The Protesters Are The True Patriots Fighting For American Democratic Ideals, Not Against Them
The Protesters Are the True Patriots. They are the ones fighting for American ideals. By Nancy LeTourneau, Washington Monthly, July 21, 2020.
It is truly bizarre that, at a moment when the Trump administration is sending in federal stormtroopers to threaten peaceful protesters in Portland, Oregon, conservatives are claiming that it is liberals who threaten the foundation of our democratic republic. It all started with Trump’s speech at Mt. Rushmore on July 4th.
~ Seventeen seventy-six represented the culmination of thousands of years of western civilization and the triumph not only of spirit, but of wisdom, philosophy, and reason.
And yet, as we meet here tonight, there is a growing danger that threatens every blessing our ancestors fought so hard for, struggled, they bled to secure.
Our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values, and indoctrinate our children…
This attack on our liberty, our magnificent liberty, must be stopped, and it will be stopped very quickly. We will expose this dangerous movement, protect our nation’s children, end this radical assault, and preserve our beloved American way of life…
Make no mistake: this left-wing cultural revolution is designed to overthrow the American Revolution. ~
That was followed up by a speech from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the National Constitution Center to unveil the first report from his “Commission on Unalienable Rights.” The secretary had established the commission a year ago in order to ground our foreign policy in this country’s founding ideals. The first thing to note is that Pompeo thinks that it is necessary to prioritize which unalienable rights are most important.
~ …the report emphasizes foremost among these rights are property rights and religious liberty. No one can enjoy the pursuit of happiness if you cannot own the fruits of your own labor, and no society – no society can retain its legitimacy or a virtuous character without religious freedom. ~
Of course, what a Christian nationalist like Pompeo means when he talks about “religious liberty” is the freedom of white evangelical Christians to do what they please and all other religions be damned. That one has a lot of human rights advocates pointing out that it is the rights of women and LGBTQ persons to be treated as equal citizens under the law that are getting thrown under the bus.
Pompeo mentioned Trump’s speech at Mt. Rushmore when he launched into his own attack on those who are protesting against police brutality.
~ President Trump spoke about this at Mount Rushmore on the Fourth of July. And our rights tradition is under assault.
The New York Times’s 1619 Project – so named for the year that the first slaves were transported to America – wants you to believe that our country was founded for human bondage.
They want you to believe that America’s institutions continue to reflect the country’s acceptance of slavery at our founding.
They want you to believe that Marxist ideology that America is only the oppressors and the oppressed. The Chinese Communist Party must be gleeful when they see the New York Times spout this ideology.
Some people have taken these false doctrines to heart. The rioters pulling down statues thus see nothing wrong with desecrating monuments to those who fought for our unalienable rights – from our founding to the present day.
This is a dark vision of America’s birth. I reject it. It’s a disturbed reading of history. It is a slander on our great people. Nothing could be further from the truth of our founding and the rights about which this report speaks.
The commission reminds us – it’s got a quote from Frederick Douglas, himself a freed slave, who saw the Constitution as a “glorious, liberty document.” That it is. ~
That quote from Frederick Douglass is a favorite among conservatives. What they don’t tell you is that it comes from his speech titled, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?’ given in 1852—nine years before the Civil War. Speaking to a white audience, Douglass refers to “your National Independence, and of your political freedom” (emphasis mine), making it clear that it doesn’t apply to those who were enslaved. You can almost see the tongue-in-cheek way that he talks about what led up to the Declaration of Independence from British rule.
~ Feeling themselves harshly and unjustly treated by the home government, your fathers, like men of honesty, and men of spirit, earnestly sought redress. They petitioned and remonstrated; they did so in a decorous, respectful, and loyal manner. Their conduct was wholly unexceptionable. This, however, did not answer the purpose. They saw themselves treated with sovereign indifference, coldness and scorn. Yet they persevered. They were not the men to look back…
Oppression makes a wise man mad. Your fathers were wise men, and if they did not go mad, they became restive under this treatment. They felt themselves the victims of grievous wrongs, wholly incurable in their colonial capacity. With brave men there is always a remedy for oppression. Just here, the idea of a total separation of the colonies from the crown was born! It was a startling idea, much more so, than we, at this distance of time, regard it. The timid and the prudent (as has been intimated) of that day, were, of course, shocked and alarmed by it. ~
It seems pretty clear that Pompeo has never read Douglass’s whole speech. So it might surprise him to learn that the man he quoted referred to our founding fathers as oppressed, but wise men who chaffed under their treatment by the home government. The Declaration of Independence was actually a protest document.
But by the end of his speech, Douglass made it clear that these founding ideals were not extended to people like him...
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