Twenty-five years ago I was in Scotland and had a discussion with a teen who said, “I obey my queen whatever she tells me to do. Don’t you obey your president?” I told her no. That’s not how America works. We are a country of the people. The executive serves the people. He is supposed to be a public servant, not a monarch or a dictator.
Last weekend I took my daughter to the No Kings protest in a neighboring town half an hour away. (The town where we live is filled with flag-waving pickup trucks owned by gun owners, so there was no organized event here, as nobody wanted to make a scene.) I wanted to give her the experience of democracy in action. So we joined with 4,000 other freedom-loving citizens in a town with a population of 100,000 and marched on the sidewalks with signs and chanting and T-shirts.
We were interviewed by a reporter from a local independent radio station, but I doubt whether what I said would come out right even after the editing she said she was going to do. Both my daughter and I are on the autism spectrum. My responses were filled with paused and “ums” and stuttering. I tried to tell her about my concerns about what was happening in Los Angeles with the military being brought in to quell dissent. I tried to say, “If I still lived there I’d be antifa-ing it up right now.” But that’s hard to say and works better in writing. My daughter told the reporter that the top issue for her is Palestine and she tries to donate to pro-Palestinian causes.
I was glad to see so many California flags. I feel pride in my home state and for the way we are standing up in defiance to tyranny. The California Republic is a land of freedom and opportunity and will remain so. It makes me want to put a flag mount on the front porch to display it the way my neighbors display Old Glory with their ulterior motives of intimidation.