The reactions of the January 6th protesters to all branches of government avoiding responsibility for an unusual (to say the least) election combined with the outright refusal of the state to even investigate the impacts of opportunistic pandemic-initiated regulation, policy and law changes disguised as protecting the right to vote, I think were justified.
I also believe there was unnecessary violence and that arrests were warranted for anyone who rioted and caused harm or damage on January 6th.
However, when the aftermath was followed by broad Wilsonian Palmer Raid-like dragnets sweeping up people left and right for simply entering the Capitol, the micro-manhunts of figures the Democrats didn’t feel were sufficiently penitent for setting an unwashed foot on the polished marble floors of their hallowed cathedral, the “process is the punishment” attitude of federal prosecutors, the draconian imprisonment of quite a few of the alleged offenders and the Mao era like “struggle sessions” and hostage videos for those who plead out, raises provocative and potentially life changing questions.
Then there is this - Biden released another long-term guest at Club Gitmo this week. Majid Shoukat Khan went to high school in Maryland, then left his immigrant family for his native Pakistan to join Al Qaeda after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He plead guilty to plotting a never-realized suicide bombing of Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president at the time, and to delivering $50,000 that was used to finance a deadly attack in Indonesia.
Belize agreed to take him, joined by his wife and teenage daughter, who was born after his capture in Pakistan in 2003. It was reported in the New York Times that “The United States had provided funds to buy Mr. Khan a house and furnish it, as well as a car, a laptop and a phone.”
Julie Kelly, one of the few journalists focused on the treatment of J6 detainees, tweeted:
“Last month, a US judge ordered a J6 defendant who pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors to surrender the $ he collected in a GiveSendGo account to the government.”
So taken into consideration, these events really make one ask themselves, “Now that I know how far my own government will go to treat me unfairly and take away my liberty, how far will I go to defend it?
“Where is my line?” is a valid question.
That’s a question I have been asking myself a lot over the past two or three years and I will admit, it is a tough question to answer.
We all say we know where that point is – but do we? Are we willing to do what is necessary? Do we even know what is necessary?
In nearly fifteen years of opining on social, political, and economic issues, the most frequent questions I get are: “What do we do?” and “Why aren’t people doing something?”
I don’t think there is a single answer.
Everybody has a line they will not cross, one supposes, but we also put up with a lot of abuse, but even as infuriating as the two examples mentioned earlier are, they aren’t personal, are they? They are so far from our front door; it is easy to get angry – to experience strong emotions - but emotion drains away when the situation doesn’t involve personal risk.
I’ve tried to find standards on which to base my decisions and the first stop was my family history. To try to answer my own questions, I thought about the true crisis moments my parents and grandparents faced and where they drew the line.
I first thought of my dad, who when WWII washed up on American shores, enlisted in the Army, becoming a Staff Sergeant with the combat engineers in Patton’s 3rd Army. When I was in high school, I once asked him why he enlisted. His reply: “It was my duty to face that evil.”
His is line was a global one, he saw evil harming people “over there” and decided he needed to be part of the force stopping it. A young man from the red clay hills of north Mississippi, along with thousands of others across the nation, felt so compelled to act that they were willing to travel across an ocean to fight a threat to people they had never met.
I never got to ask my grandparents the decisions they made during the Great Depression, but from what I know about them, they drew the line more locally, at the family level, basically at the property lines of their farm. They had a fierce sense of protection when it came to my aunts and uncles.
I finally realized there are two lines, one offensive and one defensive.
I know where my defensive line is. It is wherever my family is. Any one or anything that threatens to harm them, there is just about nothing I wouldn’t do to put myself between the threat and them but where I am deficient is on the offensive side.
I honestly don’t know where to draw that line.
I understand the threat, a less violent one than my dad went to meet, but it is no less dangerous. I think it is so hard to recognize as a threat because it is so incremental and slow moving, unlike the speed of war.
I’ve looked at ways to fight it, up to and including running for office – but as I have found out, that is easier said than done and sure seems less than optimal for making the kind of change we need. I tell myself that writing helps, but that has a limited reach. I’m honest when I say that I don’t know how to inspire people to action, but I know that is what it will take. We need to marshal an army to take on the threat we face and must admit that I don’t know how to do it.
An army is more than one person. We have to agree that we are passed the line because the only way to make this work is if we all move against the threat as one. I’m willing to help organize, to build, to fight.
That’s my line.
Where is yours?
It is difficult to fathom that our once great Country is holding Americans in jail for up to 3 years with no court hearings or lawyer intervention. Just thrown in prison with no representation.
Good morning ... my defensive line is precisely the same as yours Michael and it has been tested a couple of times with unfortunate results for the adventurers. You have defined the conundrum I suspect many of us experience, when to act on offense. My restraint is this, I know that when I start I will finish and it is not likely to end well for those I act against; that restraint is amplified when I consider whether there are still enough compatriots around who will welcome the return to common sense, decency, civility, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The noise of disruption in our nation is ugly and seems to be on the increase. A saving grace ? My grandsons and their close colleagues are speaking and acting to say what is happening in our nation and elsewhere around the planet is NOT what they want. Those voices are strong and I believe will with time nullify the BLM, antifa, wokeism movements.