First American Looters

December 16, 1773.  Sons of Liberty protested unfair taxes imposed by the British .gov in the Tea Act of 1773. Armed renegades, many of them disguised as indigenous natives,  destroyed an entire shipment of tea by dumping the tea kegs in Boston Harbor. 

As days turned into weeks, months and years, revolution-minded Colonials wrangled their upstart rage into a Revolution. 

227 years pass.

May 26, 2020.  Citizens of Minneapolis gathered in the dusk hours to protest the police asphyxiation of unarmed local resident, George Floyd. 

As news of the gentle giant’s death was reported nationally through mainstream and social media, widespread protests were rapidly organized in cities across the USA. Irate Americans, many of them masked as Covid-resisters, marched through streets all across the continent and beyond.

As days turned into weeks, a viral-video of Big Floyd’s  cop-inflicted murder propelled thousands of  Americans to become more and more infuriated. They marched in vehement protest against the obvious injustice of Officer Derek Chauvin’s smothering his gently-pleading victim. 

As protesters gathered across the nation, their  intentions became more difficult for police and other law enforcement personnel to identify. Joined by multiple interests groups and, in some cases, extremist instigators, protestors in some places descended into rioting and looting. Unpredictable crowds became unmanageable in some cities. 

Law enforcement officers across the nation faced very difficult decisions. Protecting private property and restoring law and order became no easy matter, no walk in the park, and certainly no walk in Lafayette Park. 

In the midst of nationwide mayhem, the chief executiive expressed adamant resolve to protect private property, while voicing no sympathy for the deceased citizen whose unjust death had sparked the protests. Our temporary chief executive  demonstrated no awareness of the injustice in that original offense—the murder of an innocent American.

Rather, he seemed preoccupied with using the news development to foment political division among his people in pursuance of his own obsession with power.

 Lines of ideological and political association became blurred in the fog of teargas and an insidious fog of class war.

As public law and order deteriorated, the President’s stubborn insensitivity silently implied his approval of police overreaction, as law enforcers were convincing themselves further and further that protection of private property would be their highest property.

“Don’t tread on me,” enraged American Colonials had said after the Tea Party ignited their wrath in 1773.

“Don’t tread on me,” enraged Americans are saying now, after one lethal-weapon knee  treading on George Floyd’s lifeless neck.

In American history, the upstarts who instigated the Boston Tea Party are lionized as heroes. 

They were mad about taxes, so they destroyed British property.

In our third century as a nation, enraged protesters have regrettably provoked some destructive overreaction.

They were mad about the murder of their brethren; then some property got destroyed along the way.

Will the judgements of history render our present dissidents as heroes?

Or will the dissidents of 2020 go down as rioting looters?

I tell you what. When I get to heaven, I’m going to ask those Boston TeaParty protesters what they think about it. 

Which is the greater offense to spark protest in a free society—Unfair Taxes by King, or Murder by Cop?

And just how pertinent is some lunatic-fringe  looting when compared to the ongoing crime. . . killing of American citizens ( George Floyd, Brionna Taylor, Ahmed Arbery, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray . . . Emmett Till, Dread Scott, 3/5ths of a person here, 3/5 of a person there . . .) killing by their own appointed protectors?

 

Glass half-Full

Say it ain't So

These are perilous times in many ways:
Perilous pandemic
Perilous politics
Perilous protests
Perilous proclamations
Perilous pandemonium
Perilous publications
Perilous panic
Perilous parlance
Perilous pathogens
Perilous politicians
Perilous partisans
Perilous Powers

I heard a perilous report this morning. I found myself wishing some wise person would or could refute the perilous parlance I heard.
I was thinking: Say it ain’t so!

~Say it ain’t so: that the CCP are out to get us.
~Say it ain’t so: that the CCP unleashed the perilous pandemic with intentions of debilitating the US.
~Say it ain’t so: that the CCP place no value in human life.
~Say it ain’t so: that the CCP leaders are willing to sacrifice large swathes of their own people to the Covid just for the sake of having an alibi.

~Say it ain’t so: that the CCP want to dispose of many of their own old people because they’ve got too many of them due to their past one-child policy.

~Say it ain’t so: that Xi’s heroes are Hitler and Stalin.
Say it ain’t so!
~Say it ain’t so: that the CCP are willing to make a deal with Perilous Putin to debilitate North America with Covid and then divvy it up so that Ruskies can have Alaska back and CCP can grab USA to repopulate it with their presently overpopulated people.

Say it ain’t so!
~Say it ain’t so: that we actually have Americans who claim that our nuclear arsenal is obsolete and needs to be upgraded.

Say it ain’t so!
~Say it ain’t so: that any leader would even think about firing one of those damned warheads.
~Say it ain’t so: that we are headed for another world war.
Somebody please say it ain’t so.



Somebody please prove to me that all the above Perilous Reports are not true and they  could never happen.

More likely, however, than someone actually proving that to me is:
that I would do better to put aside this perilous rant and resort instead to a different “P” plea to hang my hopes on: 
Pray!
Pray it ain’t so.

Perhaps you'll join me. Pause for a word of Prayer for all People everywhere and for the imperiled Planet we inhabit.

P.S. If you are Chinese, and reading this . . . Please don't take this wrong way.
Have a nice day.

Glass half-Full