The Try-Works

At least that seems to be the gist of the latest Mike Rosen article about Recreate 68.

Free speech? Let them write a letter to the editor, or a book or take out an ad. It’s no secret what these would-be revolutionaries believe in. The icon of a raised fist on their Web site accompanies the menu of daily protest themes, with each one focusing “on a symptom of the disease of an Imperialist, Capitalist, Racist system.” Glen Spagnuolo, Marxist revolutionary-in-chief, describes his group as representing minorities, anarchists, communists, socialists and radicals. He expects 25,000 people from across the country to join his Denver protest. So what? Whom do they represent? And why should anyone else care? Do the math: Twenty-five thousand people out of a population of more than 300 million is eight one-thousandths of 1 percent. That’s less than one person out of 10,000 in the country. Even if it were a hundred times that number, what would it matter? So what if a hard-core band of “anarchists, communists and radicals” takes to the streets to indulge their rage and self-disenfranchisement. Why in the world should such tantrums affect any rational citizen’s fundamental beliefs or positions on important issues?

HBO recently ran a multipart series based on David McCullough’s popular biography of John Adams. In one of the early episodes, an angry crowd of Bostonians is seen venting its frustration at British soldiers. American colonists often took to the streets to protest the tyranny of King George III imposed by his appointed governors, magistrates and military forces. The Boston Tea Party was a demonstration against taxation without representation. One can sympathize with such actions and understand the justification of resorting to property damage and rebellion when no political or legal remedies were available. That was then, this is now.

In our constitutional republic, representative democracy offers ample opportunities for electoral majorities to have their will translated into public policy, with the courts protecting individual rights. I’m not impressed by the theatrics of those who take their politics to the streets. The ballot box is the appropriate venue for orderly change or support of public policy.

Keep reading.

You can be unimpressed, asshole.  That’s your right.  But in this “constitutional republic” the people have constitutional rights.  Those aren’t restricted to writing letters to the editor, nor taking out an ad.  The only way you can state “that was then, this is now” about the First Amendment is to consign the Constitution to the dustbin of history.

Which makes me wonder what the hell kind of conservative you claim to be.  See, I always understood conservatives to be vested with the idea of conserving the Constitution.  Your kind?  Well, I don’t even know what to call you.  I kinda like all the Bill of Rights, both those unpopular to the left and to the right, and I have no idea where the fuck you’re coming from.  You, you ain’t a conservative of any sort that Thomas Jefferson would recognize, you’re more like that kind that’s best exemplified by William Jefferson Clinton.

Constitutional rights aren’t negotiable, they’re rights.  Having the right to vote doesn’t negate the First Amendment, and your argument as such only shows how willing you are to gut the Constitution to your own ends.  You ain’t a conservative, you’re the kind of shitheel our founding fathers would’ve thrown in the Boston Harbor with the tea.