It should not be up to local cops to drive federal policy by deciding which neighborhoods and people are the focus of their crackdowns.
The Taiping rebellion in the mid-19th century, led by a man calling himself the brother of Jesus, resulted in more than 20m deaths.But some officials are becoming more discerning in their crackdowns.
The worst include the bland, rather boastful pledge card politics revealed to this newspaper, with their "crackdowns", fiddly new laws and suspiciously specific claims, some of which are immediately challenged by statisticians.
The federal government and most states have become more sophisticated in their crackdowns since World War II, which explains the narrower but nonetheless painful arrests and long confinements of thousands of innocent Muslims in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
Though some applauded Mr. Obama's criticism of America's allies in Yemen and Bahrain for their crackdowns on peaceful protesters, many noted the conspicuous omission of Saudi Arabia, another ally of the United States that is a conservative force throughout the region.
With both the I.R.S. and the Justice Department's tax division widening their crackdowns on questionable tax shelters to include scrutiny of offshore banking services and trusts, the issue of safe tax planning for the affluent has become more urgent than ever.
