The Truth About Statue Destruction

It’s not about ending racism (a utopian idea that will end up murderous if I ever heard one) it is about far more than that.

It is about an exercise of power. These mobs can do whatever they want and those we’ve entrusted and empowered to maintain law and order will do nothing to stop them.

It is about destroying the fundamental ideals America was founded on. Life, Liberty, property, representative government of the people, and the pursuit of happiness. These mobs have killed people, beaten, bullied, and intimidated people into silence. They have destroyed property and stolen the ability for the people to have a voice in what happens in their community. They have extinguished the pursuit of happiness with every business they burn, every car they destroy and every life they mangle or destroy.

It is about division and chaos. Those directing the mobs want people divided and they know the media WILL cover for them. They will never be held to account by either elected officials, law enforcement, mainstream media, or social media. In fact elected officials, mainstream media and the heads of social media will actively silence, bully, blame, attack and arrest those who speak up.

After all these riots are mostly peaceful anyway, right? They are just ‘protesters’ who tore down that statue. But it is extremists who stand in front of their business with a gun to protect it when the cops have been ordered to allow looting to happen. The extremists are the ones who want to go back to work or church.

Normally I am not for government intervention but I do believe there is a proper role and place for government. This proper role is outlined in the Declaration of Independence “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. – That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”

It is not the duty of our government to solve our problems for us, it is not the duty of government to care for us, and government is not our Mother nor Father nor God. The chief duty of government is to protect the rights of the people.

A mob pulling down whatever statue offends them at the time is not a right that is protected. It is not a protest, it is not free speech.

It is vandalism.

It is the destruction of peace.

It is a rejection of the idea that you or I get to be part of making the decisions within our communities.

The mob simply decides for you.

If this statue, this house, this institution, this person, this group of people are bad in the eyes of the mob, then the mob will come and destroy it and if the elected official is sympathetic to them they simply refuse to apply the law.

It is illegal for elected officials to decide which laws to enforce and which to ignore, it is immoral for elected officials to decide who the laws apply to and whom they do not.

That is not the rule of law. That is a return to aristocracy. A return to legislation without representation. There was no law passed that said the statue of Thomas Jefferson in Portland was to be removed. Did the people in that community want the statue removed? Maybe they did, but that choice was stolen from them.

Even if you agree with the removal of that statue you must disagree with the method in which it was done. The ends do not justify the means, because once they do anything becomes acceptable. As the Roman historian Tacitus once said “Once killing starts, it is difficult to draw the line.”

If you allow the mob to decide for you this time, simply because you agree with their objective or are sympathetic to their cause, they will begin to make decisions for you all the time. You might be able to buy off the mob for a time, after all you have the right sign in your yard and you say all the things they tell you to say.

You hate all the right things and all the right people in order to signal your virtue as a ‘good person.’ But a moment will come when you slip. Maybe you misspeak, a total slip of the tongue. You figure, I’m a good person, people will understand it was an accident.

 

They don’t.

You apologize.

It is only taken as an admission of your guilt.

Next thing you know you have been fired from your job. The mob you once cheered shows up at your front door. They yell at and shove your children as they try to come home after school. The windows of your car are smashed in. Maybe a fire starts, who set it, after all the mob is mostly peaceful as they cheer the flames.

Where are the police you think, the fire department? I’m a good person, why are they doing this to me? Why won’t anyone help me?

It is then you realize those same questions must have gone through the mind of the good police officers who wanted to protect and serve their community with honor. You turn and see the person who set the fire only to recognize a second later that you are looking in a mirror.

These people taking over entire city blocks in Seattle are not there for a summer of love. The mob pulling down statues are not seeking to heal a divided country or help a hurt community. The media is not seeking the truth but providing cover.

They are not all part of some grand conspiracy. They are simply followers of an ideology of division. An ideology bent on pitting one group against another in their unrelenting quest for the only thing they believe that matters in the world.

Power.