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“Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?” asked King Henry II of England in 1170, delivering one of antiquity’s most infamous lines. Four knights didn’t take it as a rhetorical question; rather, they interpreted it as a call to action. The result was the murder of Thomas Becket, the troublesome archbishop of Canterbury.
It’s a cautionary tale about the dangers of powerful people using violent rhetoric. It’s also an indicator that we haven’t absorbed the lesson in the ensuing 852 years.
Take, for example, rhetoric surrounding the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy called it “an intolerable state of weaponized politicization,” Rep. Jeff Duncan called the FBI “corrupt to the core,” Rep. Troy Nehls (a former sheriff) railed against a “corrupt DOJ and the FBI,” and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted: “DEFUND THE FBI!” In the wake of the rhetoric, the FBI is investigating an “unprecedented” number of threats.