National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7), signed by President Trump on September 25, identifies domestic terrorists as anyone who opposes capitalism, Christianity, and “traditional values” along with those who are “extremists” on immigration, race, and gender (https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/trumps-orders-targeting-antifascism-aim-criminalize-opposition).
The administration alone determines what is anti-American, what constitutes extremism or opposition to traditional values.
It also has the final say about what those values are. The memorandum calls on law enforcement to monitor what millions of us say and do. Simply dissenting can be a chargeable offense.
NSPM-7 is clearly intended to suppress speech and acts that displease the president.
Acting collectively and publicly in support of what we believe is an American right.
Our fight for freedom was born from protests like the dumping of tea into Boston Harbor in 1773. King George III punished that challenge to taxation without representation by imposing the Intolerable Acts.
These laws targeted Massachusetts for its part in the Boston Tea Party.
They did so by closing Boston harbor until the lost tea was paid for, stripping the colony of its right to self-rule, interfering in the local justice system, and requiring that all colonists provide accommodations for British troops at the owners’ expense (https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/the-coercive-intolerable-acts-of-1774).
These measures were intended to isolate Massachusetts and use it as an example to the remaining 12 colonies of how they would be treated if they resisted the crown. Those who protested could expect misery, not mercy, from the king.
NSPM-7, along with deploying troops to our cities and calling for the execution of lawmakers, is President Trump’s version of the Intolerable Acts. Like George III, he is trying to cow the opposition.
The colonists who threw tea into Boston harbor wanted a say in how they were governed. They got, instead, laws punishing them for questioning the king. What they created by refusing to be intimidated was a democracy that guaranteed freedom of expression.
That freedom is once again under threat.
Quelling peaceful protests and threatening protestors is as un-American now as it always has been. Please call on our elected representatives to challenge NSPM-7 and stand up for our rights.
We do not need to agree with what protestors at any moment are saying. For all our sakes, we must defend our collective right to speak out, march, and be heard.
Edward Schortman
Granville, Ohio