What If You Want a Revolution?
Dear Editor,
In Sen. Dan Bishop’s column, he wants to make it a crime to “threaten, intimidate or retaliate against a present or former North Carolina official in the course of, or on account of, the performance of his or her actions.”
Wasn’t this same course of action the whole basis of the founding of our country? If fighting a revolution against the king wasn’t retaliation, then how does Sen. Bishop (or anyone else) define the term? And how can chasing a man down an alley for five minutes possibly compare to taking up arms for six years in order to overthrow the current regime, and institute a new form of government?
Our Constitution guarantees the people the right to protest and demonstrate against unjust, oppressive or corrupt officials. We have seen this right exercised numerous times in our country’s history, particularly during the 1960s during the Vietnam War and the civil rights era. Though there were a number of times when, unfortunately, these demonstrations turned riotous and violent, could anyone deny that they helped bring about the end of Vietnam and beginning of civil rights for blacks?
If I were an elected official of this state, I would be very hesitant about voting Sen. Bishop’s proposal into law. Under this proposal, anyone who writes a letter, sends an email, speaks out in public or in any way voices disapproval of some official, then all the official would have to do would be to say, “I was threatened,” and the writer or speaker could be subject to arrest.
This proposal, if enacted into law, would start us down a slippery slope in denying any citizen his or her constitutional rights to make any negative comment about any present or former official, almost to the point of never being able to utter any disapproval in any way.
Let us hope that the North Carolina legislature proceeds very carefully, thoughtfully and hesitantly with Sen. Bishop’s proposal. And when all is said and done, let us hope that the legislature votes it down, unless we all want to have to walk around with duct tape over our mouths from now on.
John Pugh
Peaceable Assembly
Dear Editor,
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
I have disassembled this and cannot find anything that says or implies the First Amendment protects one from being arrested for destroying property, assaulting people or impairing the rights of others. But if you ask the social justice whiner snowflakes, they are allowed to do whatever they feel necessary to shut down everyone that disagrees with them. Now there is someone out there calling for everyone to not go to work or spend money on Feb. 17 to protest President Trump.
I close my letters urging people to save the republic, which is our country. And if you’ve been paying even a small amount of attention to what’s been going on, you’ve seen and heard the kind of things that are generally attributed to second or third world countries. I’m starting to believe we are headed in that direction. When hundreds of anarchists, spoiled students and illegal aliens can riot, physically assault those that disagree, destroy property, defy the law and only one person gets arrested, I think we might have a big problem.
There is one common factor to all this. The overwhelming majority of these disturbances are occurring in the large mostly progressive cities across the country. The same places that, up until this election, drove the political wagon and thus the political policies and happenings in America. I don’t see this happening in the smaller, less progressive/more conservative cities and towns. All of a sudden the progressives and liberals aren’t in charge anymore and they cannot stand this. It appears they will do anything to regain their hold on this country, and based on what I’ve seen and heard, I’m starting to believe that would include a large scale physically violent confrontation with legal authority – or, in a word, insurrection, potentially violent.
The last time there was trouble like this on the Berkley campus, then Gov. Ronald Reagan called out the National Guard and 1,000 people were arrested, 200 for felonies. Today, law enforcement and officials in these cities won’t act, which is going to force people to begin defending themselves anyway they have to.
Go Galt and save the republic.
Alan Marshall
