Waiting for Cooler Heads to Prevail

Well, apparently I made Dan mad by not talking about what he wanted me to talk about. He wanted me to rage about "my president" (that is, the one I didn't vote for in 2016 nor support for the last 4 years nor urge anyone to vote for this last year) and his culpability in the recent "unpleasantness." (In case you're not aware, that's called a "euphemism" and does not begin to express how bad it was.) So, because I care deeply what Dan thinks (snicker), I'm actually making a second post in one day. Fortunately for you all, it's somewhat long, so "TL/DR" might just work for you. We'll see. So, herein, just from the news and my pea brain, is my two cents on the topic. No Scripture. No claim to "God said." Just one man's opinion.

Here's what we know. On Wednesday, January 6, 2021, Congress met to count the Electoral College votes. Down the street, President Donald Trump gave a speech to supporters. Retaining his claim to voter fraud and "stolen election," he told them, "If you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore." And they marched down the street and stormed the Capitol building. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos resigned Thursday (along with a host of others in the Trump administration) citing Trump's rhetoric that brought about "unconscionable" behavior. We all know who the problem is and we all know what we have to do about it. Except I'm not at all sure we're accurate.

UK Home Secretary Priti Patel states categorically, "His comments directly led to the violence, and so far he has failed to condemn that violence and that is completely wrong." Time has written up the story in an article entitled, "Incited by the President, Trump Supporters Violently Storm the Capitol." Clearly they believe the president incited the invasion of the Capitol building. Wikipedia's account of the event includes the BBC and Time stories as proof that "The riots were incited by comments made by Trump at an earlier rally." Yet, from the Time story we read

During the melee, Trump tweeted pleas to the crowd to "stay peaceful," adding "No violence! Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order." As the confrontations continued, the President tweeted again, posting a video of himself. "You have to go home now," he said, adding, "We don’t want anybody hurt." But he also doubled down on his claims the election was "fraudulent," and told his supporters he loved them.

and the BBC story admits

The president has now said there will be an "orderly transition" to Democrat Joe Biden.

In the "inciting" speech to his supporters Trump said,

I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.

There is no question that Trump's rhetoric is horrible. We can all agree on that -- well, mostly all. Not the ardent Trump supporters, I suppose. Lots of voices besides Trump had much more inciting rhetoric. Louie Gohmert told us, "You got to go to the streets and be as violent as Antifa." Ted Cruz said, "We will not go quietly into the night. We will defend liberty." Eric Trump threatened to "defeat every single Republican Senator/Congressman who doesn't stand against this fraud." Don Trump Jr warned that if they didn't do anything, "We're coming for you." Rudy Giuliani said, "Let's have trial by combat." Those are all inflammatory and openly violent, as opposed to Trump's final instructions "To peacefully, patriotically make your voides heard."

There is no defense for what happened that day. There is no excuse for the shooting of an unarmed protester or the murder of a US Capitol Police officer. There is no excuse for invading the Capitol or threatening lawmakers. Mike Pence has said, "Peaceful protest is the right of every American but this attack on our Capitol will not be tolerated and those involved will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law." No excuses. I cannot even fathom what they hoped to accomplish. On the other hand, I was long concerned about threats of civil war that I had heard from just before the November election if Trump should lose. I am not defending Trump nor the rioters. All I'm saying is that it is not as clear as you're being told that Trump caused this atrocity. I suspect the Trump Derangement Syndrome is still in full effect. There is a logical fallacy referred to as reductio ad Hitlerium or "playing the Nazi card" where you can shoot down anyone's argument simply by suggesting that they are as bad as Hitler. It looks like Trump is the new logical fallacy. "If Trump was involved, it's his fault."

One might be tempted to ask, "So what? What if it isn't exactly Trump's fault? He was still a major contributor with his rhetoric." Here I see two problems. First, if rhetoric is the crime here, what about all the rhetoric, say, of BLM? There are people demanding riots and violence, people calling on the end of capitalism, of democracy, of liberty, of white people. There are people urging violence against police and against government. Where are the criminal charges for this obviously blatant violent rhetoric? Not coming, is it? Second, and probably more important, if Trump contributed to but was not the real cause of this violent event and we string him up for it, then where's the justice? What about those who are the real causes? What about the leaders? What about those others that specifically called for violence? What about the actual sedition rather than the possibly implied sedition from Trump? If we satiate the nation's demand for blood by removing Trump (less than two weeks before we remove Trump anyway), where is the justice for the rest? For the real problem people?

In my view, we're starting to look like an angry lynch mob. We're not looking at clear thinking and the examination of facts. We're just mad. Let's pull him out of his house and hang him by the closest tree. Surely that isn't a better look for the American way, is it? Unless that's the new look we hope for from the new administration. I don't think that will bode well for a lot of people. But, again, I'm just whistling in the wind, because for Americans today all truth is by media (For instance, all accounts on the media refer to Trump's claims of election fraud as "baseless" when the truth is they are not based in anything they accept and not that they have no basis.) and whatever they say we'll believe without even noticing our disregard of our laws and our rights.