Thursday, January 7, 2021

OPINION: Where Has this Confrontational Spirit Been the Last 9 Months?

OPINION: Where Has this Confrontational Spirit Been the Last 9 Months?
Courtney Kirchoff - January 07, 2021 at 03:09PM

On Wednesday, apparent Trump-supporters broke the flimsy barriers erected to protect the nation's capitol and stormed inside. Already every head that can talk, has. Poignant points have already been made, and I see no way to improve upon the insights of Tucker Carlson or Glenn Beck. If you've not yet watched either, I encourage you to do so now. Then return here for the merriment I shall spread.

Before we go further, a personal admission that some unfamiliar with my work may not know: I am bossy, judgmental, and share both as if they were a universal cure. If you find know-it-all, busy-bodying lecture-types irritating, imagine being my mother. Also, this is your last chance to ditch out and go watch cat videos. No one would judge you but me and there's no getting around that anyway.

Because I am the insufferable judger that I am, my first reaction to hearing about the Capitol events was this:

I told you I was judgmental. What, you didn't believe me?

During the rancid pit that was 2020, commenters on the internet frequently asked "but what can we do about it" to which I'd respond with ideas to push back. Up to and including this website covering stories of those people who actually pushed back. Inspiration. This sentiment was expounded upon in a recent column I couldn't publish to Facebook for reasons which should be self-explanatory, but you can read here.

Wednesday's events highlighted two things:

  1. Security defending our nation's CAPITOL was pathetic, so why were so many of us afraid of the same government during the shutdown? People were scared the government — the same government defended with flimsy fences — would enter their businesses and homes if they violated lockdown orders. Did Wednesday's events change your mind on this point?
  2. Millions of Americans feel desperate. Whatever you think of the events at the Capitol yesterday, it seems obvious a lot of Americans are angry. We can say the same for the riots over the summer. Which media was reluctant to call riots but had no issue calling riots yesterday, but that's a post for later. If Americans are willing to attack the Capitol, why are so many still unwilling to pushback against their local governments by resuming their normal lives? Requiring no violence at all.
There are, and have always been, more of us than there are of them. No, that's not a call to violence. It's simple math. There are roughly 350 million Americans. A tiny, minuscule fraction of those Americans are elected officials. Here, let's hit a meme for this point:

Note that the people kneeling just stood up. That was enough to make the point. The power is in the numbers. If you think the meme and my point are overly simple, why? We have a tendency to overcomplicate matters in order to avoid them. I understand it can be uncomfortable to be the pioneer taking the arrows by going against what the herd does. But you tell me what's easier today: stop kneeling and just standup, or risking your life to storm the capitol to make the exact same point?

As it turns out, Americans do have a confrontational spirit. The question is, will we ever see it applied peacefully in every day America?



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