Dear Representative McCarthy,
I am writing in response to an interview this past weekend in which you stated that “everyone” was responsible for the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol. Let me state at the outset that I am not responsible for the actions of that riotous mob. Unfortunately you cannot say the same.
Since the November 3 election, you repeatedly gave credence to the baseless lies and assertions alleging systematic voter fraud in the presidential election. You ignored the absence of any tangible evidence in the over 60 court filings advanced by the president’s counsel. You did not acknowledge the inescapable fact that the election had been decided and that your party’s candidate lost.
And the ultimate indignity visited onto this sad chapter in our history was when you twice after the insurrectionists invaded the Capitol voted not to certify the electors from two states. This only hours after the mob invaded the building looking for the House Speaker and the Vice President, and a few hours before we learned that five people lost their lives as a result of this insurrection. And, unsurprisingly, you voted against an impeachment trial that would hold the president accountable for his actions.
No Mr. McCarthy, I am not responsible for the January 6 insurrection nor is anyone else I know. You saying that everyone is responsible is only a clumsy effort of projecting your own culpability for this event.
But what bothered me most about your “whataboutisms” was the conflation of three distinct concepts, two of which are central to our democracy and the third antithetical to any well ordered society.
Civil Dissent: Dissent is vital to the lifeblood of a democracy. It is so important that it is protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution. To ignore this basic fact is to ignore your duty as an elected official to preserve and protect that right to dissent.
Each of us has the right, if not the duty, to hold power accountable. We’re allowed to question policies and their underlying assumptions. We’re allowed to question unjust laws and capricious acts of government. We are encouraged to oppose - peacefully - acts of government officials with which we disagree and which are performed in our name.
In this weekend’s interview you attempted to equate the actions of the January 6 insurrectionists with the #resist movement that commenced in 2017. Some, in another “whataboutism,” attempted to compare the women’s march of January 21, 2017 with the insurrection of January 6, 2021. I would point out the differences but there is too little time to adequately do so. Suffice it to say that there was no property damage and nobody died in 2017.
America was built on dissent. When someone stands and opposes power, that is dissent. When someone writes and petitions the government for the redress of grievances, that is dissent. The 2017 #resist ”movement” was nothing more than a group of citizens joining in loose association to petition our government for the redress of grievances, nothing more. To compare #resist to an unruly mob is an insult to democracy at its core.
Civil Disobedience: There are times when a person sees an unjust law and being unable to effect change through the normal political processes is compelled to break the law in order to test its validity in the courts.
To clarify, think about Henry David Theroux sitting in the Concord jail for refusing to pay taxes that would support a war that he opposed. Think about Susan B. Anthony who was arrested for trying to vote. Think about Rosa Parks when she refused to move from the whites only section of a public bus. Think about the conscientious objector who refused to participate in an immoral war.
Each of these examples is in the best tradition of American democracy. Each example, along with thousands more over our history, demonstrates the power of civil disobedience - the peaceful opposition to laws or practices they think invalid or unconstitutional, thus submitting their cases to the courts for adjudication, and abiding by whatever result handed down by the courts.
Decades ago, Justice Abe Fortas wrote that civil disobedience was a valid exercise in dissent if those so engaged were willing to submit to the courts’ decisions. It was perfectly acceptable, if not necessary, if those opposed to the application and enforcement of a law were willing to test their opposition before a court and abide by the consequences emanating from a court’s decision. And in order to test the law, the dissenter had to first violate the law - peacefully.
So it was during the civil rights movement of the 1950s/1960s when Martin Luther King Jr risked jail when he marched after being what he believed to have been impermissibly denied a permit by local authorities. He challenged an official action cloaked in law by breaking that law, he stood in a court defending his act and advancing his cause, and in the instances where he was right, he was vindicated. But in those instances where he was found to have been wrong, he submitted to legal authority. And he did so peacefully.
Civil Disorder: The antithesis of the first two concepts is civil disorder. These are riots, bombings, shootings, and invasion/destruction of public properties. This is threatening the lives of those with whom you disagree, and sometimes causing the deaths of others.
This is the Weather Underground igniting bombs in public buildings. And this is the insurrectionist mob we saw on January 6, and which promises to make itself known in the future. This is not peaceful dissent or a peaceful challenge to the law. This is anarchy, the nihilism of the mob hell bent on the fulfillment of its own narrow agenda.
Civil disorder is antithetical to democracy, the rule of law, orderly communities, and a secure people. Those engaged in civil disorder do not rely on the strength of their argument, but on force to achieve that which they cannot achieve by democratic means.
To conflate this concept with the first two reveals your total lack of understanding about democracy, government, and the rule of law. It shows a lack of historical knowledge of the processes that have kept society stable and that yielded progress over the past two hundred thirty two years. And to not understand those things calls in question your fitness for public office, let alone a leadership position.
Representative McCarthy, you owe millions of Americans an apology for your expression of “whataboutisms” this past weekend. I am not holding my breath waiting for them as you’ve revealed who and what you are.
Respectfully,
Geoffrey A. Schoos, Esq.