History is clear about some things and among those is that if you give anger enough fuel it will lead to violence. Charles Hayek wrote, “It doesn’t take much of a trigger to push extremely large crowds of very angry protesters into committing acts of rioting and violence. And rioting and violence can ultimately lead to widespread civil unrest and calls for ‘revolution’.” Among the photos and videos of the latest protests is a picture of a woman holding up a sign that reads, “Remove Trump by any means necessary!” My God people, don’t you see where this is going?
Many of you are already engaged in selective amnesia over Trump’s Executive Directive to temporarily restrict immigration from 7 (of the 50) predominantly Muslim countries in the world, having forgotten that in 2011 Saint Barack issued an identical temporary ban on refugees from Iraq until a better vetting system could be created. His administration also was the compiler of the list that Trump used to designate countries for his temporary ban. But for disciples of Saint Barack he was just trying to keep us safe while the evil Trump demon is seen as being un-American and simply tearing down the fabric of our country. The only substantive difference was in scope and that as disciples you were prostrating yourselves at the feet of your political messiah and now are in rending your clothes and engaging in emotional self-flagellation in shock that there are actually people out there dumb enough to reject his (to you) enlightened teachings. Therefore even for similar or even identical actions if Saint Barack does it, it has to be good and if Demon Trump does the same thing it has to be bad and therefore, by definition based on initiator and despite identical effects, they cannot be the same things. But the only REAL differences, other than length of ban, was that Obama was smart enough to do it quietly and Trump was narcissistic enough to make a production and spectacle of it. Even arch liberal attorney from Harvard, Allan Dershowitz opined that whether one favored it or not on a policy basis he thought this would pass Constitutional muster.
I was not completely sold on the efficiency of the ban when Obama did it and feel the same now. There are too many holes in it to be effective and thus far no details on the better vetting being promised. But good grief, folks, get a grip. Obama’s temporary ban was for 6 months and whether or not it actually kept any bad guys out the country still stood and no massive upheaval took place. I assume there was no evidence of it working because if there were ANY evidence it stopped so much as one attack we would have heard about it endlessly from Obama the same as he claimed he killed Bin Laden. Trump’s ban is for 90 days and the odds are good we will survive it as well.
But the amnesia goes deeper into territory beyond the merely hypocritical and into the dangerous zone. For those with at least a smattering of remembered history, you have to recall that only once in the political history of the planet has an attempted revolution ended upon a better note than it started and that was our War of Independence from England. Every other Revolution, from France ending in the Reign of Terror to Russia ending in the Stalin blood baths, to the Chinese atrocities by Mao’s Red Army, revolution has been a predictable recipe for long term disaster for the country. Over a century and a half later our own country is really not completely over the rancor from our own civil war. Almost a century ago, the National Socialist Party in Germany was correct that the Weimar Republic was destroying their country but the result of their overturning existing structures was Adolph Hitler. Statistically the attempts at regime change by extra- systemic means is most likely to lead to something worse than what was overturned.
For me, the division that created the grid lock of the last years has ossified in the congress and culture to fashion a division that threatens to tear us apart with far greater power and skill than any foreign enemy could do. And continuing the dialogue of hatred simply exacerbates the problem. The continued ad hominem slurs flung wildly at each other do not serve to persuade anyone to change sides and only cause the warring factions to dig their heels in deeper. There is so much history to let you know that you are, on both sides of this, simply hurting the country more that the hated other side could ever do by itself. My ancestors, the Highland Scots were too busy launching clan against clan to have any chance of a strong coordinated front against the British. The American Indian tribes were too busy counting coup on each other to join forces to hold the Europeans at bay. One time tribes united and wiped out Custer but then quickly broke apart and were easy prey. Is your growing hatred so great you cannot see what you are doing to the far more important entity than your sainted candidates? (That would be the country by the way.) You claim you want to save the country from the evil hordes massed on the other side of the political spectrum; but they, equally fervent and sincere in their beliefs, claim exactly the same thing. And together you leave us broken and defenseless from the real enemies out there.
Some of you are so taken by the hatred for the other side I am frankly embarrassed to admit I know you. And that statement is aimed in BOTH directions. But this time the overt hatred seems to be coming mostly from the left. You were scandalized by the rightwing stonewalling Obama accusing them, accurately I think, of not thinking about the country. Well guess what guys, now you are doing the same.
The real problem I see is that you are high centering on a basket of red herrings when other more important and problematic activities are taking place quietly. From an internal perspective, Trump’s creating a private security force to replace some of the Secret Service responsibilities has some frightening negative potential from a historical perspective. His declaring as a candidate for 2020 is hard to explain other than as a ploy to allow funding available to candidates but not to presidents along with other shields for activities that would be blocked for him as a president. His reshuffling of his intelligence and security departments and meetings may be a good thing but it needs to be explained to a skeptical nation because it could also be easily interpreted as a means of consolidating power for a coup into tyranny. I think many of the departments need a major shaking up, but because such shake up can go in multiple directions I think the initiator of those actions needs to explain them and his rationale to the public.
From a geopolitical perspective, we are a single step away from chaos and war on a grand scale. Let’s review… Iran is testing ballistic missiles claiming it is for “defense.” Really? Their intercepted communications are exploring the concept of using HEMP (High altitude ElectroMagnetic Pulse) weapons against the great Satan which, in case you have forgotten, is us. North Korea is testing nukes and delivery vehicles. China has been creating new militarized islands in the territorial waters of Vietnam and Philippines and a few months ago, sent a naval fleet into U.S. Territorial waters. Russia has taken and claimed other neighboring countries and twice strafed U.S. naval vessels in international waters. India is busily damming and redirecting water from a river that flows through Pakistan and is considered their “river of life” and over which they have stated they would go to war and pre-emptively use their nukes. And ISIS continues its harangue to kill Americans wherever they can be found.
Meantime on the home front, to help coalesce opposing parties into a unified front we have idiots openly supporting the concept of an assassination as an acceptable solution to the demon Trump situation. Maybe we have reached the end of track for our country and between internal morons trying to take us apart in violence and outside villains doing all they can to destabilize us even further and then pick us off we are way into borrowed time.
Your reality checks have bounced… you are sitting on the back of a tiger but worried about the rats.
N. DAVID KING's BLOG 