ENOUGH

I try to keep my posts uplifting especially now when we are all stressed to the max by the pandemic and the tumultuous politics of the last year.  I try to practice tolerance.  I believe people who don't share my views, whether we are talking about politics or religion or whatever controversial topic you name, are not evil doers, but just people with a different viewpoint from whom maybe I can learn something.  

Yesterday's events at the Capitol of the United States of America is where the line is drawn for me.  Everyone who reads me knows that I'm well versed in American history, and I've tended to take the long view of this polarized political climate knowing we have experienced this sort of polarization before in our history and we've weathered it.  The same societal and economic stressors have happened in this country, and we've managed to muddle through except for one notable exception:  The Civil War.  If we learned anything from that terrible war, it's to not let our differences escalate to violent confrontation. 

The last time our nation's capitol was attacked was 1814 when the British, as an act of war, burned the White House and invaded our halls of government.  Yesterday's attack on our chambers of government was insurrection:  It was a violent uprising against the authority of our government.  Law makers (Congressmen and Senators) were certifying the November election, and they were forced to flee a mob intent on stopping that certification by violence.  This was not a 'protest'.  These were not peaceful protesters.  These were insurrectionists determined by storming the Chambers of the Senate and House of Representatives to disrupt the working of government.  This was a wake-up call and a reckoning.

And yes, it was a mob.  And, yes, it was led by extremist factions of Trump supporters.  And, yes, the mob was incited to violence by the Donald Trump, President of the United States.  He has consistently told a blatant lie to the American public over and over trying to convert into truth that the Presidential election was fraudulent and the election process was tainted.  He's not proven that allegation in a single court in the entire nation at every level.  Not a single one.  Many of the judges who've rejected his claims of fraud were Republicans appointed by his administration including those sitting on the Supreme Court.   Votes have been counted and re-counted.  The election officials in Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Georgia are all Republicans.  They have repeatedly told anyone who has asked there was no fraud perpetrated in their states.  The November election was free of widespread fraud.  That is a fact.  Donald Trump was fairly defeated in the election.  That is a fact.     

Yesterday's insurrection at the the national Capitol is what happens when lies are continually repeated over and over again.  It's what happens when people elected to serve do not put patriotism and their oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States in front of personal grabs for power.  And, yes, I'm calling out those lawmakers who've continually been silent about the lies endlessly repeated by Donald Trump, and who are starting to deliberately lie about what happened yesterday in the national capitol.  We expect dissent.  We expect differing points of view.  Politics is a rough and tumble game, and it always has been.  This is different.  This is not just politics as usual.  What we and too may of our public servants have allowed to stand and take root is a web of deliberately told lies which has culminated in insurrection.

When a mob invades the Capitol of the United State of America, not a single one of us should stand by.  Instead we should stand up and say NO.  Enough.  No one has the right to do that.  If you think this has been overblown or 'spun' by the talking head of the media, well, turn off the sound and simply look at the photos and pictures of what happened yesterday.  No one needs words in order to understand what happened.  There is no alternative interpretation.  It was wrong.  It was insurrection.  It was mob violence aimed at stopping the workings of government.  

I, for one, will not stand for it.