A Reflection

So this is it? This is the culmination of the Great Experiment known as The United States of America. Constant media coverage that shows an escalating police state, and unfocused violence not aimed at changing the system or situation, but instead viciously turning on the very citizens that are being victimized by the problem that is being protested against. Let me say that again. The violence that is being brought by the citizens is focused at harming the citizens themselves, not against those who are perpetrating the problem.

This makes no sense!

Now, there are many people out there that would say violence isn't the answer, and that there is a place for peaceful and civil discourse, and these people are correct. There actually is a time for that, but that time has passed. There have been no results with that option. John F. Kennedy was quoted saying, “Those who make peaceful protest revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable.” Now that is a tough pill to swallow. I really think that, in many ways, for the last 20 or so years, the Unites States has fostered a sense civic accomplishment through vocal protest. It was this kind of revolution that brought on changes in civil rights, women’s rights, and even more recently, gay rights. This all being said, there seems to be a growing violence in our country that is on the verge of exploding.

This is in the very fabric of our country’s creation. In 1770, many Bostonians gathered around a hostile occupying force, because, quite frankly, they were sick of being told what to do and what to pay by a group of people who had no business dictating things like this in the first place. So what did they do? Well, even if you haven’t seen the HBO miniseries John Adams, I am sure you read or heard somewhere that these people turned violent. They started throwing snowballs, rocks, and bottles at the soldiers (law enforcement of the time) to demonstrate that the tipping point had come. The soldiers fired upon the crowd and killed 11 civilians. Because he was a believer in a sense of justice, John Adams was the only lawyer who was willing to ensure these soldiers received a fair trial, and the soldiers were acquitted. Sounds kind of like Rodney King, Trevon Martin, and Michael Brown, doesn't it?

Still though, the tipping point had come and the Founders took it to a new level – vandalism. Contrary to popular belief, it wasn't the tax on tea that made them dump it into the Bay. It was a demonstration against an overarching problem. You see, England had a monopoly on all trade coming in and out of Boston, especially tea. The Boston Tea Party was a violent act of vandalism in protest to all of it. Now, I’m not a historian, and I am sure that many a history buff or college professor would like to expand on the ins and outs of the American Revolution, but I’m here to say that the colonists were saying one thing: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! If it takes us destroying a luxury in our lives to send the message, so be it.

Now – before I go any further. Let’s do a compare and contrast. Yes, the Boston Tea Party was a violent act of vandalism in protest. Yes, it was against the luxuries that they held, but they did it to send a message. Afterwards, they did not go out and burn down Boston. They turned that violence against their aggressors. Quite frankly, maybe we should do the same.

"We surely cannot deny to any nation that right whereon our own government is founded, that every one may govern itself according to whatever form it pleases and change these forms at its own will... The will of the nation is the only thing essential to be regarded." --Thomas Jefferson to Gouverneur Morris, 1792. ME 9:36

"Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of a day; but a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers (or presidents, governors, mayors, etc.), too plainly prove a deliberate, systematic plan of reducing [a people] to slavery." --Thomas Jefferson: Rights of British America, 1774. (*) ME 1:193, Papers 1:125

"If ever there was a holy war, it was that which saved our liberties and gave us independence." --Thomas Jefferson to John Wayles Eppes, 1813. ME 13:430

"Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God." --Thomas Jefferson: his motto.