Today is January 6, the anniversary of the protests, riot, insurrection of whatever you want to call it that rocked Washington DC and led to a shameful witch hunt by politically weaponized federal agencies. It’s embarrassing and frightening to see what was exposed when the powers-that-be were frightened.
Hundreds of thousands of people went to the capital city on Jan. 6, 2021, to exercise their right to free speech, and to show their support for outgoing President Donald Trump. Despite information that suggested a few troublemakers were planning something untoward, then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi refused – in writing, no less – to provide National Guard troops for extra security, despite Trump’s written request for the same.
There is no question that some of the people who scaled the steps of the Capital were indeed committing crimes. The grandmothers and blue collar workers who were ushered into the people’s house by capital police, however, were not insurrectionists. The people from right here in our area went up there to show their appreciation of Trump, and they were not intent on preventing the legal and orderly transfer of power, as has been done in our country for more than 200 years. People who flew into Washington to see the historic occasion were not heading there with a craven desire to create chaos.
Yet since that time, anyone who was in DC on January 6 could be facing a knock on the door from federal agents wearing tactical gear. Individuals who expressed support for the outgoing president or distrust at the honesty of the elections that sent Joe Biden into office have become the subjects of otherwise illegal wiretaps, surveillance and harassment, based purely on the anonymous accusations of folks who are sometimes among the least reputable in their own communities. Just because someone says a person was in Washington on January 6 is grounds for a visit by humorless people bearing firearms, subpoenas and sometimes search warrants.
What in the world has happened to our country, people?
Why is the rule of law set aside in favor of those true rioters who caused billions of dollars in property damages and murdered people during the months leading up to the elections of 2020, yet the full force of the federal government is turned on those who went to see an historic event in the nation’s capital? Why can’t the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation honestly answer how many undercover agents his agency had working on January 6?
Again, I offer the caveat that some bad actors were present and apparently did indeed try to cause trouble. I met and interviewed Stewart Rhodes months before Jan. 6, and was immediately struck by the man’s intelligence, his drive – and his deep-seated desire to be the center of attention. We spoke a number of times over the following months.
While I agreed with some of the things he said – ideas like state’s rights, self-discipline, personal responsibility, and such as that – Rhodes struck me from the start as being a snakeoil salesman, a huckster, a con artist. He never struck me as the true patriot he claimed to be, but rather as someone with a fervent hope that someday he could set up a fiefdom as did the medieval warlords of the past.
I never wrote the interview I had with Rhodes, because I did not take him seriously. That was my mistake. Some of my friends did indeed listen to his rhetoric, but later they wisely broke ties themselves from him.
Yet despite having distanced themselves fom him, in the weeks and months after Jan. 6, they found themselves being hounded by federal law enforcement, kicked off social media and libeled in the public square because they had been associated with Rhodes – or even simply met him a few times.
The witch hunts are still ongoing, but not with quite the vigor they had under Nancy Pelosi and Co. A state legislator from a (big surprise) Democrat-leaning district in Wake County insists that anyone who disputes election results, as well as anyone who was in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021, should never be allowed to be on a local elections board.
Let’s get something straight – I make no bones about my distrust of a strong centralized government. I am firmly Jeffersonian (no pun intended) in my philosophies, with some slightly less vindictive Andrew Jackson in the mix. If you don’t understand you need to read more.
I distrust self-perpetuating bureaucracies whose operating manuals are based on preventing taxpayers who support them from easily receiving the services said bureaucracies are supposed to provide. It frightens me as an American that a party in power, any party, can use taxpayer resources to go after dissenters. It angers me that the national teachers association asked for and got the support of the current president to send FBI agents to interview and in some cases arrest parents who dared speak out at school board meetings.
Simply, I do not trust the government to tell me the entire truth, or to operate in an efficient manner, or be a good steward of taxpayer resources – but also, the idea of an armed insurrection is horrifying. What happened on Jan. 6 was by no means an attempt to take over the government.
Storming the capital was stupid, and it was frightening. It may have been a serendipitous series of collisions of unrelated plans by politicians to embarrass Trump supporters, and crazy bad actors intent on somehow making a dollar off of causing a media event. While I am not and never have been a wholehearted supporter of Trump, I’m confident that the man did not try to encourage an insurrection. Watch the videos of his speeches, or rather, watch the versions that have not been selectively edited by the blatantly anti-Trump media and the Hollywood producers hired by the Democrats in the House of Representatives.
But it was no insurrection, elsewise there would have been a lot more gunfire and we wouldn’t be having this conversation – since the government would have won, and the resultant dictatorship would have been one to make North Korea’s leader envious. It was not worse than 9/11, as so many commentators claimed. Fewer than ten people actually died, not 50 or 75 as some of the media claimed. Several died from pre-existing medical conditions exacerbated by fighting, tear gas, and pepper spray. Of those tragic casualties, only one was shot – and she was an unarmed protestor killed by a federal officer randomly firing into a crowd from the House chambers.
Heck, it wasn’t as bad as the George Floyd riots of the previous summer. It just happened to take place at the Capital building, instead of on city streets.
Whatever January 6 was, it was not an attempt to take over or forcibly change the government of the United States.
We have an electoral process for a reason. We need to elect leaders who have the courage to actually fix the things that are broken, even when it’s frustrating and people call them names. We as voters and taxpayers need to demand and get accountability in the manner as prescribed by law.
The idea of a true civil war, not a war between a united group of states and a confederation of states that constitutionally seceded and were invaded — the very idea of a true civil war in our country is horrifying. While I have little or no faith in many of those involved in the system of government, I still have faith in the electoral process, but we as Americans have a responsibility to be louder and firmer than those who claim they are better and smarter than the average American because they are government employees.
References to George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm are nowhere near as ridiculous nowadays as they should be. But we as Americans must remember that the only reason the pigs were allowed to become more equal than the other animals in the barnyard is because the other animals voted to allow the pigs to be in control.
And the pigs, in this case, certainly did not let a good crisis go to waste.
