A thousand points of darkness

The big Hands Off protest weekend came and went and did...nothing good.

Seems like a hands-on approach is needed here.

I didn’t even bother to take a photo - one, because I was driving, and two, there really wasn’t enough of a critical mass there to mess with.

As it turned out, my wife and I went to Mt. Hermon Plow Days on Saturday. It’s a look at what life was like a century or more ago, and features teams of horses plowing a local field as it was done in the old days, among many other demonstrations, food, and vendor wares. (I’ve used pictures from past renditions of the event on previous occasions, mainly odds and ends.) It seemed a little less attended than previous years, but I think people were worried about rain since it was cloudy that morning - but a little bit warm, as temperatures were in the mid 60s, rising once the sun popped out after noon.

On the way back I decided to take the scenic route back through Salisbury and what did appear to our spying eyes but a ragtag group of a couple hundred people strung along the sidewalk bordering City Park. We looked and there were the usual suspects and malcontents, many bitching about Elon Musk as well as a handful of those waving rainbow and transgender flags. That was a bit of a surprise because I thought the protest would be downtown, but it was blocked off because of the Salisbury Marathon being held.

So I thought, somewhat out loud with the window open, “That’s all you got? We had more than that with our TEA Parties.” And Indivisible said “millions” turned out?

Well, let’s do a little math. The Indivisible group (which was one of a batch of billionaire-aided sponsors) claimed they had over 1,300 events around the country. To get multiple millions, which would be 2 million people, the average turnout would have to be a little over 1,500 per event. Now perhaps in the biggest cities they had 20-30,000 per, but that’s only the top handful of places - then again, there may be enough Antifa types that the group could be right. If so, congratulations, you matched the TEA Party but also had dozens of Astroturf groups and the media foursquare behind you. (I never saw a media article directing people where to go to participate for a TEA Party - but I did on the local Gannett paper websites.)

Although the number has dwindled over the years, I still have a few left-of-center friends and acquaintances, so these questions are for them: what exactly are you trying to accomplish with these protests? And what is it that you like about a government that churns out waste and fraud while telling you exactly how you have to wipe your bum?

I ran a cartoon a number of posts back that explains in succinct terms what government is supposed to do. I’ll run it again for you in the back.

Besides the missionary idea of spreading the Gospel, my job here on this planet is to use my skills and education to provide for my family and to serve my fellow man in the ways I best can. To the extent I need government to defend our nation, provide a system of exchange and rule of law as well as other Constitutional duties, and maintain infrastructure like our roads, then that’s how much government I want. It was a blessing to be born and raised in the United States of America, so when I talk about rightsizing government, it’s for a federal government that is as small as possible, with the state and local governments playing a role, too - not just one as a pass-through for Uncle Sam. Their job is to take care of the local concerns.

Instead, what we seem to have is tyranny. And that’s not a completely unfounded concern when it comes to Donald Trump, but then again he’s ruled by executive order only because Congress won’t work quickly enough (and these agencies fall under the purview of the Executive Branch anyway.) But when I say on my “about” page that “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God” Donald Trump is the least of my concerns. I’m not worried about him not leaving in four years, but I do worry about the career bureaucrat whose fiefdom gives him undue power over my life. (Anthony Fauci is a great example.)

I’ve heard the term “good trouble” used a lot lately regarding these protests. If you ask me, the folks who caused “good trouble” were guys like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams. Protest all you want but realize the status quo prior to the DOGE revolution didn’t do any of us much good.

In the meantime, though, you can Buy Me a Coffee, since I have a page there now.