LETTER: A Response to "If You Can Keep It"

Above, Minneapolis rioting, May 2020.

To the Editor:

I share some of the concern my old high school teacher Mr. James C. Johnston, Jr. expressed in his recent Franklin Observer letter, “A Republic if you can keep it,” about our ability as Americans to retain our Republic.

It resonated with me when he wrote, “I do not know about you, but I have never doubted that there would ever be a time in our history when I actually felt that we would be unable to retain our republic...”

He seems to be having doubts now however, and implies personal worry that we are sliding into tyranny.

My own doubts began five years ago during the horrible year of COVID lockdowns which were accompanied by widespread rioting, arson, and looting in many of our cities such as Minneapolis, Seattle, and Milwaukee to name a few. Federal Court Houses and police stations were under nightly attack and whole neighborhoods were held hostage by anarchists for weeks. But the worst of it in my mind was the night of May 29th when the White House was put under siege by a massive violent mob and was bravely and barely defended by the Secret Service who did not receive assistance from the DC Police or anyone else. It was then I began to fear the tyranny of the violent mob.

One of the reasons we are fortunate to have our Constitutional Republic is because straight democracy is nothing but tyranny of the majority. Ben Franklin said, “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.”

I think of those COVID years as a time of tyranny. Years when our Constitutional rights of freedom of religion, freedom of assembly and of free speech were under assault, and many of our leaders failed miserably in their duty to defend those rights. Collectively we had our livelihoods stolen, and even our own consciences and bodily autonomy were not respected. It is said that all politics are local and we found out then that tyranny is as well. Of course all of it was done in the name of safety. Benjamin Franklin said, “Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

Benjamin Franklin also said that, “There are two passions which have a powerful influence in the affairs of men. These are ambition and avarice – the love of power and the love of money. Separately each of these has great force in prompting men to action; but when united in view of the same object, they have, in many minds, the most violent effects.”

For too long the common good has suffered at the hands of this greedy confluence in our body politic. For a generation now it seems that those with wealth and power don’t really care what kind of country we live in so long as they are the ones running it.

The Greatest Generation would be shocked to see how our once great cities and the middle class have been hollowed out by the most violent effects of lawlessness, drugs, homelessness, and moral decay. In some precincts it goes beyond neglect and seems instead to be on purpose.

In too many cases, governors, mayors, DA’s, AG’s and judges act like the tyrant Nero, and do nothing but fiddle while Rome burns.

So I agree with Mr. Johnston, that it is disturbing to see Federal troops being deployed to restore law and order because of the gross failure of local authority to uphold domestic peace and tranquility.

However it is not unprecedented for troops to be used in the pursuit of justice. During Reconstruction and again from 1957 to 1963 Federal troops were required in the South to enforce the Civil Rights of Black Americans.

And then of course there was the Civil War itself, when the Republic really hung in the balance. Abraham Lincoln was ruthless in his prosecution of the war to keep the Republic.

After he shot Lincoln in the back of the head, John Wilkes Booth shouted “Sic semper tyrannis!” Most of us of course regard Lincoln as the martyred savior of the Republic. But sometimes tyranny is in the eye of the beholder.

David Brennan

Franklin Resident