The pot is calling the kettle an insurrection
David Freddoso
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Tennessee’s overwhelmingly Republican state House of Representatives is about to discipline three of its Democratic members. They now face expulsion for egging anti-gun protesters to storm their state capital in Nashville and pack the viewing galleries as the three lawmakers, armed with a bullhorn, physically seized control of the floor without being recognized and disrupted the legislative debate over an unrelated education bill.
Surely, I’m not the only one to find it hilarious that the Biden White House is speaking in hyperbolic terms about the fact that the lawmakers now face expulsion.
GUN CONTROL ADVOCATES PROTEST IN TENNESSEE AS REPUBLICANS DEBATE EXPELLING DEMOCRATIC LAWMAKERS
“The fact that this vote is happening is shocking, undemocratic, and without precedent,” she stated. “Across Tennessee and across America, our kids are paying the price for the actions of Republican lawmakers,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.
Excuse me, but if you’re still dining out on the Jan. 6 situation, this is probably not a good time to pipe up. No, this situation in Tennessee wasn’t like Jan. 6 in many respects. But it was similar enough that Jean-Pierre ought to be careful what she says. There is nothing more “undemocratic” than leading a mob into the state capital to intimidate lawmakers and disrupt the proceedings of an elected legislature. Is there? That is the respect in which this event is exactly like Jan. 6.
It was unlike Jan. 6 in several other respects. The protesters in this incident didn’t break into the building or cause damage. They didn’t actually go onto the floor. But that wasn’t what made Jan. 6 what Democrats said it was. Indeed, many Jan. 6 rioters were convicted despite not personally breaking in. They were convicted, and the whole thing was referred to as an “insurrection” (which is still a stretch) because they had deliberately disrupted the functioning of government — in that case, the counting of the electoral votes and certification of the 2020 election result.
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None of the protesters in this Nashville incident were arrested, and the situation was resolved peacefully and without injury after about an hour’s delay due to the disruption. But those three lawmakers who had seized control of the floor, to the mob’s delight, had committed a serious act of misconduct. Democrats impeached a sitting president for doing less than what they did in full view of all the colleagues who will soon vote in judgment of them.
If they are expelled, then at least they will have learned the lesson that there are boundaries to acceptable adult behavior, and that their inflated conception of their own activism and its importance is no excuse for discarding them.