Op-Ed: Wars of Our Fathers

by Timothy Heffelbower, WashCo Dems Communications Committee Member

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

This is the opening paragraph in the Declaration of Independence, which was the official “stake in the ground” of a people who were sick and tired of oppressive rule.  Among their many grievances listed against King George III were included:

● “[dissolving] Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.”

● “He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither…”

● “He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance”

● “He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures”

● “He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power”

● “For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us”

● “For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States.”

● “He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.”

The complete list covers twenty-five grievances in total, and so this is roughly one third of the list which I have highlighted. And beyond the simplistic, “we simply cannot afford to be governed like this,” the colonists had an even greater, unenviable task by writing such a Declaration – if this is the wrong way to govern, surely they must set themselves apart by proposing the right way to govern. And the right way to govern simply can’t be the antithesis of these things. We need the government to subscribe to higher ideals.

The United States Constitution, which was of course our second attempt at finding something that could unify the ideologically diverse but predominantly white men who made up this newfound country, began by ascribing certain unyielding liberties to every American citizen. But I don’t believe the true spirit of the fragile American experiment was captured until much, much later, approximately four score to be more precise.

At Gettysburg battlefield, President Lincoln declared “that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” And in grand defense of the Union and the ideals for which America was to stand, Lincoln encouraged us to fight for this thing that separated us from all other nations on the face of the earth.

As I turn on the news these days, it has become increasingly obvious to me that we are engaged in a cold civil war. The bullets aren’t flying as freely, but the tension has mounted significantly in the past ten years. Personally, I’ve found myself on both sides being disenfranchised at times and struggled to make sense of it all. I’ve gone through incredible personal crucibles that have challenged and changed my thinking. But one thing I always come back to when I’m watching the news is this burning question: what exactly is the government’s role in our lives?

As a member of the Portland, Oregon community, I got to see one of the early trial run ICE invasions first hand. Of course here in Portland, there is a glorious obscenity and absurdity that greeted this most unusual mobilization of Federal Agents.  And I can personally say that my wife and I did visit a few times with our two and three year old children, and never once felt threatened by the people gathered outside the ICE building. We did have to leave one time because the air was thick with the residue of overused tear gas and I wasn’t going to subject my children to that. But just as frogs were a well known plague of ancient Egypt, they quickly became the plague of the Federal Agents in Portland.

Realistically though, we all knew that sooner or later this would turn deadly.  Anyone who has studied history and heard of the Boston Massacre, or of the deadly Kent State shootings, knew that putting such a massive influx of guns on our streets would eventually lead to something sinister. And I don’t use that word because of a political agenda. I, like most Americans, was heartbroken at the senseless shooting of Renee Good. Senseless because, whether she was “weaponizing her vehicle” or not, the government of the people, by the people, for the people should not have been turned against the people in such a domineering and inhumane way to begin with. These appear to be the very principles we had renounced 250 years ago by telling off King George in the Declaration heard ‘round the world.

Just seventeen days later, while investigations from the government were still following up on Renee Good’s widow to fulfill the Stalinistic mandate of “show me the man and I’ll show you the crime,” it became clear that the very foundations of our democracy were under assault as Alex Pretti was publicly executed on an American street in an American city – and not just that he was executed, but that he was immediately vilified and made out to be a domestic terrorist. Again, this felt hauntingly close to the things we were writing off 250 years ago.

I’m devastated for these families that buried their loved ones way too early. I’m also devastated that civic education has failed us. I don’t know how we can interpret these events as anything but an assault on the very foundations of our American experiment, as they literally highlight the very things that drove us to our independence in the first place. When I say we are in a cold civil war, I speak of the great partisanship that divides us so we can be more easily conquered together. I speak of the lives so expendably sacrificed by the current government which is not unique to just Renee Good and Alex Pretti. It also includes over 600,000 of the poorest people, two thirds of which are children, who have succumbed to death because USAID was completely dismantled. It also includes two airplanes and a helicopter crash that happened due to gutting the air traffic controllers. It also includes several teenage girls who were swept away in a flashflood of waters, because money was given to that county for the specific purpose of upgrading that equipment, but was ignored by the red sheriff because it came from a blue president. It also includes the complicity in the genocide that has happened and continues to happen still in Gaza, paid by American tax dollars.

And the cost is not just in human life. There is a cost in the injustice that the Epstein victims have held now for two decades or more. The cost is in the trust it took centuries to build with our allies that has been put in serious jeopardy over the kneejerk reactions of this current administration. It is the trust lost in a Justice Department that calls good evil, and evil, good. It is the trust lost in that same department that has led to the mass exodus of legal talent and experience that will take decades to undo. It is the trust lost in leadership that they won’t be corrupt and look to their own interests while we the people flail trying to simply afford our rent and groceries this month.

The real problems in this country will not get solved until we learn to reach across the aisle and decide to engage in a level of mutual respect and civility. It doesn’t get fixed until we can learn to turn our attentions toward something unifying, that the media hasn’t divided us on yet. There are great ideals out there. There is an American Dream still worth fighting for. Without a goal that’s greater than the forces dividing us, I fear we are doomed to keep repeating these cycles. I am sick of the bloodshed off the coast of Venezuela and in the streets of Minneapolis. I’m ready to lead the charge for a “more perfect union.” And I solemnly swear, for the sake of my children that I will give every ounce, and my last full measure of devotion, to ensure that government of the people, by the people, for the people will not perish from the earth.

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