“How should patriotic Americans think about political violence”?
No American should be shot so easily or blithely. In a country where, as Tom Paine put it, the law is king, we are entitled to due process. Instead, we have become victims of state violence encouraged by the Trump regime’s policies, statements, and values. Trump has permitted federal agents to use illegal amounts of force; ICE agents now regularly assault Americans on the streets, in their cars, and in their homes. . . .Over a week later, as I type this, we see multiple videos of how I.C.E. agents approached, shoved, tackled, beat, maced, and finally shot observer Alex Pretti several times, killing him on the street. Along with the shooting of Renée Good, that made I.C.E. agents responsible for 66% of all homicides in Minneapolis so far this year.
As Trump expands his rule, we must ask ourselves unsettling—and unsettled—questions about the role of violence: How should patriotic Americans think about political violence, and what might we learn from our Revolutionary political tradition?
At first glance, the answers to these questions are easy: violence in a constitutional democratic republic is never permitted. Democracies require citizens to embrace disagreement and accept the outcome of free, fair elections.
But we are no longer living in a free state. Under Trump, the Constitution is no longer active. The rule of law has ended. Donald Trump has deployed lies, violence, and lawlessness to amass power. As I have written before, Trump’s violation of his oath of office means that he is no longer the constitutional president of the United States. We Americans are now subjects of an arbitrary regime ruled by a tyrant. Under Trump, the federal government has become the enemy of the American people. We are subject to force, not law. . . .
In our current context, conversations about violence are complicated because our political tradition recognizes the legitimacy of violence against tyrants but denies the legitimacy of violence by tyrants. Two and a half centuries ago, when the colonists found themselves in a similar situation, the leaders of the patriot cause had to explain why they had embraced violent resistance against their own government. They did so in Continental Congress’s 1775 “Declaration…[on] the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms.”
The situation was fraught. America’s resistance leaders in Congress had hoped to resolve differences between the colonists and England peacefully through meetings, petitions, and boycotts. Yet as Americans faced an increasingly hostile British government, patience was running out and the people got ahead of the opposition’s leaders. In April 1775, patriotic Minutemen at Lexington and Concord showed up to prevent British soldiers, then occupying Boston, from seizing arms in the Massachusetts countryside. Soon after, Ethan Allen’s Green Mountain Boys and colonial militiamen stormed Fort Ticonderoga.
Similarly, today, we see incidents in which protestors are getting increasingly unwilling to stay out of ICE’s way as Trump’s agents cross line after line that protects Americans from arbitrary force, arrest, and imprisonment, as the Cato Institute recently concluded. Most protestors are peaceful and obeying the law—but deciding what counts as lawful becomes harder when federal agents act violently and unlawfully. . . .
As our patriotic forebears 250 years ago understood, we too have a responsibility to our children and future generations who deserve to live in a free country. Violence is always a last resort. But at some point, some people in some city may be pushed to cross a line that most of us never want to cross. Just as [the] Continental Congress struggled with how to respond, so will we. The answer of what to do next is not easy or simple. The question we must all start asking ourselves, then, is how we will respond if that time comes, hoping and acting all along to prevent it from arriving.
The day before those agents killed Pretti, tens of thousands of local citizens braved harsh winter weather to march peacefully against federal oppression (shown in the photo at top). As Neem says, it’s hard to see Americans remaining committed to such peaceful protest if the forces of trumpery try to maintain their tyranny.
3 comments:
I never thought this would be my America. I've been following your websites and blogs for years, maybe 15 anyway. Thank you for writing this.
There goes John, showing his partisan leftist bona fides and ruining his blog...
When it comes to violence in modern America, the left has always been violent. The left brought violence to America decades ago. We are still dealing with the violent left.
And We The People have had enough.
It is nothing short of hysterical - not to mentioned deranged and insanely infuriating - to hear you call the current administration "tyrants" while at the same you said absolutely NOTHING during the worst, most tyrannical 4 years this country has ever experienced.
It's really pathetic that all of your expertise in this area has led you to view things completely bass-ackwards. (Maybe review what the colonists were rebelling against when they rose up against Britain..?)
Newsflash: You're not the rebels or patriots.
You are the tyrants who created a government behemoth and have been pushing good people toward violence for a long time.
I hope you're happy.
Thank you, Ron C, for signing a name to your comment.
As you no doubt expect, I don’t agree with your sentiments. Indeed, the comment puts me in mind of the condition of hemospatial neglect, in which a person who’s had a brain injury simply can’t perceive and process information coming from one direction. In a week when masked government agents shot a non-violent activist several times in the street, when two Democratic U.S. Representatives were physically attacked, to complain about “dealing with the violent left” only seems more than short-sighted.
In the long history of America, there’s been political violence from both left and right, going back to the seventeenth century. The Revolution itself involved sustained political violence, and both the modern left and the modern right claim its legacy. To claim “The left brought violence to America decades ago” is ludicrous.
As for “the worst, most tyrannical 4 years this country has ever experienced,” that must refer to the period when this blog has been active, so since 2006. In its history the U.S. of A. has experienced decades of state-protected chattel slavery. Warfare on indigenous peoples to the brink of extermination. Racial segregation. Second-class citizenship for more than half the population based on gender. But some recent period is the “most tyrannical 4 years” for Ron C! Only a white man with no respect for anyone other type of person’s life would say something like that.
And based on what evidence? None offered in this comment.
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