/ Politics

A Note to Those Considering Domestic Terrorism

Do you really want to fight? Then let’s fight.

But know this: we won’t come at you with guns and hatred in our eyes. We won’t threaten your children and shrug our shoulders and mutter “collateral damage.” We won’t attempt to bully you and wrap ourselves in the flag while demonstrating that democracy and freedom are mere words to be thrown around and not concepts to respect and embrace. We won’t throw temper tantrums and mock people with Parkinson’s disease or make fun of 11 year old boys whose mother died because of a shitty health care system.

No.

We are going to fight you through the laws of this country. We are going to fight you by organizing and getting angry and organizing more and making sure that we show everybody just how toxic and racist and un-democratic you are. We are going to call you by your rightful names: American Taliban, Terrorists, Criminals. You can believe what you want, you can scream and shout your imbecilic beliefs about birth certificates and death squads, you can fantasize about shooting liberals and taking back the government through force for all I care. Go to it.

But you turn that fantasy into action. You martyr another innocent person in the name of your petty, selfish, black-hearted fear that the world doesn’t revolve around you and only you, and we will fight tooth and nail . . . to make sure that you are given your Miranda rights and a fair trial.

Does that seem weak to you? A pansy way to go? A soft, liberal answer? That’s because you are the weak ones. You are the scared ones. You are the ones that don’t understand just how valuable and important the rule of law is to a free nation. You are the ones who don’t have the strength and the guts to stand up for democracy and America. Instead, you hide in your bunkers and beneath your banners of vitriol and scream over and over again that you are the “Real Americans” that you are the Patriots. You are neither. You are a sad, scared group of people who have all the emotional maturity of a two-year-old. You like to pretend you are tough and macho, but inside you know that you are desperate and afraid. That’s why you need your guns and your hatred, because deep down you know that you’ve already lost, that you are pitiful, and that you are terrified of your own obsolescence.

We’ve already won. And you know it. With one hand tied behind our back with due process, we will still win. Because, as Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.”

So do you really want to fight? Really? When you can grow the fuck up and take responsibility for your actions and this country and agree that we can always disagree about policy and fiscal choices; about who we tax and how; about issues of governance and the intricacies of government involvement in our lives. Let me state this as clearly as I can: we do not have to agree on anything but the fundamental necessity for a democracy to operate through the rule of law and through the operation of its established political system. You don’t like something, then win the fucking election and change it. But don’t you dare, don’t you dare tread down the path of violence and have the effrontery to be shocked when we call you out for being criminals and terrorists.

So what will it be? Do you want to fight or do you want to get back on board with trying to make our country a strong and secure nation for all of its citizens, as well as being a moral leader for the world?

Go ahead, take some time to cool down, catch your breath, and make a choice. But know this, and know it deep in your heart:

We will fight for this country, for freedom, and for justice.

And we will win.

On this day..