Who defends your liberty? According to the establishment and current ethos, your rights exist because US soldiers roam the globe crushing yesterday’s enemy of the state. So your ability to speak your mind, worship God in personal and corporate ways, own property and the fruits of your labor, in short, your right to be left alone by government, is defended in such places as remote desert valleys in Afghanistan, steaming jungles in Thailand, or late night bars in Okinawa.
I disagree. The best that can be said is that soldiers overseas keep the US safe from external enemies—I disagree with this as well, but that is another article. However, our rights are not being eroded by tribal Afghan warriors. Our rights are being eroded by our very own political class and its sycophantic supporters.
So, who defends your liberty? Anyone who willingly stands up to encroachment by the state and says enough is enough. Last Saturday in Columbus, Ohio, defenders demanding an open Ohio were legion. These were folks standing in front of the statehouse or honking their horns while driving around the square—average folks who simply want to be left alone. Average in the sense that you see them in the grocery store or walking your neighborhood.
Yet they are something much more than just average. These folks understand that any freedom lost to the state, no matter the reason or circumstance, is freedom that will not be readily returned. So they acted and they rallied.
The attitude of the event was best summed up by the sign “My constitutional rights do not end where your fear begins!” While the use of “your” is ambiguous, from talking to the woman holding the sign, as well as others in the crowd, “your” was directed toward Ohio governor DeWine and his director of health Dr. Acton. Not as often mentioned, though also indicted, are the silent state legislators who quickly and quietly granted certain emergency powers, so to speak, to the executive branch in late March.
For some, just the general idea of freedoms so obviously trampled was reason for action. They were there for my freedoms as much as their own. For others, the reasons were more personal, such as the woman holding the sign “Special needs families are suffering!” She told me about the challenges she faces now that the services her child requires have been declared nonessential, which she recounted with a painful smile.
There were the store owners and employees out of business and out of jobs, demanding the ability to once again trade and work.
There were the armed defenders of the Second Amendment, proving once again that weapons in the hands of the people do not lead to violence, but act as a bulwark against the state.
There were semitrucks whose drivers blared horns so loud they still echo in my head.
There were lawyers, such as the one reading a list of folks arrested for “unlawfully assembling” in cities throughout Ohio.
And there was the older man chanting “Open the bars.” He told me he had worked in bars for the past three decades and had never been unemployed…until now.
Additionally, there were the various organizers, a loose coalition, who proved that the people can cooperate and take collective action without a central authority.
However, most importantly, there were the folks who peacefully, though loudly, protested the state, speaking for (I believe) many hundreds of thousands more.
Non–math folks are now familiar with the term exponential growth, especially when applied to a virus. But the term can be applied to protests as well. The initial rally drew some seventy-five participants. Just nine days and a few rallies later, the number was likely around one thousand.1 Sounds like “exponential” growth to me.2
Despite the media downplaying these assemblies, or attempting to show them negatively, the numbers of events and protesters will grow as more folks take account of their situations and realize that they are now much worse off. And the virus is not cause. The cause is a heavy-handed state that seeks to be even more heavy-handed.
If you want to thank someone for defending your freedom, come to Columbus this Saturday at 1:00 p.m. and add your voice or horn to the raucous roar, “Open Ohio!”
- 1One local TV station said there were “dozens of protesters,” which is true if you also consider that there were hundreds more as well. Another station said there were “hundreds of protesters.” I get to one thousand by estimating the folks in the cars circling the large statehouse square, plus the number of protesters on the sidewalk, coming and going, over the hour I was there. Breitbart livestreamed the event, which appears to back up my estimate. In the end, though, it is just my best guess.
- 2Not exponential in the pure mathematical sense, but exponential in the colloquial sense of growth whose rate increases sharply.
