When I was growing up, I was taught respect for the law and for those who enforce it and the court systems that upheld it. Those views have not changed, including to current times. I would never have even considered hitting or assaulting a law enforcement representative any more than hitting my own mother. The police represent the law and even if I had not agreed with them, common sense indicated that they were bigger, stronger, had deadly weapons and knew the rules and laws as well as I did so I would never consider disobeying them. Has a whole generation not been taught this?! In our family it would have been unthinkable to physical challenge the police. My parents were the law growing up and that authority transferred to the police outside of our family structure. Haven’t all or at least most of the problems from police come from not following this? The greatness of America is that no one was above the law. We are a country of laws, not mob rule. We determine the laws ourselves through a process of doing our duty by voting in a structure given to us by our forefathers in the form of our Constitution. Were our parents or for that matter the police, always right? Hindsight and Monday morning quarterbacking show no one is perfect or always correct which is why we are constantly updating our police and laws. Do we have bad cops? Yes, just like we have bad teachers protected by unions, but we don’t throw out all the good because of the bad. We try to correct the problem. It is hard to understand the current culture of assaulting police, allowing riots, vandalism, looting, destroying symbols of our Founding Fathers and leaders, soldiers who gave their all to defend this representative form of government. Think of those sacrifices from Valley Forge, storming the beaches at Normandy, to defending against totalitarian oppression. The recent destruction is also vandalism of our Constitution. I wonder if the Black Lives Matter supporters have even read George Orwell’s 1984. In this book, the government removes all symbols from the past to fully support and defend the actions of those currently in power. There is no sense in being burdened by progress or mistakes for the past, just follow the dictates of those in power through collective subjugation. That is the ideological civil war we are currently in today which can destroy the fabric of our country and our constitutional frame work and Bill Of Rights through mob rule. This is not conservative vs. liberal anymore but constitutional vs radical. The Black Lives Matter movement must either renounce the violence and anarchy being generated by their movement or will it be dragged down by their efforts ignore the rule of law, a founding principle of any civilized governing structure. At the same time the BLM with its leftist agenda has a right to push a socialist position, but if it is sincere about inequity in our country, it needs to focus on educational choice and individual responsibility that comes from two- parent families. Black families want to send their children to outstanding schools in safe neighborhoods, something not being advocated by BLM leaders. Let’s debate these issues, not the superficial anti- Trump hatred message that we must defeat Trump even if it means destabilizing the country, and let’s not call everyone who disagrees with us racist as a way to extort or intimidate which is itself racist. The reason millions want to come to America is we all have equality of opportunity, to pursue our dreams although the outcome for each person will never be the same as some work harder, strive more than others. Equal opportunity does not mean equal results. Socialism is the form of government that makes the result equal and ultimately always collapses. Human nature simply means that if you get the same as everyone else, you tend to work less hard. The hatred some have of President Trump is so intense that they oppose his motto of “ Keep America Great” which is really “Keep America America” ( and the greatest country in the world) even if it means turning to socialism or something even worse.
John Overington is a former member of the West Virginia House of Delegates where he served for 34 years, including as Speaker Pro Tempore, before retiring in 2019.