“This I am sure, whoever, ruler or subject, by force goes about to invade the rights of either prince or people, and lays the foundation for overturning the constitution and frame of any just government, is highly guilty of the greatest crime, I think, a man is capable of….Whosoever uses force without right, as every one does in society, who does it without law, puts himself into a state of war with those against whom he so uses it; and in that state all former ties are cancelled, all other rights cease, and every one has a right to defend himself, and to resist the aggressor. This is so evident, that Barclay himself, that great assertor of the power and sacredness of kings, is forced to confess, That it is lawful for the people, in some cases to resist their king…”
– John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 1690
The words and ideas of philosopher John Locke stirred the Founders of our nation to rise in revolution against the British crown. Alongside the Gadsden flag–“Don’t Tread On Me”–that has become a favorite emblem of today’s Tea Party, the forces of George Washington also flew the Pine Tree Flag with the motto: “An Appeal To Heaven.” It was a reference to Locke’s teaching that power and right ultimately lay in the hands of the people themselves.
In 2008, the American people elected a man whose life story represented the fulfillment of the Founders’ nascent vision of the equality of all human beings, and whose rise to power bespoke the very American exceptionalism he himself declined to profess. Yet this man, who could have achieved greatness far beyond his oratory skill, could not transcend the left’s rhetoric of violence and conflict, and could not resist the temptation to divide and rule.
For three years, he and his political allies have used violent words: “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” Senator Obama said as he campaigned in 2008. “Punch back twice as hard,” Obama’s deputy chief of staff (now campaign manager) told Democrats in 2009. “Punish” your “enemies,” Obama told Latino voters in 2010. “Take out” the “sons of bitches,” a union leader said before Obama at a rally this month. Today Democratic strategists justify Obama’s naked class warfare by accusing Republicans of a “war on the middle class“–a false charge, calculated to incite and inflame hatred.
For three years, that rhetoric has had real and regrettable results: physical intimidation at a polling place in Philadelphia, which the Obama justice department refuses to prosecute; assault, battery and mayhem committed by union thugs against citizens at town hall meetings; harassment of executives at their homes by bussed-in “community organizers; and, most recently, hostage-taking by union members engaged in illegal strikes–real hostage-taking, not the trumped-up kind Obama has invoked in rhetorical attacks against his political opponents.
Violence is wrong, and anyone who uses violence to achieve a political purpose does violence to our American values. Yet from Bill Ayers to James Hoffa, Jr., the left has embraced–and the media has largely ignored–Obama’s violent associates. Until CNN finally acknowledged the Tea Party as a legitimate political movement by hosting its recent presidential debate, the media generally assisted the left in casting the Tea Party as extreme, racist, and “terrorist,” blaming it for events like the Tuscon atrocity.
We might expect no better from the likes of Ed Schultz of MSNBC, who has long told viewers that Republicans “want to see you dead,” and who this week invited Media Matters’s Eric Boehlert to recycle slurs about Tea Party violence, and “Nazi posters.” I do expect more from President Obama, who has called for “civility in our public discourse,” yet who often fails to abjure or condemn the violent language and actions, against property and people, committed by his own ideological kin.
Deep within the soul of every American, Locke’s ideas still resound. The question making the political rounds this week, for example–“Out of every dollar that I earn, how much do you think that I deserve to keep?”–is doubtless inspired by Locke, who wrote: “Though the earth, and all inferior creatures, be common to all men, yet every man has a property in his own person: this no body has any right to but himself. The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his.”
Likewise, Americans believe, with Locke, that no one may use force without right, and that no ruler is above the law. Yet when victims of political violence such as Ken Gladney cannot obtain justice; when the government smuggles lethal weapons to criminal gangs across our border, or delivers public money to political cronies; when a different immigration law applies to the family of the president than to the ordinary migrant worker; then, our social compact is in danger.
It is not threatened by the law-abiding citizens who petition their government for redress of grievances. It is not threatened by those, of whatever political creed, who exercise their various constitutional rights. Nor is it threatened by those who, in the passion of debate, set aside political correctness for plain talk. Rather, our nation is threatened by those who would judge both sides differently–or treat both the same, in the face of evidence to the contrary.
It is difficult not to feel a sense of outrage when the left boasts about “war” and “fighting,” or when it threatens to deploy an “army” against the Tea Party and other Americans, with near impunity. Speaking on behalf of everyone on the Breitbart team, no one welcomes those threats, much less wishes to respond to them. But even if they are empty threats–and many, no doubt, are–those making them should not presume the indulgence of the government or the good will of their fellow citizens.
Americans ought never again resort to “an appeal to heaven” to judge our cause. True, the President has clearly staked his political fate on setting one group of Americans against another, and some of his supporters are echoing and amplifying that division through violent words and deeds. We ought not respond in kind, but overcome, in the political tradition best exemplified by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as we have done in election after special election, from Wisconsin to New York. Our republic is strong, but not infinitely so. Let none of us test its endurance.
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