One thing we’re learned in the past four years is that the private and public have largely blurred in American politics.
Debates in conservative circles tend to be quite stale in that they only focus on the state as the primary culprit behind the loss of many of our liberties. When in fact, the private sector is largely teaming up with the state, and using the state to consolidate their hold in the market. Big businesses aren’t just these innocent bystanders.
Let’s look at the case of Bank of America. The banking giant apparently turned over transaction records of its clients to federal authorities it suspected of being involved in acts of “extremism” or domestic terrorism. BOA did so to help the government determine if any of its customers were involved during the January 6 storming of the Capitol.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson was one of the few popular right-wing commentators who found evidence of BOA turning this sensitive information over to federal authorities. Such a move is significant, given that BOA is America’s second-biggest corporate bank and counts on over 60 million customers and $2.16 trillion in assets. Larry Keane at the The Truth About Guns listed off some of the sensitive data BOA handed over:
- Customers confirmed as transacting, either through bank account debit card or credit card purchases in Washington, D.C. between 1/5 and 1/6.
- Purchases made for Hotel/Airbnb RSVPs in DC, VA, and MD after 1/6.
- Any purchase of weapons or at a weapons-related merchant between 1/7 and their upcoming suspected stay in D.C. area around Inauguration Day.
- Airline related purchases since 1/6.
Companies like BOA are known for being fanatically anti-gun. That generally comes with being in the woke capital territory, where companies virtue signal their support for leftist causes to stay in good graces of politicians and rabid consumer bases. In some cases, the management of such companies are ideologically committed to a given pet issue on the Left and in turn serve as privatized arms for the enforcement of leftist mores.
According to Carlson’s report, BOA identified 211 people and handed that information to investigators. And it gets worse: BOA handed the information to authorities without even bothering to notify those customers about how they were sharing their financial transactions without their permission. When Carlson’s team pressed about these allegations of it targeting customers who purchase firearms at gun stores. The corporation said, “We don’t comment on our communications with law enforcement. All banks have responsibilities under federal law to cooperate with law enforcement inquiries in full compliance with the law.”
Keane noted that “compliance with the law” is a dubious defense. According to BOA’s statement, the FBI did not subpoena the information. They only said they “cooperated.” Carlson pointed out that banks are allowed under 12 U.S.C. 3403 to provide information that “may be relevant to a possible violation of any statute or regulation.”
BOA has been on an anti-gun kick in the last few years. Back in 2018, BOA announced that it would cease financial relationships with manufacturers of regular sporting rifles, which they misleadingly described as “military-style” rifles. Citigroup announced a similar move previously.
The latest surge in anti-gun moves by big banks is largely due to the Biden administration’s decision to scrap Trump-era rules that protected gun owners from discrimination by banks. In the Obama era, banks could discriminate against gun-related businesses with impunity. Keane is correct in observing that Biden era policies are just a “wink-and-nod to continue the illegal Operation Choke Point that was begun under the Obama administration.”
Under Operation Choke Point, the United States Department of Justice led efforts to investigate banks in the U.S. and the business they did with firearms dealers, among other entities that it deemed to be at “risk” for fraud and money laundering.
At this point, gun owners would be wise to ditch consevative conventional wisdom and realize that the private sector can be just as bad as the public sector.
Gun owners will likely need to turn to decentralized cryptocurrencies and decentralized finance, in general, to escape the clutches of the new woke state that has merged both the public and private sectors in a fight to subjugate Middle Americans under a regime of woke tyranny.
