Debunking the De-Bankers
The practice of refusing banking services to those with conservative ideological views puts our nation on a perilous path.
Whenever parts of the Left’s radical agenda leak out, leftists laugh about it and claim it’s all part of a right-wing conspiracy.
But just about all of them have turned out to be true — like the effort to ban gas stoves, the plan to end fossil fuels, the spread of Critical Race Theory in schools, and others.
And now, we can add “de-banking” to the list.
Conservatives and other sane people who haven’t gone off the left side of the political cliff have been worried about this for some time. Democrats won’t even admit it’s real, but de-banking is the practice of refusing basic services or canceling accounts of bank customers whose ideological viewpoints don’t align with those of the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wing of the Democrat Party.
Instead of admitting it’s true, leftists simply make a joke out of it. For example, Saturday Night Live recently mocked former President Donald Trump for coming up with the concept of de-banking, hoping the canned laughter in the background would convince viewers it was all a joke.
However, as Lathan Watts of the Alliance Defending Freedom reports, “A simple Internet search could have prevented the show from becoming the butt of its own joke by clarifying that the term is increasingly in common parlance. More important than the existence of the word and far more concerning, of course, is the actual practice of de-banking.”
There’s really nothing funny at all about de-banking.
Earlier this month, the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of Government questioned Canadian psychologist and social commentator Jordan Peterson, who’s become something of a hero on the Right for questioning the lunacy on the Left. Peterson warns that government and banks are in collusion to monitor conservative citizens and groups, which he likens to China’s mass surveillance and social credit scoring system, which coerces its citizenry to toe the Chinese Communist Party line.
Many targets of account closures are nonprofits and religious organizations. “How many Christian ministries has Bank of America canceled in the same way?” Watts wonders. “The simple answer is no one knows. Many people are often ashamed by an unexpected account cancellation, thinking they did something wrong when in reality they may have been targeted for their views. The fact that the question must be asked should shock us all.”
More troubling, the House Judiciary Committee recently obtained documents from the Treasury Department revealing that the federal government searched customer transactions after January 6, 2021, looking for “extremism indicators” by searching for terms such as “Trump,” “MAGA,” “Cabela’s,” and “Dick’s Sporting Goods.”
“This is financial surveillance at its worst,”said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan. Big government and big corporations are “working together to financially spy on American citizens.”
Viewpoint Diversity Score, an organization that monitors major companies and scores them based on their respect for freedom of speech, explains, “While many of these companies make important contributions to our economy and society, they undermine trust and the institutions of democratic self-government when they engage in censorship, enable cancel culture inside their organizations, or take divisive stands on controversial political issues.” The organization’s findings reveal that many major corporations have no respect for the diversity of political opinions.
Sadly, our government has been weaponized against its own people, as federal departments and agencies use powers in the USA Patriot Act and the Bank Secrecy Act to go far beyond looking for money laundering or terrorism and instead punish American citizens for their beliefs.
Out of fear, Americans have given their government carte blanche to track their every move. With Pandora’s box now wide open, that same government is trampling on the Constitution.
While banks should certainly be allowed to deny loans to those without the means to pay them back, closing accounts or denying services based on one’s political or religious beliefs should be banned. If we don’t stop it, we’ll move one step closer to an Orwellian society. The 2024 elections may be our last opportunity to beat back the cultural Marxists.
- Tags:
- First Amendment
- free speech