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A note on protests, riots, and false equivalencies:
1. Peaceful protest is a 1st Amendment right. We the people, and the GOVT, should listen to protests and citizens airing grievances.
2. Riots, violence, looting, destruction of property are wrong and should be opposed. Period.
1. Peaceful protest is a 1st Amendment right. We the people, and the GOVT, should listen to protests and citizens airing grievances.
2. Riots, violence, looting, destruction of property are wrong and should be opposed. Period.
3. Seeking to understand the anger of protestors and even rioters and those engaged in violence doesn’t mean you affirm them. It does mean that endeavoring to engage their thinking and reason with them could be a needed and helpful tool in calming rage and bringing peace.
4. “Blessed are the peacemakers.” - Matthew 5:9. You can’t make peace if all you do is demonize one side and then the other. You have to listen and seek to bring both/all sides under the reconciling authority of truth/justice.
5. It was appropriate for protestors to speak last summer re: racial justice. When violence/rioting erupted, that was wrong. But, peaceful protestors and rioters were, by definition, different.
Same is true for those who peacefully protested 1/6 and didn’t engage in violence.
Same is true for those who peacefully protested 1/6 and didn’t engage in violence.
6. While we can say that everyone has the right to protest real or perceived grievances, that protest must be done peacefully and according to the law.
While all violence is wrong and should be opposed, an assault on the Capitol during Congress’s count of electoral ballots ...
While all violence is wrong and should be opposed, an assault on the Capitol during Congress’s count of electoral ballots ...
... to affirm Constitutional transfer of power takes on added level of meaning in our nation’s history. To compare THIS egregious violence with the egregious violence in the summer and say they are the same is wrong. Both are evil. One was an attack on our seat of govt/authority.
7. While we should abhor attacks on police stations, Target, and AutoZone and prosecute all violent rioters to fullest extent of law, to say that’s same as storming the Capitol during a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6 is ridiculous. Both are illegal. One is sedition/treason.
To clarify - I’m not equating a police station or Federal building with a Target or AutoZone. I’m comparing those assaults with an assault on the Capitol while Congress is in session. To attack all of them is wrong/evil, especially those structures that represent authority.
Finally ...
se·di·tion: conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state or monarch.
trea·son: the crime of betraying one's country, especially by attempting to kill the sovereign or overthrow the government.
These definitions should be considered.
se·di·tion: conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state or monarch.
trea·son: the crime of betraying one's country, especially by attempting to kill the sovereign or overthrow the government.
These definitions should be considered.
