Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) offered a spot-on illustration when the House debated ejecting the anti-Semitic Congressional representative of Somalia, Ilhan Omar, from the House Foreign Relations Committee. He explained that he personally always has disapproved of that tactic. He explained that he always preferred — and still does prefer — allowing elected representatives, no matter how despicable they be, to sit on committees. And then, during committee sessions, debate them firmly and unapologetically, beating them by making the better arguments and exposing them for what they are. Therefore, he said, he would prefer not throwing Somalia’s Omar off the committee. But … Alas, we now live in an uncharted era of “American Lawfare,” warfare conducted by abusing the rules of law to destroy political opponents. But, he added, we are playing in a new, dirty environment with different rules. The other side broke with history and protocol by preventing certain Republicans from sitting on committees. In other words, there are long-accepted rules of civility and comity, and both sides need to play by the same rules. (READ MORE from Dov Fischer: A Disgusting, Filthy Corruption of American Justice) For example, in baseball it is accepted that pitchers throw baseballs a variety of ways (fastball, curve, slider, change-up, knuckleball, screwball) and in a variety of locations (up and inside, low and inside, in the dirt, up and outside, low and outside, or even over the plate) in order to baffle batters and induce them to miss the ball when they swing. Major league pitchers are remarkably trained and skilled at hitting their exact target from 60 feet and 60 inches away. Once in a while, a pitcher is concerned that the opposing batter seems too comfortable, standing in an ideal position close to home plate, which enables the batter to reach and hit outside pitches more easily. To move the batter farther away from the plate, the pitcher occasionally throws an inside fastball close to the batter, almost hitting him. That alerts the batter to back away a bit, if only for his own health and safety. This is all common — and proper — play. Because pitchers in the major leagues are so expertly skilled, they can hurl that very hard spheroid precisely near the batter without actually hitting him. But sometimes a pitcher either accidentally misses, or acts perniciously, and deliberately strikes the opposing batter with the ball, often hurled at 95-100 miles per hour. That is wrong, unacceptable, and often malign. When that happens, all 50,000 spectators in the stadium know what to expect when the teams will change positions at the half-inning. You can be sure 100 out of 100 times that the other team’s pitcher, playing for the team whose batter was hit by a fastball five or ten minutes ago, will deliberately throw his fastest pitch at one of the best players on the other team. Everyone knows it is coming, especially the star player of that other team. He knows he soon will be drilled and hurt. There is nothing he can do to prevent it from coming. And then he gets hit awfully hard. If the batter is lucky, he will be in nasty pain for the next several days, on round-the-clock ibuprofen, and his wicked bruise will be gone in three weeks or a month. However, often he is not so lucky. Every so often, a ball pitched that way will break his hand, wrist, ankle, or some other bone, and he will be knocked out of action for three weeks or months. If that happens, you can be sure that the next time the league schedule has those two teams playing each other, even if many months later, the “bad blood” will be revived. The sport even has a name for throwing a hard fastball directly at the other guy for the purpose of retaliatorily pain infliction: it is called “beaning” the batter. The pitch that hits him is called a “Beanball.” (READ MORE: Universities Must End DEI and Implement DEI) That’s the American Way in what is America’s National Pastime (or runner-up). There are clear rules. You deliberately broke them? Well, now prepare to get it back, and then we will “call it even.” That principle does not sound noble, but it is a form of comprehensible street justice. At the same time, it is not as much about revenge as it is about deterrence. A team — and all its pitchers — need to think more carefully about avoiding hurting players on the other side after they themselves have suffered those consequences. Writ large, Germany conducted a wave of nighttime bombings of civilian targets in London, so the U.K. — with invaluable American assistance — bombed Dresden into rubble. Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, so we dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Both those countries redirected their relationships with America. That’s the American Way: We leave people alone. Just don’t target us wrongly. If you do, we will “bean” you — not so much as revenge but to make clear you better not even think of doing that again. Alas, we now live in an uncharted era of “American Lawfare,” warfare conducted by abusing the rules of law to destroy political opponents. The Soviets did that famously under Stalin, his NKVD, and the KGB. Everyone was fair game. Even Lavrentiy Beria, an architect of that murderous lawfare despite being reared by deeply religious and church-going Orthodox Georgian parents, ultimately got destroyed by his Stalinist lawfare himself in due time. Likewise, Hitler used his “legal” system, under chief judge Roland Freisler, to destroy his enemies. And so it always has gone in brutal dictatorships. British kings set up biased judges and prosecutors, augmented by false witnesses, to “try” innocent people like Sir Thomas More and a bunch of Henry VIII wives and their alleged consorts. The Spanish Inquisition was by definition, a judicial system relying on judges and courts to complete and validate their mass murders. America was always too great for that. We had presidents whose crookedness was discovered sooner or later. They never were prosecuted. It does seem that the Democrats would have prosecuted Nixon wrongly for Watergate, but Gerald Ford heroically pardoned Nixon before the country could be torn asunder by such lawfare. Democrat liberals and their associated press went ballistic against Ford, and their anger drove them to destroy his image and beat him when he sought election on his own in 1976. But the judgment of history for most non-partisan observers is that he was a great man, at least in that one particular way, sparing the country the spectacle of putting a president on trial, as they would do in Brazil, Pakistan, or South Africa. When Donald Trump ran for president, the throngs who attended his massive rallies would chant three particular slogans — each comprised of three one-syllable words, promoting rhythmic cadence — always with extra gusto: “Build That Wall!” “Drain the Swamp!” and “Lock Her Up.” That last referred to Hillary Clinton’s federal felonies perpetrated, particularly spoliating documentary evidence and destroying hard drives sought to investigate her. These were — and are — federal crimes. 18 U.S.C. § 1519. Even Martha Stewart was imprisoned for spoliating evidence. Trump smiled at his MAGA rallies as the chants were shouted, and thereafter he had four years to have prosecutors bring charges against Hillary. Similarly, conservative Republican prosecutors in the states had time to do so. But, for all the bluster and bluff, even the unpredictable Trump knew — deep down — that it is not the American Way to leverage the law with the full weight of the United States of America, to prosecute a political opponent. There are rules of civility and comity. They repeatedly have been broken by Democrat lawfare. More than for revenge, we urgently need deterrence. It is time for Republican prosecutors, Senate and House representatives, and perhaps soon the chief executive in the White House, to throw bean balls. The post American Lawfare? Time to Bean Them With a High, Hard Fastball appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.