Waves of history

Friday, October 18th, 2013 by Claire

When we look back on the future history of freedom, I think last weekend’s “tear down the Barrycades” march in DC will be remembered as a watershed. A few thousand veterans and friends (including Oath Keepers members) not only ripped down those absurd metal walls while DC and Park Service cops stood by, but they delivered them right to the heavily guarded, paranoia-enhanced White House fence: Return to Sender. And nobody even tried to stop them.

Yes, the march was a political event with neocon figureheads like (ugh) Sarah Palin. Yes, it’s probably also true that if George W. Bush had put up the same silly barriers some of these same people would probably have shown up to defend the fences against “terrorists and anarchists who might harm our national treasures during this vital shudown.” But it’s now and they didn’t. And it’s pretty clear that the politicians who tried to make the event their own failed miserably. This was as close as it gets to a real, spontaneous “of the people” action.

Naturally, the dying MSM did their best to ignore both the teardown and the arrogant folly of Obama’s closure not only of open-air monuments but even the view of open-air monuments like Mt. Rushmore. But every reasonable person who heard about such things surely recognized the Barrycades for exactly what they were: silly, spiteful political gestures aimed at the American people; absurdies, and costly ones at that.

The Barrycades and their peaceful teardown exemplified the contempt for government that’s been growing for lo these many years in the same way that the Boston Tea Party did against the British government back in 1773.

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When National Park Service director Jonathan Jarvis admitted he’d consulted closely with the White House on the closures, then tried to claim terrorism as the excuse, he was resoundingly laughed at. Several headlines even used the term “cries terrorism,” as in “cries wolf,” when reporting on it.

Some of these same publications would have taken any “terrorism” claim as gospel 10 years ago and called for more Draconian laws to “protect” us. Now they sneer. Yes, they’re a little late to the wisdom of skepticism, and maybe this, too, is another “bad when Obama does it, good when a patriotic, Christian Texan does it” thing.