Dakota Beacon

Today I thought I’d share with readers a letter I wrote to a friend.  We have differed on political outlook but we have enjoyed a healthy dialogue and ongoing debate for years.  

The other day my friend wrote, severely criticizing the federal officials who have stepped in to put down some of the violence against federal property in Portland.  As everyone knows by now, Portland has become a no-man’s land and that city’s mayor has refused to do anything to prevent the egregious destruction of property and business and the threat to life itself.  For this, I believe he should not only be removed from office but prosecuted and probably sued by those who have borne the brunt of this.  So we disagree.  My friend sees the federal presence and “police brutality” - federal officials using force, “whisking” suspects away in “unmarked cars’ as a gross overreach, a power grab by the power-hungry Donald Trump.

While I, too, have been critical of Trump - in this and in other things.  If anything, he should have acted before the violence got this far out of hand and claimed so much of our country this summer.  Here are some of my thoughts on the ugly summer of 2020:

I don't know how you see this, but I would say that when thugs intent on overthrowing the government attempt to raze federal buildings and other public property under federal jurisdiction, there is not only the right, but the duty for the federal government to intervene.  Where does it end, otherwise?  Taking over the courts?  Disrupting the essential services of the federal government?  (Of course, in my own opinion, these services should be very limited and not include any social programs beyond the courts.)  When is the "right" time to stop this?  In an attempt to stop the arson of a federal building - a federal courthouse - federal agents were viciously attacked by these gangsters.  They are not peaceful protesters.  In fact, they are not protesters at all.  They are simply attacking the United States wherever they are.  Some of them are nomadic terrorists.  But they are terrorists.  Some of these agents were attacked with lasers and may now live the rest of their lives in darkness - simply for trying to do their job.  They may now be permanently blind.  Why?  Whose interets are served by these gangsters and their war on America?  What is their point?  It sure as hell is not that anyone's life matters.  What it is actually about is driving this country to Marxism - against our will.  (The mail-in ballots are another facet of this effort, by the way.)

Here is a link.  At least three federal officers may be permanently blind after Portland rioters attacked them with lasers

You really should watch the accompanying video.  The shameful behavior of Wheeler in this should result in his prosecution.  Back in the 1790s Washington had to put down the Whiskey Rebellion.  The distillers had a point, true.  It was eventually settled.  It shouldn't have happened.  But at no time then or since then can we permit someone or a group of thugs and gangsters like these - BLM and Antifa (basically the same thing) - criminals - to abuse the rights of the people in general or those of individuals in the process.  No one's "cause" is important enough to excuse this.  

A few weeks ago these sub-humans spent the entire night stoking fires to melt a statue OF AN ELK.  What a cause! Oh, well, Portland is so great-looking it doesn't need its artwork.  Right?  The rest of the public can just do without something a few gangsters thought was fun to watch melt.  Right?

It's time to choose sides.  It's not a "Trump" thing at all.  It wouldn't matter really who was president.  I think Trump has been negligent in not putting this violence down long ago.  I'm glad he finally is getting around to it but he needs to ramp it up a lot and be decisive here.  (I honestly believe that if a meteor hit the earth and blew a hole in the U.S. you would find some peg to hang blame for Trump on.) He's definitely not the greatest president we've had.  I would maintain that since Washington, Coolidge has been so far.  Reagan was good, but was too "soft" with Democrats, too trusting.  Maybe because he still had some identity with them.  Truman would have had these thugs' butts in prison for life, had he been in office - I think you would probably agree with that.  I honestly think that before now even Jimmy Carter would  have put his foot down and stopped this.  It's one thing to whimper around with the Ayatollah, but when it's in your backyard it's another matter.

What is happening is that we have 1) thugs to whom life and property are nothing but target practice and sport, 2) people trying to stop them and protect life and property, 3) useful idiots - "peaceful protesters" - who set the table for the gangsters, 4) soulless, shameless "leaders" who do not lead, but join the thugs - people like Wheeler and Durkan, Lightfoot, de Blasio, Tim Mahoney in Fargo, and the idiot Jacob Frey in Minneapolis and their henchmen, and 5) the businesses, residents, other workers and everyone else who are victims of the thugs and their allies.

Their allies include those who make apology for them, who join them, either physically or in spirit.  Their allies share the blame for this.  The useful idiots share this blame.  It's time to pick a side.  I know where I stand - and it does not excuse or allow for police abuse.  But it means stopping this now.  Violence such as we have seen could have been stopped, lives saved, businesses saved, had someone had the guts to just say, "If you break a window or loot, if you threaten to burn or otherwise damage or destroy property, if you threaten people's safety and well-being, we will use deadly force immediately to stop you."  And then take aim and shoot to kill.  That's where I stand.  Obviously far to the "right" of Trump, who has thus far exhibited embarrassing forebearance in this.  

Do you really think that it's ok to burn down a federal courthouse?  I mean, I've been dumped on by a jury before.  I know they're not perfect.  But without courts we have no law.  If we have no law there is nothing - no protection  - between you or me and these violent criminals, these terrorists.  There is no question that the feds had both the right and duty to step in here.  I don't approve of weird behavior or abuse.  But nothing so far has been more capricious, weird or abusive than the behavior of these insurrectionist terrorists.  I'm all for stopping them - with as little violence as possible - but stopping them, whatever it takes.

Comments?  lingogirlWyahoo.com