What to Do About Portland
The stakes are bigger than protecting federal property.
by E. Donald Elliott
July 24, 2020, 12:01 AM
To say that recent events in Portland are “troubling†understates their seriousness. We are witnessing the breakdown of law and order, with almost two months of riots, which the media whitewash as “mostly peaceful.†It is hard to know from a distance what is really happening on the streets of Portland, but certainly rumors are circulating, and being widely believed, that federal agents are arbitrarily arresting innocent people and brutalizing them. This is reported as fact without any attribution or source by people who should know better, including Fox News’s Judge Andrew Napolitano.
From what I have been able to glean, it is abundantly clear that the people of Portland do not consent to having federal agents “help†to restore order in their city.
But even more disturbing than mostly peaceful protests that occasionally turn violent and destroy property, we are seeing the breakdown of the United States as a functioning polity, with local governments refusing to follow national government policies because they despise the current occupant of the White House. The mayor of Portland recently ordered the local police force not to cooperate with federal agents. He follows many other local officials in so-called “sanctuary cities†who have ordered their police not to cooperate with federal immigration agents because they disagree with enforcing our current immigration laws. There is a broad bipartisan consensus that those laws are unjust to those brought to the country as children, but we are unable to amend them because some prefer to leave the issue festering for political purposes.
Meanwhile, stories are starting to appear speculating that the president aspires to become a “dictator†and will not abide the results of the next election. This is a serious business that threatens our survival as “one nation†in the words of the Pledge of Allegiance (whether or not one wishes to add the words “under Godâ€). Those who speculate — usually without evidence — about Trump’s intentions should measure their words carefully, lest they become self-fulfilling prophecies. The breakdown of trust in government and rioting in the streets can indeed lead to authoritarian takeovers to restore order.
more
https://spectator.org/federal-troops-portland-protests-riots/
