FBI’s descent into evil shows pensions corrupt government workers

An FBI agent reveals to Dan Bongino something I’ve been worried about for years, and that’s the corrupting influence of pensions.

In 2016, when it was already becoming clear that the FBI had become a corrupt partisan attack dog, I wrote one of my personal favorite posts: “Middle class suicide; or he who pays the piper calls the tune.”

Although it’s a long post (yes, I’m verbose), the point it makes is simple: Middle-class people have financial commitments that leave them feeling chained to jobs and, therefore, willing to overlook or even commit morally or legally wrong conduct:

[I] doubt very strongly that Hillary Clinton will be indicted. I know that the rumor mill keeps saying that FBI agents, from Comey on down, will quit if Loretta Lynch lets Hillary walk. Some of the FBI agents whispering this to friendly reporters may even believe that they’ll quit.

Mostly, though, this is a bluff.  Why?  Because the people talking about quitting are middle-class people with mortgages, and school fees, and insurance, and all the other expenses that keep us in the middle-class living up to our own expectations. If Hillary really does walk, 99% of those “I’ll quit if she’s not indicted” agents will manage, very quickly and easily, to convince themselves to stay in their jobs, and get their salaries and pensions.

That last word — pensions — is something that’s really come to the fore in my mind. Why? Because you don’t get it when you earn it. Instead, if you work in the federal government, you have to wait until your 20th year to receive the money you earned for your retirement in the preceding 19 years. You’re a hostage, and that pension is your ransom payment.

My theory got confirmed when Kyle Seraphin, an FBI whistleblower, did an interview with Dan Bongino. Seraphin, whom the FBI suspended without pay for being a whistleblower (which I think is illegal retaliation, but I don’t know whistleblower law), explained to Bongino that the agency is hopelessly politicized. You can watch the interview or read about it here. I just want to focus on one thing Seraphin told Bongino:

Seraphin said “more than people than you think” are coming forward and that many have left the bureau as, in their view, it has become part of a partisan agenda. He said agents qualify for pensions of up to $60,000 a year after putting in 20 years, and many that are more than halfway toward qualifying are just hanging on despite their disgust with leadership under Director Christopher Wray.

And there’s the corruption I’ve spoken about for years. These people know that they are no working in a hopelessly corrupt institution and that, by continuing there, they are besmirching their own morals and souls. And yet they remain because — damn it! — they’ve earned chunks of that pension already and don’t want to walk away.

Just yesterday, we got another example of the kinds of things middle-class people focused on their pensions will do:

A group of between 25 and 30 FBI agents raided the Bucks County, Pennsylvania, home of pro-life activist Mark Houck early Friday morning, his family told LifeSite News.

[snip]

“The kids were all just screaming,” Houck’s wife, Ryan-Marie, told LifeSite. “It was all just very scary and traumatic.”

Ryan-Marie Houck told the outlet that the group of agents in SWAT gear arrived in 15 vehicles outside the family home at around 7:05 a.m. Friday morning. The agents quickly surrounded the house and began pounding on the door, demanding they open up. Houck reportedly tried to get the agents to calm down, noting that his seven children were scared, but the agents kept shouting. “[T]hey had big, huge rifles pointed at Mark and pointed at me and kind of pointed throughout the house,” his wife said.

Houck and his wife asked the agents why they were there, to which the agents allegedly replied that they were there to arrest him. His wife asked for a warrant, but “they said that they were going to take him whether they had a warrant or not,” Ryan-Marie Houck recalled. She protested, saying that what the agents were doing was tantamount to kidnapping. Only then did they provide a copy of the warrant. Shortly afterward, Houck was apparently taken out and put into one of the vehicles.

If you’re wondering what Houck did, when a pro-abortion activist kept getting in his son’s face, Houck shoved him backward. The activist fell and promptly sued. The suit ended up getting dismissed, but the DOJ and FBI felt it was appropriate to bring 15 vehicles filled with FBI agents to the home of a man with seven young children to arrest him for shoving someone. Incidentally, our hyper-politicized, hyper-partisan FBI has never brought such enthusiasm to BLM or Antifa activists.

It’s time to end government pensions. Instead, government employees should get 401Ks, just like other rest of us. Ending pensions will stop governments (especially leftist governments) from exerting unreasonable control in the marketplace because of their pension funds and will end the extortionate demands the government can make of people who have earned the money but will never touch it unless they yield to those demands.

UPDATE: Yes, I know I’d spelled “descent” wrong and, yes, I have corrected it. I blame it all on something or someone other than my own failed proofreading skills.