By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton
Since I posted the videos of police arresting numerous individuals at the Jefferson Memorial for dancing, questions have arisen as to the validity of the protesters.
I am fully aware that those arrested are progressive leftists. Adam Kokesh and Medea Benjamin are the two primaries I am referring to.
Kokesh works for the Russia Today TV Channel and at one time tried to align himself with the Tea Party. He is an Iraq war vet. When the Tea Party found out he was a leftist trying to stir up revolution, they chased him out.
Medea Benjamin is with Code Pink – enough said.
I am as far apart from these whackos as you can get. But no one should get beaten for dancing. Yep, they may be annoying and they may have been trying to irritate the cops, but listen to me carefully… The Constitution is NOT selective.
There are a lot of good cops out there. There are a few bad ones. DC evidently feels that it can pass laws for its jurisdiction that are outside of Constitutional limits – ordinances that direct their police officers to do things that are not based on Constitutional law. Witness the DC Gun Ban that was just recently overturned.
If Constitutional rights are violated concerning those you do not agree with, it is only a matter of time before it comes home to you. So it does not help Americans to say it is okay to come down on the left as long as you don’t touch the right, because the right is next, trust me.
Now if what the dancers were doing impinged on the rights of others there, the police certainly have the duty and obligation to ask them to desist. But not the right to beat someone’s head against the pavement unless they are trying to harm the policeman and there is imminent danger at hand.
There is a fine line between Constitutional rights and activism. I realize there were signs displayed asking people to keep quiet out of respect for the Memorial and for others. Obviously, the police believe this was being violated and the dancers were asked to stop. And just because there is a court ruling that says they can’t dance, doesn’t automatically make it right folks. How many liberal judges have we seen recently that forwarded judicial activism from the bench? My big issue here is the amount of force that was used and the fact that it appeared these individuals were not bothering anyone.
There have also been questions on whether this was staged with the police. I highly doubt that, but since I was not there, there is no way I can know.
I stand by the fact that the government is getting more and more tyrannical and heavy handed. It is showing up in places all over the country. It would seem no one on either side is immune to governmental tyranny and people better learn to stand up and object whether it is someone in their camp or not, or we will all lose our freedom.
He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from opposition; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach himself. ~Thomas Paine
But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.
John Adams, letter to Abigail Adams, July 17, 1775
Fear is the foundation of most governments; but it is so sordid and brutal a passion, and renders men in whose breasts it predominates so stupid and miserable, that Americans will not be likely to approve of any political institution which is founded on it.
John Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776
We lay it down as a fundamental, that laws, to be just, must give a reciprocation of right; that, without this, they are mere arbitrary rules of conduct, founded in force, and not in conscience.
Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the state of Virginia, 1782
The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy. An equal dispensation of protection, rights, privileges, and advantages, is what every part is entitled to, and ought to enjoy.
Benjamin Franklin, Emblematical Representations, Circa 1774
