Refreshing The Tree of Liberty
Column originally published 11-2-06
The Right to Revolt
The Right to Revolt
By Kelvin Wade
"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?" -- Thomas Jefferson
Fourteen-year-old Sacramentan Julia Wilson received worldwide attention last month when Secret Service agents pulled her out of class 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, "Éwhenever any form of government becomes destructive of those ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish itÉ?" This is the so-called right to revolution.
What if Tom Clancy wrote a new novel and in it a president wins office in two elections decided by one state each time with vote irregularities in both states? And let's say that most of the electronic voting machines are provided by one of the president's biggest financial backers.
What if in the book a president consistently exploits the deaths of nearly 3,000 people in a terrorist attack to push his agenda?
What if the president cherry-picked intelligence and misled America to back 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 killed and 21,000 wounded? What if it cost $338 billion dollars?
And suppose there were atrocities and torturous conduct during the war 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 that 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, with one exploding an atomic bomb?
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?
What if this fictional president and his congressional enablers passed a law codifying torture and gave himself sole right to interpret the Geneva Convention?
What if dissenters were treated as traitors?
Surely, a regime such as this would deserve toppling.
Six years ago, we may have found such a Tom Clancy plot to be implausible. After all, there are checks and balances in the American system, right? Wouldn't the public rise up to put the country back on the right footing as the Founding Fathers intended?
Fourteen-year-old Sacramentan Julia Wilson received worldwide attention last month when Secret Service agents pulled her out of class 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, "Éwhenever any form of government becomes destructive of those ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish itÉ?" This is the so-called right to revolution.
What if Tom Clancy wrote a new novel and in it a president wins office in two elections decided by one state each time with vote irregularities in both states? And let's say that most of the electronic voting machines are provided by one of the president's biggest financial backers.
What if in the book a president consistently exploits the deaths of nearly 3,000 people in a terrorist attack to push his agenda?
What if the president cherry-picked intelligence and misled America to back 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 killed and 21,000 wounded? What if it cost $338 billion dollars?
And suppose there were atrocities and torturous conduct during the war 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 that 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, with one exploding an atomic bomb?
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?
What if this fictional president and his congressional enablers passed a law codifying torture and gave himself sole right to interpret the Geneva Convention?
What if dissenters were treated as traitors?
Surely, a regime such as this would deserve toppling.
Six years ago, we may have found such a Tom Clancy plot to be implausible. After all, there are checks and balances in the American system, right? Wouldn't the public rise up to put the country back on the right footing as the Founding Fathers intended?
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