Shoot a Leader, Lose a Country
The attempt on Trump’s life hurts America’s soul
If we believe the DNC, democracy is on the ballot this fall.
Trump, as they insist, is an existential threat to democracy: an autocrat the likes of Franco, Mussolini, or Hitler. Their sole platform is to save America from the orange menace.
If he does not go under, the nation supposedly will.
Such accusations – if true – would make it hardly amoral to shoot him. It is still against the law, but that seems a technicality. In Trump’s alleged maliciousness, extremists find justification for murderous intent; it even tempers moderates’ outrage.
“Perhaps it was for the best.”
The more they demonize Trump, the closer his assassination creeps up. Whether accurate or not, his opponents have painted him as a villain. For some partisans, the ends of stopping him justify the means of slander.
This could result in his death.
Demonization turns people into social outlaws. Executing the devil in human form is illegal, but to some, necessary. Many see Trump as Satan incarnate.
But the law has moral merit.
It is American to favor speech, not violence. This principle is at the heart of their nation. No matter how despicable, Trump too has the right to life and liberty.
Those who infringe upon it, risk being un-American.
Through their culture, the following words resound:
Leave my rights to me, and I leave you yours too. Allow me to speak, and I allow you the same. Do not violate me, and you will remain unviolated.
By breaking these codes, the shooter betrayed his country’s founding spirit.
It logically struck Americans at their core.
Nothing is more adverse to their collective conscience than a man providing his views and receiving bullets in return. To make matters worse, Trump is a politician. Democracy itself demands that he speak freely.
No matter how heinous the words, the person shut up is never the culprit.
Political killings stem from cowardice, but above all: tyranny.
Assassins play God. They deem themselves wiser than the public. They deem themselves worthy to pick who reins: who lives and who dies.
The first one to pick up arms is, therefore, wrong by definition.
Weapons serve to quell violence, not instigate it. Their purpose is to avert tyranny, not enforce it. Countrymen address their disputes with words: traitors with guns.
This is the incident’s chief lesson.
The survival of a free society requires its citizens to speak freely. Only then may problems be solved; only then may the peace be kept. There is no other way.
It is what keeps families; communities; nations from the abyss.
Without dialogue, society tears itself apart.
Speech is not violence, but the only thing keeping it at bay. Once people stop settling disputes with words, they settle them with fists. To those who favor peacetime over wartime, the former is always preferable.
Who neglects said duty, works against America’s soul, as well as the soul of the West.
The shooter should serve as an example never to follow. He did not prevent tyranny; he enabled it. His faint hopes of grandeur cannot veil it.
He was the first to draw blood, and thus the first to fall into ruin.