An Appropriate Response?

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. ... what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms." -- Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, 1787

14 year old Sacramento resident Julia Wilson received worldwide attention last week when Secret Service and Department of Homeland Security agents pulled her out of her high school for questioning about an anti-Bush MySpace page she’d set up with the words, “Kill Bush” on it. Her passion about politics crossed the line into what could be construed as a threat.

But didn’t Jefferson muse about toppling our leadership in the above quote? And doesn’t the Declaration of Independence say that the government is formed by the consent of the governed to promote life liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and goes on to say, “…that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of those ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it…”? This is the so-called right to revolution.

What if Tom Clancy wrote a new novel called “Bushwhacked” and in it a president wins office in two elections decided by one state with vote irregularities in both states? Let’s say the first time, the state is governed by the candidate’s brother and the second election, the electronic voting machines with no paper trails are supplied by one of the president’s biggest supporters?

What if the president stovepiped and cherry picked intelligence and misled America to back a push for a war he’s wanted since stepping into office?

And how about if that war resulted in up to 655,000 people dead with nearly 2,800 Americans dead and 21,000 wounded?

And suppose there were atrocities and torturous conduct that inflamed our enemies?

Let’s suppose the President has a memo drafted authorizing torture and implements a plan to kidnap people and spirit them to other countries to be tortured?

What if Clancy had this fictional President set up a network of secret prisons around the world run by the CIA?

What if the country the President invaded imploded into civil war and represented a tremendous loss of security as well as prestige for the United States?

What if that president’s inept foreign policy resulted in two of the world’s worst regimes stepping up their nuclear programs?

What if the President arrested Americans and denied them due process? What if he asserted he could detain Americans indefinitely?

And what if this same president assumes the authority to wiretap Americans without court oversight after pledging he wouldn’t do so?

What if this fictional president twisted the arms of members of his party to allow the passage of a bill that would codify torture? It’s a bill that strips away legal protections like habeas corpus, allows torture and gives the President sole right to interpret the Geneva Convention.

If this were a Tom Clancy novel, it would read like a tyrant had seized control of the American government. And under the “fictional” scenario I’ve painted, it wouldn’t be hard to see some in the country clamoring to overthrow such a president.

If a president were subverting the constitution in contempt of congressional oversight or judicial review along with the possibility of vote tampering, what is the people’s recourse? If the ballot is suspect, the bullet becomes more likely. How crazy would they be if they resorted to revolution to put the country back on the right footing as the Founding Fathers apparently intended?

While I certainly don’t advocate the assassination of public officials, given the context, I can understand Julia Wilson’s frustration and passion. Sic Semper Tyrannis!