Posted on 07/01/2025 4:24:07 AM PDT by MtnClimber
In contemporary lexicon, few terms have been reduced to shopworn tatters more than “fascist,” typically through mindless overuse against the current democratically elected occupant of the White House.
To the degree that fascism references an economy corrupted by government collusion with private industry to enforce ideological conformity, however, efforts like “Operation Choke Point” targeting politically disfavored businesses actually merit that descriptor.
In welcome news, however, Citigroup announced this month that it would no longer deny financial services to firearms retailers, moving the nation one step closer to an end of that execrable campaign.
Americans expect government officials to protect our constitutional liberties, not to undercut them by weaponizing financial institutions against lawful but politically disfavored businesses. That’s precisely what happened, however, under Operation Choke Point.
Launched during the Obama administration under the guise of combating alleged financial fraud, Operation Choke Point saw federal bureaucrats pressure banks and payment processors to sever ties with entire categories of perfectly legal businesses. It originated at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in 2013, in conjunction with banking regulators like the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). Working together, those agencies warned banks that conducting business with certain industries could expose them to legal or reputational risk.
That ultimately resulted in a blacklisting of businesses like firearms manufacturers and retailers, payday lenders and other disfavored enterprises. Not due to wrongdoing or criminal conviction, but simply due to Obama administration animus.
Banks quickly got the message that if they wanted to escape the wrath of their federal overlords, they’d better get in line. Targeted businesses subsequently found their accounts terminated, their access to credit frozen, and their merchant services canceled.
Firearms dealers and manufacturers found themselves among the hardest-hit, their businesses crippled despite full compliance with federal and state laws.
Accordingly, among the most offensive and dangerous aspects of Operation Choke Point was its impact on the Second Amendment. The right to keep and bear arms is a natural right protected by the Constitution, not a privilege subject to summary revocation by the Obama-Biden administration. Yet through intimidation tactics, lawful gun sellers were starved of the financial service oxygen that any typical business needs to survive.
The implications of Operation Choke Point, however, extended well beyond the Second Amendment. By pressuring banks to discriminate against legal businesses it threatened a cornerstone of our market economy: the right to engage in lawful commerce.
By wielding financial regulators as cudgels to punish demonized industries, Operation Choke Point didn’t just harm the targeted business owners. It also deprived consumers of choice and injected political bias into sectors that should operate based on merit, not ideology.
Imagine if the tables were turned, and an administration used the same tactics against green energy companies, socially liberal businesses, or environmental organizations. The left-wing outcry from the likes of Bernie Sanders would be immediate — and justified.
In any event, if a business engages in fraud or illegality, the proper course is prosecution in a court of law before an impartial judge and jury. In Operation Choke Point, no charges were filed, no laws were broken, and no trials occurred.
That also violates the principle of due process under our Constitution and subverts the separation of powers, because regulators pursued policy goals and imposed penalties that Congress had not authorized and courts had not sanctioned.
After Operation Choke Point received public exposure, a 2014 report by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform revealed the disturbing breadth of the program and the heavy-handed tactics it employed. Then, in 2017, the Trump administration formally ended Operation Choke Point at the federal level.
Although that offered a welcome correction, significant damage had already occurred. Businesses had closed, jobs had been lost, and the ominous tone across industry lingered. Additionally, as the Citigroup example attests, Operation Choke Point continued despite its governmental demise.
Today, some in Congress advocate legislation to ensure that such abuses never happen again. The Fair Access to Banking Act would prohibit banks with over $100 billion in assets from refusing service to lawful businesses based on political or ideological considerations. Some states are also considering banning state agencies from doing business with companies that discriminate against firearms, energy or other industries.
Whatever the potential merits of federal or state legislative action, however, private citizens can demand greater transparency, due process, and insist that government stay in its constitutional and limited-government lane.
Operation Choke Point offers a cautionary tale. It shows how government and industry can collude to exact partisan punishment and erode rights not through legitimate prohibitions, but through bureaucratic manipulation. For that, “fascist” is not an excessively inflammatory term.
Timothy H. Lee is Senior Vice President of legal and public affairs at the center for Individual Freedom.
Imagine if the tables were turned and democRATs were targeted.
Textbook definition really.
Fascism refers to an economic and political system designed from scratch to address some important issues within its domain that arose from the fall of empires and the rise of degeneracy in Western Europe threatening family formation and hence the future of nations.
Fascism was put to death in a storm of blood and steel in the 1940s and no longer exists.
The important issues fascism was developed to engage with are, however, very much with us, including the future of nations, the expansion of credit by private parties, and the imbalance bewteen capital and labor.
Imagine this-
Imagine a country where people realize that if you give people certain powers, they will inherently use these, and even if good intentioned, it’s almost always bad.
So, we create this new nation with the idea of “limited government powers!”
We create a contract between the people and government and call it a “Constitution.”
In this Constitution we design how government works, we divide the powers between branches of government, the states and people. We create 10 rock solid rules we call the Bill of Rights which are UNALIENABLE and ensure people’s basic rights are never violated.
Can you imagine such a country?
That would be cool, huh?!
—limited government—
People just don’t get it, not even self-professed “conservatives.”
—
Now back to reality, Carters secret FISA courts, Bush’s Patriot Act, Biden’s vaccine mandates, Obama’s health care information sharing...
To this day it’s the reason why one can’t buy a firearm with paypal, for example.
“few terms have been reduced to shopworn tatters more than “fascist,””
Few? Is anything else even close?
There must be some way to punish those who dream up and implement travesties like ‘Choke Point’. People like Fauci who profit hugely from the misfortune visited upon others. While hanging is a gratifying punishment, it is a quick end and benefits no one. Life in prison means that taxpayers get to provide three hots and a cot for years and years. Probably the best punishment would be financial ruin. All assets are taken, all professional certifications revoked, etc. Leave them with no way to re-acquire wealth. Have only menial jobs available. The loss of status itself would psychologically be too much for many and they will take the easy way out.
Cutting USAID in a was is doing just that. Ironic that it’s all about corruption.
Neither visa, mastercard, nor discover will allow firearm purchases.
And Obama walks around like the free faggot muslim that he is.
Cerdit cards still allow firearm purchases.
Who in God’s name would be using a cc to buy things like that.
One cc database search and all that supposedly private database is left open.
Not according to my research. And when my husband recently purchased a firearm, visa denied the sale for no apparent reason, so I looked it up, visa, mcard and discover all decline to pay for firearms, according to the internet.
“Neither visa, mastercard, nor discover will allow firearm purchases.”
Try posting facts next time.
“Not according to my research. And when my husband recently purchased a firearm, visa denied the sale for no apparent reason, so I looked it up, visa, mcard and discover all decline to pay for firearms, according to the internet.”
How about posting a link to your fake research finding.
Well that’s another issue, if you’re referring to concerns related to merchant category code tracking. However, credit cards are still used to purchase firearms.
That site is giving out bad information, especially when websites like gunbroker.com are readily accepting credit cards for firearm purchases.
https://www.gunbroker.com/glock-43/search?keywords=glock%2043&s=f&cats=3026
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