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I’ve been listening to the audio books for Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game saga over the last few months as I try and keep what sanity remains from the craziness that was 2020, the elections, pandemic, and all of the general anxiety and discord being thrown around on social media. Today, I made a connection to the events from the Capital Riot from the third book in the series, Xenocide, that struck me as both interesting, and equally sad. I make connections to the works from this particular writer, and particularly to the hierarchy of foreignness (check out the link for more info) referenced in Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind, all of which I highly recommend.
In brief, the city of Milagre on the world of Lusitania riots following the death of Father Estevão, Ender Wiggin’s step-son and a beloved spiritual leader for the humans of Lusitania, goes to preach to a heretical group of pequeninos, a sentient alien species native to the planet, who have come to believe that a killer virus, the descolada, is the physical manifestation of the Holy Spirit, and that they should take the virus to other inhabited worlds to test the believers. Quim (Father Estevão) has a religious debate with Warmaker, their leader tree (The pequeninos transition from animaloid to tree form due to the descolada virus changing their genetic code long ago). Following the death of Quim, the people of Milagre storm the forest of pequeninos closest to the town, resulting in the destruction of many of the brother and father trees, as well as the death of the mother tree and many of the brothers, wives, babies. This accomplished nothing to expand the belief that Warmaker’s tribe held among other forests on Lusitania, giving them the majority.
What happened at the capital nine days ago was terrible, horrible behavior by a small group of bad actors using the protest as a means to an end. Having looked at the situation going on over the summer of last year and the general tolerance of riots against federal buildings in Portland, the autonomous zone established in Seattle, the rioting in cities all across the country by a small group of bad actors using the Black Lives Matter protests as human shields, and the apparent hypocrisy of the media in castigating only one side of the aisle for bad behavior while actively downplaying the activities of the other left many feeling that their voice was not being heard. Then the election paranoia, the calls that Trump personally was suppressing the vote by removing mail boxes, that the election was going to be stolen by the Republicans because they wanted to deny people the right to vote, the chorus of voices chanting the same narrative over and over, left people feeling like they were isolated and viewed not as equal citizens, but as deplorables who should be relegated to second class.
And with the election turning in Biden’s favor, the narrative switched from fears of a stolen election to cheers for the most transparent election in history. Historically high turnouts, perfect accuracy, and no room for any irregularities. Every election has those problems, but as the challenges were thrown out one by one, it was proven that Biden had won, and that any irregularities were either cleared up, or proven to be insufficient to overturn the results. The process worked.
The mayor of DC didn’t provide sufficient protection for the capitol, the President raised the temperature by calling for a peaceful protest the day of the Electoral Count. The national guard wasn’t deployed, because no one expected the Trump people to riot. No one expected them to break into the capitol building. No one expected them to do anything more than scream and wave their American flags. In the book, no one expected the people of Milagre to burn down a forest, for they were devout Catholics and would never do such things.
Now, we’ll see Biden sworn in on the capitol surrounded by National Guard, a heavy police presence, and near martial law, a far cry from the celebration of freedom for all the preceding Presidents.
The moral ground, the one that detested violence, was the last hold left to the conservatives. I have said, and will continue to say, that engaging in violence with a group that will use anything you do against you is a recipe for disaster. The riot created the cause for justification for censorship, the curtailing of freedoms, the removal of voices from the public square, the exorcism of philosophical diversity from any and all institutions captured by the authoritarian progressives. The collateral damage impacts not only conservatives, but libertarians, moderates, classical liberals, and rank and file Republicans. We’ll see if the country is recognizable in two years for midterms, or if there is a mad dash to try and bar the door and then tear everything down so it can be rebuilt in authoritarian progressive utopianism.
But now is the time for self-reflection and introspection. We must reject violence and the use of force to achieve our ends, we must actively stand against it in order to win the hearts and minds of the people to our cause. We must be open to hearing the voices from the other side, and hone our arguments to counter them. Learn the tactics, so we know what must be done. Our arguments are not for those seeking the validation of the woke crowd, they are too lost in that addiction to see clearly. You can lead a horse to water…
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