Unrest and Duty

Any time anyone disagrees with Donald Trump, they become an enemy. He just can’t seem to accept that others may think differently without assuming they have it in for him. Border security agents have begun asking how people wanting to enter the US feel about Trump and his policies. The potential entrant’s treatment becomes worse if they express negative feelings. I mean, how much of a child can an adult be?

With the unrest about his ICE forces picking up potential illegal immigrants and removing them from the country without due process, the people of Los Angeles have started getting serious about demonstrating and getting in the way of Trump’s goons. And good on them for finally taking some action against government action they see as unfair! Trump, of course, spins this action as being caused by violent people in the US illegally, which is largely a pack of lies, of course.

Hardly a student of history, Trump seems not to realize that resistance to an unjust government is how the United States began. This is the first part of the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness — That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government

Not only is the government given its power by the people, but when the government gets in the way of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the people have the right to take that power back and form a new government. They have the right to do this.

Later in the same paragraph appears a sentence that is even more insistent. This two-hundred-year-old text sounds like it may be describing what has started in Los Angeles and is spreading to other U.S. cities.

But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security. 

So not only is it the right of the people to abolish a government that is turning despotic, but it is their duty to do so.

In the face of this escalating clash between citizens and government, I have two heartfelt hopes for the future.

I hope that more Americans stop and really think about what’s happening to their country. They must consider what kind of a person Donald Trump is based on his actions and orders. I hope those who find themselves dissatisfied take to the streets and join their fellows in expressing their displeasure. I’d dearly love to see the rank-and-file members of the military join the citizens they swear to protect.

My second hope is that enough of the military refuse to engage the people should they be ordered to do so. I have no doubt that Trump will order the forces under his command to use lethal force against citizens if his presidency is threatened. I absolutely do not want to see mass casualties and the start of a second American Civil War.

Think carefully Americans, history is watching.