It does not matter if one is a Republican, a Democrat, an adherent of some minor party or completely unaffiliated. In the end, what matters most is that we all recognize all those other folks for what they are – our fellow Americans, deserving of our respect.
Failing that, what we get is what happened Saturday when some lowlife concocted a “Zoom bomb” and injected child pornography into an online meeting of Montezuma County Democrats. It was a vile act.
The very idea of child pornography is disgusting. By definition, it involves assaulting children. Worse, if that is possible, it also includes the idea that somebody enjoys doing so and that others enjoy watching it happen. It requires no elevated understanding of morality to see that as all kinds of wrong.
Moreover, to employ such filth in the way it was Saturday is to contaminate a part of American life that warrants particular respect. As The Journal reported Monday, the Montezuma County Democrats were conducting an online forum, with nine people seeking their party’s nomination to run against Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert to represent Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District. That district includes both Cortez and Durango.
Nothing about that justifies the participants being assaulted and insulted in that way. What they were doing is participating in the process by which a free people exercise self-government. To respect both that process and their involvement, it is not necessary to agree with them about replacing Boebert or anything else.
What is important, what is in our civic culture effectively sacred, is self-government. That applies both to the mechanisms employed and to the people who step forward to participate. And both those people and that process deserve respect.
In truth, for a system such as ours to work, such respect is not only deserved but absolutely necessary. How can we ask, let alone expect, the best among us to step forward to help make our democracy function if having such garbage thrown at them is what they can anticipate?
The kind of behavior exemplified Saturday constitutes a direct and unpatriotic insult to the United States and a fundamental threat to our freedom. In that, it is no different than the assault on the U.S. Capitol that occurred Jan. 6 of last year.
This country’s Founding Fathers were leery of political parties and we can now see why. The idea of democracy presumes disagreements. Why else would we need to vote? But when factions become not just groups with different ideas or priorities, but warring camps, it is not only democracy that is endangered, it is civilization. Throwing child pornography at decent Americans is only the latest example.
It is weird to think so, but one can only hope that anyone who would do what was done Saturday is either a simple pervert or a moron with a sick concept of comedy. To think otherwise is to fear that next time that person might forgo a Zoom bomb and reach for the real thing.
