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These guys, seriously?
Комитет государственной безопасности
КГБ СССР
With apologies to the millions of victims of Dzugashvili and Derzhinsky and Beria the rest of those bastards, their style would have been much more on the down low. Black vans painted to look like they should be innocently delivering or picking up furniture -- at 3 or 4 in the morning -- would show up at your house and that would be it. Next stop -- the Gulag. The KGB would be the one's who'd patiently wait to arrest people, telling them they'd have to be spies for a while first, and report everything they saw or heard. So everyone could be rounded up in one grand sweep, and all sent off to Siberia. Or simply shot, with a bullet to the back of the head. With hardly a ripple made in the awareness of their neighbors.
...What this Erwin guy is doing, the obvious and public bullying and harassment -- it's more storm trooper, in style, manner and tone. When they start to force progressives to clean the sidewalk with toothbrushes, or they start smashing in the windows and doors of people's homes or businesses -- that kind of thing would be the next logical step for the Walker S.A.
Unapologetic and in-your-face. Because they're waving the RedWhite_N-Blue, and they have their own idea of God on their side.
Sorry to make too fine a point, with that overly long elaboration on the KGB. My dad once told me about taking a trip to Vienna right after the Anschluss. He went to see his old landlady and she was in the street, with a toothbrush. Much to the amusement of a lot of jack-booted louts. He asked her, "what can I do for you?" She said, "nothing, thank you, there is nothing you can do." Then after WWII, after the Red Army had rolled through eastern and central Europe with a couple of million guys... there were a lot of other opportunities to compare the differences between extreme right-wing and extreme left-wing authoritarian repression. There wasn't a whole lot anyone could do about a lot of those either, for a whole lot of years.
It may actually be a useful distinction to point out that "thought crimes" -- or 'ideological deviations' -- much more frequently get people in trouble in left-authoritarian systems. But with right-authoritarianism, it's enough to be one of the "outsiders" -- ethnic minority, female, member of a union, government employee or having a background in science -- to get yourself looked at funny. The Koch Bros., ALEC and the Tea-tards are way more right wing than left. IMO. FWIW.
(That being said, it's not like there aren't some really interesting "thought criminals" who were formerly Republican. John Dean. Paul Craig Roberts. David Brock/the Media Matters guy. Some others that briefly made an appearance than vanished from media awareness. It might be a good subject for a news story or article. "Whatever happened to.....?"
