The left has unmasked their ceaseless attempt to criminalize conservatism in the days following the Tucson tragedy.  We've covered that in multiple stories - that the left has an unquenchable desire to silence any opinions that dissent from the liberal thought stream.  Certainly this is nothing surprising that has studied the history of leftism.

And in this country consider that it is the left that pursues the Fairness Doctrine (to limit conservative speech), Hate Speech laws (to limit conservative speech), college speech codes (to limit conservative - or any - speech), and now "incendiary" speech restrictions (where "incendiary" obviously refers only to conservative speech).

In that environment, the unnoticed story from Texas takes on a most alarming face.  Former Republican leader Tom DeLay has been sentenced to prison for.well, following the law but being an effective Republican leader.

I have no personal affection for Tom DeLay.  I don't know much about him personally.  But I know enough about this incident to be very concerned about what it says regarding the direction of our politics.  National Review's editors summed it up nicely:

This was a phony prosecution from the very beginning. It took (corrupt and infamous prosecutor Ronnie) Earle three separate attempts before he could get a case that a grand jury or a judge would not throw out. Then he got DeLay indicted for behavior that was perfectly legitimate under campaign-finance laws, identical to the kind of fundraising done by practically every campaign committee and candidate in the country.

 

DeLay solicited $155,000 in contributions for a political-action committee he headed and contributed $190,000 to the Republican National State Election Committee (RNSEC); the RNSEC then contributed $877,000 to 42 state and local candidates in Texas in the final two months of the 2002 campaign, including seven recommended by DeLay. For this routine act of campaign financing, DeLay was charged with and convicted of criminal money laundering, a crime defined by knowingly using the proceeds of criminal activity. Since these contributions were all legal, the most basic element of this supposed crime could not be met; nonetheless, Earle drove the case forward in one of the most outrageous prosecutorial abuses of criminal law that we have seen in decades. Meanwhile Earle indicted a number of companies, including Sears, that had made perfectly legal contributions to DeLay's PAC, and then sold those companies dismissals in exchange for donations to one of his favorite charities.

In other words, the one who should really be on trial is Ronnie Earle.  But because of the relentless and ceaseless effort to criminalize conservatism, Tom DeLay will quite possibly be going to prison.  This is a chilling development that shouldn't be overlooked.  The repression of political opposition is not a hallmark of free societies.  It is, however, the hallmark of leftist societies.