Alex Pretti lived a good life. He was well respected, likeable, and put others before his own welfare. He was murdered in cold blood by and ICE agent. Earlier in the month of January, another agent summarily murdered a woman and then called her a "fucking bitch.. The coverups by the government were immediate, calling them "domestic terrorists" and speculating about motivations for which there is no substantial evidence.
The fact that two human beings were murdered in the span of a few days hasn't changed the US Federal Government's ideology nor it's tactics, not it's philosophy nor it's practices. In fact both scenes were destroyed before any investigation was performed.
We, the citizens of this once great country, sit and wonder. We grieve and we get angry. We have been non-violent. We have leaned on the system of checks and balances written into the Constitution. We have relied on the "rule of law" only to see those laws ignored, sometimes flagrantly claiming that the government cannot be compelled to follow the law- that the law was and is "unenforceable."
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.-
Our government has pursued means to disrupt the rule of law. There is no due process, other than a cursory "yeah he looks brown" sniff test. Some people like to say "due process doesn't apply to non-citizens." But it clearly does, if one reads the Constitution. The writers of the Constitution clearly knew what they were writing and to whom it applied.
"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the
"Privileges or immunities of citizens" and "nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person WITHIN IT"S JURISDICTION the equal protection of the laws." The writers made a clear distinction between citizens and persons, yet protected both.
Whether it is one or many transgressions committed by this current regime, it doesn't matter. This is a lawless regime. Our government is rogue, and is actively committing crimes in the furtherance of a mad president's agenda. The fact that there are still millions of people who will actively deny any wrong doing, millions of people that will justify these "crossings of the lines" as excusable and unavoidable tells me one very important thing: They have decided that might makes right.
In May of 1970, a student protest was scheduled... and 70 or so National Guardsmen were sent to break up the protest... a protest against the Vietnam war. Those Guardsmen were the targets of rocks and bottles and eventually they fired their M1 rifles and some also fired handguns. Somewhere upward of 60 shots were fired, in the aftermath 4 students were lying dead on the ground. The covers of newspapers and magazines showed the famous photo of a Ms. Vecchio over a prostrate body on the ground.
The difference being that this "massacre" was investigated and hearings were held and there were some consequences.
Currently we have a regime in power who won't even investigate their newly created, and spectacularly untrained political enforcement agency. In fact they don't deny their wrong-doing, but they spin the actions in a political way to justify them now, and for the future. They have, by action or inaction, sanctioned the use of violence to achieve their end goals, or to move closer to those goals.
Protests are wonderful tools. Peaceful assembly is a guaranteed right under the Constitution. Peaceful protests only work well when the Protested have empathy. This is currently NOT the case.
So how does a majority of the country, under an aggressive minority rule accomplish change? What will it take? Will the American people wake up and unite in a general strike? I'm not sure that's a possibility. How to wake people up and make them get off the "can't we all just get along" fence that they roost on. Make them contribute by action or contribution to taking this country back, and showing the world that the US government is not as strong as it's people are resilient.
I hope it won't take another Kent State massacre there are already too many dead and dying.
