Exceeding the Right

The First Amendment is a wonderful thing. It gives us the freedom to express ourselves, the freedom to choose whatever religion we want, the right to hold a peaceful gathering, and on the topic of this writing, petition or protest the government.

Protest is healthy. I believe I've covered this before. The Tea Party, for example, is a perfectly legitimate organization with a reasonable goal that is currently notorious for protesting. THAT kind of protesting is what the Framers had in mind. Challenging things (laws, measures, proposals, etc) put forward by the government in a reasonable, responsible manner.

Here's a list of things that in no way fall under "reasonable and responsible":

1)Throwing a brick through an office window.
2)Cutting the gas lines to someone's house.
3)Sending a letter to 3/5ths of the state governors telling them to "get out or be removed".
4)Recruiting members to a lunatic fringe organization and issuing semi-automatic rifles intended to be used against government officials.

And so on and so forth. These are things that go far beyond the right to petition the government and approach the definition of terrorism. If you are cutting the gas lines to someone's house or issuing guns to a "patriotic" militia with the intent to shoot up the government, then you can get the hell out of my country because that is NOT how things work here. We vote in change if we want it, or vote to keep the status quo if that's what we want. I don't care how badly you think President Obama is doing, or how much you hate the Health Care bill, or how wrong one side of the spectrum is. You do things respectfully, responsibly, and democratically.

If you don't like the Republicans in Congress, let them hear it through constituent services or in the midterm election. Same with the Democrats. Bricks through the window and other scare tactics are immature and unnecessary.

Today's America has little room for extremism.