1. Bushart’s story is a case study in a malady that social media and the news media, with their deliberate pot-stirring techniques perfected over several decades, have created. I have many friends who suffer from it as well. They have become obsessed with political conflicts and self-righteousness, feel it is their duty to bombard everyone they know with columns, memes and news stories they feel “prove” their point, and think they are accomplishing something when in fact they are contributing to the disintegration of civil and functioning society.

I had a brother in law who turned into a Bushart after his wife died and before social media struck. He would mail us clippings from newspapers almost daily that fueled his right-wing fury. It drove my late wife to distraction: she ultimately asked her sister’s widower to knock it off. Offended, he never spoke to either of us again. A once close friend of mine, a singer who owed me quite a bit of good will since I had advanced her career, kept posting progressive rants by the likes of Paul Krugman and Charles M. Blow on my Facebook feed as if they were objective, independent truth-tellers instead of the shamelessly biased partisan hacks they were. When I insisted on pointing out–nicely, politely— the distortion she was promoting, she blocked me and hasn’t spoken with me in a decade.

2. A federal civil rights lawsuit has been filed by Bushart against Perry County Sheriff Nick Weems in his personal capacity. F.I.R.E is representing him. As of today, the court had not yet issued a final ruling on whether the sheriff’s actions fall under qualified immunity. The lawsuit alleges that because the sheriff acted as a primary policymaker and ratified the arrest based on a “false and contrived interpretation” of a social media post, he should be held accountable.

It seems clear that a lawsuit against Weems in his official capacity would fail because of qualified immunity, which in my view shows that immunity goes too far. Bushart’s attorneys argue that the sheriff is not entitled to qualified immunity because the arrest for the political meme violated “clearly established” First Amendment rights. Gee, ya think? Look at that meme! They might as well have arrested him for posting a “Peanuts” strip.

3. It seems clear that the Times is so thoroughly mourning the injustice of Bushart’s arrest and the effective chilling of his free speech rights because this is the Trump administration and the “fascist” restriction of speech is part of the Axis narrative. If the Times had the integrity to be objective, it would have been similarly indignant over the false charges Jack Smith and other Democratic prosecutors made against Donald Trump to silence him and cripple his ability to make life miserable for their party.

4. The reality is that law enforcement officials all over the country abuse their authority, make incompetent arrests, ruin reputations and careers, and it will ever be thus. It is not a partisan issue, as hard as the Axis is now working to tie the eternal truth that power corrupts to Donald Trump. The far worse Justin Carter case began with an arrest in the Obama administration, but the news media’s interest in exploiting it was minimal.

5. I would like to see disincentives for officials to abuse citizens like Bushart and Carter, if appropriate sanctions could be established without making more competent and responsible law enforcement personnel wary of doing their jobs zealously. I am not at all certain a benign balance is possible. I’m afraid this is another example of ethics zugzwang: whatever we do, the results will be bad.