Josef Stalin's KGB = Barack Obama's IRS

One of the most monumental tyrants of the 20th Century, responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of his own people, was the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union for thirty years, from 1922 to 1952, Comrade Josef Stalin.  He was responsible for the torture and oppression of tens of millions more.

And the murder, torture and oppression of those vast swaths of his citizenry was accomplished not because Stalin personally executed any of them, and not necessarily because he had actual knowledge of the torture, but because he empowered and allowed a standardless, biased, terroristic system that empowered his KGB, and other agencies, to act in a manner that resulted in these consequences.

We hear the term "arbitrary and capricious," and let it roll off our lawyerly tongues.  We know it is bad, but do we really understand what that means?  "Arbitrary" means "based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system."  If Mitch Steele and Joseph Herr were empowered, ultimately by a system headed by President Obama, to target and then harass conservative groups precisely because they are conservative, and it was the individual choice of "rogue employees," it is by definition an arbitrary policy.  "Capricuous" means "given to sudden and unaccountable changes of mood or behavior."  If Mitch Steele and Joe Herr were allowed to ask whatever questions they want, from time to time, and to target whichever groups they want, at their own whim, that is by definition capricious.

Comrade Josef Stalin, of course, empowered an arbitrary and capricious system to oppress his citizenry, through Laventriy Beria's KGB and other agencies and bureaucrats.  Whether Stalin had actual knowledge (which he certainly did) makes no difference in his responsibility for the terror.  The fact that he constructed a system that allowed his apparatchiks to implement unspeakable horrors is enough that history has convicted him for monumnetal inhumanity.

Then on to President Barack Obama.  He has appointed bureaucrats who implemented a system that has occasioned inexcusable oppression on hundreds if not thousands of Americans.  They have singled out specific activists such as Justin Binik-Thomas of Cincinnati and Dylan Nonanka of Hawaii for what possible reason?  Because they can, and because they wanted to.

The distinction between Josef Stalin's KGB and Barack Obama's IRS is one of degree, but not of type.  They both have empowered arbitrary, capricious, standardless, systems that have terrorized their own citizenry.

And history should treat them the same.