Time for Civil Disobedience?

News item: Biden Administration is prohibiting a July 4 fireworks celebration at Mount Rushmore. Previous July 4 fireworks celebrations at Mount Rushmore had proceeded as a joint venture between the state of South Dakota and the National Park Service. Gov. Kristi Noem has filed suit against the Biden Administration.

News item: Pentagon refuses to issue a parking permit for the annual Memorial Day “Rolling Thunder” motorcycle rally. COVID risk is the stated reason, but I’m guessing the real reason is the likelihood of too many Trump flags being displayed by the riders. The annual rally has perviously used the Pentagon’s massive parking lot as a staging area for the rally.

Observations: I have no idea whether Gov. Noem’s lawsuit will be successful. My hunch is probably not, but in any case I think litigation is not the best strategy. How about openly defying the federal government? Gov. Noem ought to announce that this is the kind of decision that belongs wholly to the sovereign people of the state of South Dakota and not the White House, and that the July 4 celebration will go forward as planned. Better still is if Gov. Noem could get President Trump to attend. Is the Biden Administration going to send federal marshals to arrest Gov. Noem and the former president?

Alternatively, Gov. Noem could ask the Dakota indian tribe to co-host a July 4 fireworks show, perhaps at the site of the unfinished Crazy Horse monument not far from Mount Rushmore. In either case, the July 4 event should be labeled as a “political protest,” recalling that last summer’s BLM protests were excused from COVID restrictions because political protest is sacred. Let’s demonstrate that “resistance” is a two-way street.

Meanwhile, Rolling Thunder is going to go ahead as planned, with improvised rally points scattered around the DC area, such as the parking lot to old RFK stadium, causing DC to fear a traffic nightmare. We often hear about “gridlock” in Washington. Let’s give them some of the real thing.

As Jefferson put it in 1798: “It would be a dangerous delusion were a confidence in the men of our choice to silence our fears for the safety of our rights; that confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism—free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence; it is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power.”

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