably through forensic examination of the hospital’s computer systems. Shortly thereafter, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tina Ansari began threatening Haim with prosecution.

Now, Ansari has made good on those threats. Earlier this week, U.S. marshals appeared at Haim’s home and summoned him to court to face an indictment on four felony counts of violating HIPAA. His initial appearance is next Monday, where he will learn more about the charges against him.

It’s important for Christians and conservatives to understand that secular leftists are not just Christians with the God removed. They have no rational foundation for free will. They have no rational foundation for objective morality. And they have no rational basis for human rights, like religious liberty. When their will to power runs up against your conscience, then anything is possible.

This story reminds me of how secular leftists in Wisconsin organized pre-dawn raids against conservatives who disagreed with them.

Pre-dawn raids in Tennessee

Here’s another case of secular leftists in government acting like domestic terrorists, this time from The Federalist:

Pennsylvania family the FBI raided last September over the father’s pro-life advocacy filed two claims today for a total of $4.35 million in damages due to the FBI’s unconstitutional, “malicious,” and “corrupt” use of “excessive force.”

Mark Houck and Ryan-Marie Houck say in their legal filings obtained by The Federalist that their seven children continue to suffer as a result of the FBI raiding — with battering rams, ballistic shields, armor, and long rifles — the home of a nonviolent pro-lifer who didn’t own any guns and whose seven children were just waking for breakfast.

The Houcks “have lost three babies from miscarriages due to the stress of the FBI’s conduct and resulting prosecution” and subsequently been diagnosed with infertility, Ryan-Marie Houck’s filing says. She says she still cries for hours and the family’s high anxiety provoked by the raid has caused them to install security cameras and rarely leave home.

In the Sept. 23, 2022 raid, “Government agents aimed rifles and handguns at Mr. Houck from his porch and from behind vehicles in his yard and driveway,” Ryan-Marie Houcks’ complaint says. “They also aimed their weapons at Mrs. Houck, who slowly walked down a staircase to approach the Houcks’ front door. Mrs. Houck approached after Mr. Houck had already walked peacefully outside with his hands up. Any bullet that missed Mr. Houck could have struck Mrs. Houck or her children, who were stirring throughout the house and had gathered behind her on the staircase. The entire family was located directly downrange.”

The sunrise raid that included approximately 20 law enforcement officers was conducted after Mark Houck’s lawyer had informed the Department of Justice he would voluntarily turn himself in if requested. Mark Houck’s complaint says his 9-year-old daughter was terrified to find two officers dressed in black carrying rifles looking into their home through a back window.

The Houcks’ lawsuits say that, as a result of the “unnecessary” raid, “The children continually come to her [Ryan-Marie] crying and suffering from nightmares.” Ryan-Marie and their five oldest children, ages 7 to 13, now must take medication “to get a few hours of sleep” each night.

“Joshua was six years old at the time he saw his father taken away at gun point,” says Ryan-Marie’s complaint. “He cried the entire time and yelled to the FBI, ‘Please don’t take him he is my best friend.’ To this day, any time someone brings up the raid or tells the story, he starts to cry as if he is reliving the day all over again. He constantly worries that he will lose his father or mother.”

Their 4-year-old has started sleepwalking, the claims say. The entire family seizes up with anxiety any time they have an unannounced visitor. Once, a friend showing up unannounced gave Ryan-Marie a panic attack, her filing says.

The accused man was found not guilty by a jury.

A Pennsylvania jury acquitted Mark Houck in January on all charges the Department of Justice brought against him. The DOJ argued Houck had violated a federal law that prohibits physically obstructing abortion facilities. Houck and his son were 100 feet away from the facility when they were accosted by a pro-abortion escort.

The laws are not being enforced impartially:

Mark Houck’s complaint notes that, except for one single recent case, the DOJ has prosecuted only pro-lifers for alleged violations of the FACE Act used against him. The law is supposed to apply both to abortion supporters and pro-lifers, but the DOJ has almost exclusively used it against pro-lifers.

Sounds like stuff that you would see with other secular leftist regimes. Stalin in the Soviet Union. Mao in China. Pretty standard secular left morality. They hate people who disagree with them.

Pre-dawn raids in Wisconsin

In Wisconsin, Democrat District Attorney John Chisolm had no problem at all using law enforcement to go after conservatives who supported Act 10. He sent armed police to conduct pre-dawn raids on people like Cindy Archer, who were advocating for the law.

National Review reported on the Chisholm police raids:

In two separate reports, National Review described these raids in detail. (The court cited our reports in its opinion.) On October 3, 2013, multiple Wisconsin conservatives were awakened by a persistent pounding on the door, their houses were illuminated by floodlights, and police — sometimes with guns drawn — poured into their homes. Once inside, the investigators turned the private residences of these innocent conservative citizens “upside down,” seeking an extraordinarily broad range of documents and information. These raids were supplemented by subpoenas that secured for investigators massive amounts of electronic information.

[…]The raid victims have suffered severe, long-term consequences as a result of these raids. Almost to a person, they say they no longer feel secure in their own homes. They report watching what they say, terrified that overt political involvement could lead their homes to be invaded again. One victim said, “I tried to create a home where the kids always feel safe. Now they know they’re not. They know men with guns can come in their house, and there’s nothing we can do.” Another victim — whose son was home alone when police arrived, guns drawn — is haunted by this chilling thought: “He could have been in the shower. They could have broken the door down. He could have been shot. Over politics.”

By the way, this Legal News Online article about his wife, Colleen Chisolm, sheds light on his motivation for using law enforcement as a weapon against conservatives.

Now a longtime [John] Chisholm subordinate reveals for the first time in this article that the district attorney may have had personal motivations for his investigation. Chisholm told him and others that Chisholm’s wife, Colleen, a teacher’s union shop steward at a school in St. Francis, which is near Milwaukee, had been repeatedly moved to tears by Walker’s anti-union policies in 2011, according to the former staff prosecutor in Chisholm’s office. Chisholm said in the presence of the former prosecutor that his wife “frequently cried when discussing the topic of the union disbanding and the effect it would have on the people involved … She took it personally.”

[…]Chisholm added… that “he felt that it was his personal duty to stop Walker from treating people like this.”

She cried, then he sent armed police to their houses. Law enforcement isn’t to protect taxpayers. Apparently, it’s to enforce secular leftist views on taxpayers.