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Warning: Disturbing stuff ahead.

Theres a conspiracy theory called Frazzledrip. Even for QAnon types, its pretty fringe, which is saying something. Recall that the central belief in Q-world is that theres a secret cabal of Satan-worshiping, sex-trafficking pedophiles running the government.

Frazzledrip is worse. It is the name of an imagined video of a young girl on Huma Abedins laptop in a folder labeled life insurance. Abedin, the ex-wife of former Rep. Anthony Weiner, was an aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

According to Vice, the nonexistent video shows Clinton filleting off the young girls face. The two women take turns wearing the girls face as a mask to terrify the child so blood is suffused with adrenochrome. They drink her blood as part of a satanic ritual.

Oh, Frazzledrip also believes Clinton murdered New York City police officers who saw the video and covered up their deaths as suicides.

Now, you dont have to be a Clinton fan Im certainly not to recognize this garbage as evil and insane. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the QAnon-friendly Republican representative from Georgia, disagrees. She endorsed the theory on her Facebook page in 2018.

Greene has spread other wicked stuff: Mass school shootings were false flag operations, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi should be shot for treason. Etc.

And yet, to listen to some Republicans, it would be too divisive to excommunicate Greene or other QAnon-aligned Republicans because the party must unify.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy plans to have a conversation with Greene. Hes under pressure to at least take her off the Education Committee, but some Republicans fear he wont even go that far because, Politico reports, Greene represents an energetic wing of the party and hell feel he cant afford to risk punishing one of Trumps favored office-holders.

The Hawaii GOP recently tweeted out support for QAnon, saying it was largely motivated by a sincere and deep love for America. When newly elected Rep. Burgess Owens (R-Utah) appeared on a QAnon streaming site, the National Republican Congressional Committee responded to criticism by noting his opponent appeared on Russia conspiracy network MSNBC.

Meanwhile, these same people think real heretics in need of canceling are Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and nine other Republicans who voted to impeach Trump, who reportedly said that QAnon just believes in good government. Various state parties have moved to censure Cheney and others for supporting impeachment.

So, in the name of fighting cancel culture, Republicans who condemned a president who tried to topple the Constitution to hold power must now be canceled yet Republicans who think Clinton drinks the blood of children must not be canceled or even criticized in the name of conscience.

Indeed, QAnon is being recast into a kind of oppressed religious minority with an inalienable right to its beliefs and any attempt to curtail it would put America on a slippery slope to tyranny.

Tucker Carlson, a prime-time host at Fox News (where I am a contributor), recently ran a long montage of pundits not politicians fretting over QAnons influence. After mocking them for making such a fuss, Carlson declared, Theres a clear line between democracy and tyranny, between self-government and dictatorship. And heres what that line is. That line is your conscience. They cannot cross that.

Government has every right to tell you what to do, Carlson said, citing things like laws against rape, murder and jaywalking. But, he insisted, No democratic government can ever tell you what to think. Your mind belongs to you. It is yours and yours alone.

Once politicians attempt to control what you believe, he continued, they are no longer politicians. They are by definition dictators. And if they succeed in controlling what you believe you are no longer a citizen, you are not a free man, you are a slave.

This is all nonsense.

Sure, the government can police behavior like rape and murder. But it doesnt have every right to tell you what to do. See the Bill of Rights or, for that matter, conservative objections to the individual healthcare mandate.

Sure, government cant make you violate your conscience (if your conscience says you should rape or murder, youre out of luck, though). But government can and should try to make you believe some things. It should try to convince you that COVID-19 vaccines are safe and necessary. It can tell you the correct date of election day.

This isnt dictatorial by any definition. Its telling the truth, and truth-telling is supposed to be the first obligation of both politicians and pundits, because democracy doesnt work without the truth. And neither will the GOP.

@JonahDispatch

Read the original post:
Column: Where QAnon goes, so goes the Republican Party - Los Angeles Times