Can’t stop a Nazi with a law book” – Herman Wouk, The Caine Mutiny
Traditional checks and balances do not work when up against unprecedented threats. History and science teach this lesson repeatedly. Denial and time is no way to cure a cancer. To sit and wait on the outcome of an impeachment inquiry or a national election to remove this caravan of criminals and corrupt enablers as foolish a plan.
It’s not America’s immigrations laws that place our nation at risk. It’s this administrations callous and wanton ignorance of history that poses a clear and present danger to our national security. It’s the lack of empathy in our foreign policy the open betrayal of a loyal ally that breeds hostility, births sleeper cells and lone wolf fanatics desperate for revenge. It’s the fickleness and swiftness in which we ripped up the Iran deal, pull out of trade deals and abandon the military fields that erodes trust in our America exceptionalism and extinguishes Lady Liberty’s torch.
The damage this administration is doing to this country cannot be overstated. It’s more than Kurdish blood that will spill as the result of Demonic Donald’s latest betrayal. More than the reconstitution of ISIS that threatens national security. If American loyalties can be swayed so easily and years of diplomacy be overturned with each change of administration then why would any nation dare align with us in the future? Why would any tribe or ethnic group make a strategic partnership in our fight against the next terror group. Combine this with our eagerness to pull out of other hard negotiated treaties and truces and it will take decades for America to regain the trust of the international community.
There are 40,000 Kurds who live in America, 15,000 in Nashville alone. Many of whom were refugees of prior battles. Immigrants to our nation under kinder, wiser administrations who sought to flee the ravages of war and poverty for a better life. Imagine as they now stare at their screens and scroll their social media timelines in search of relatives and survivors. The anger they too must feel. The thirst for vengeance that leads to irrational behavior.
We as a nation may no longer afford to be passive. We cannot continue to ignore the damage being done to our reputation and pretend it does not define us all. We, the people, are responsible for the actions and behaviors we observe each day and fail to condone.
The impeachment inquiry and prospective 2020 Blue Wave are nice but ineffective in the larger constitutional battle upon us. They fail to neutralize the immediate damage and risk of catastrophe that awaits our republic. They may be palliative measures to soothe the masses, but they also bide time for the ruling Executive. Affords the opportunity to spread disease and harden defense. To produce a manufactured counter narrative and use his past television experience to craft a set of alternative facts that will marginalize, belittle, conflate, de-legitimize and, if necessary, squash any threat.
America must learn from the ongoing Hong Kong and Indonesia protests and the recent successes in South Korea, Ecuador and Puerto Rico. Understand that to force change you must commit to it. One off protests and elections are not enough. If we believe our will is not being followed and the government is no longer acting for the people then we must drive that narrative in ways that are impossible to ignore. We must take to the streets daily.
If we are to insist that we are a nation in which all men, regardless of race, gender, religion or national origin are free and equal. If we believe in the Bill of Rights that put the great American experiment in motion, that guaranteed certain freedoms for all Americans and bestowed inalienable rights on all mankind. Then we must act to defend it when we see it being trampled upon by a despot.
We must take to the harbor and throw the tea overboard. Refuse to take a backseat in our politics. Not just march on Washington, but sit and sleep there too.
Pathway To Perdition 