I wanted to say, “I don’t get it!” but actually I do!
The President of the United States posted on Twitter and Facebook. "There will never be an 'Autonomous Zone' in Washington, D.C., as long as I'm your President. If they try they will be met with serious force!"
You can figure what an autonomous zone would be by checking the definition for “autonomous” with my friend, Dictionary.com, definition #1 under adjective: “self-governing; independent; subject to its own laws only.” Obviously this whole “autonomous zone” thing is a Seattle reference where some group, no one really knows who, took over a six block area of the city. The mayor called it a summer love-in and a festival, but now she says it has to end. You see, without oversight and control of the government, there is no law in the zone. And when 911 calls have come in, the cops and firefighters have had trouble accessing those in need. People have been killed in Seattle’s autonomous zone.
I have heard law enforcement agencies referred to by such titles as “Police Force” and they do “enforce” the laws of our land. That is their purpose, and is exactly why they are law “enforcement.” But when President Trump said that those who are lawbreakers would be met with serious force, twitter blocked his statement. (The Twits blocked Trump’s twit.) There is no established leadership in these zones, and it seems by definition there cannot be, and as a group they have no legal right to declare any public sector an autonomous zone, and therefore they are lawbreakers regardless of any other crimes. They also have no legal standing in deciding to deface and tear down public statues. They often challenge and torment the police, and much of their conduct is easily defined as illegal, which everybody, even themselves, know. They are by nature and practice violent, but for our President to say Washington D.C. will not became a Seattle, and that he will enforce the laws, this is all Twitter needs to place a “warning label” on his tweet.
Here is Twitter’s statement “We've placed a public interest notice on this Tweet for violating our policy against abusive behavior, specifically, the presence of a threat of harm against an identifiable group." For one thing, the identifiable group is a lawbreaking group, and for another, the President didn’t mention harm, he mentioned enforcement. So Twitter doesn‘t want violent lawbreakers threatened with enforcement of the law. I wonder if they feel the same about murderers and rapists? I see signs in stores occasionally telling shoplifters that they will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. How hateful! What about the feelings of these thieves, knowing that they are being threatened with the law.
It’s OK for anarchists (anarchy: a state of society without government or law.) to break the law, but it’s not OK for the government to enforce the law. Dr. Martin Luther King once said that the America Negro was not practicing civil disobedience, but was simply exercising the rights granted to them as American Citizens. (That is not a direct quote, but I remember it because as a young man I had a “record” {what’s that?} of his speeches that I used to listen to over and over again.) In the 1960s when protestors sat down at a “whites only” lunch counter, that was not civil disobedience, that was civil liberty. That was Dr. King, a great leader, but that is not these anarchists.
Romans 13:1-2 says “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.”
Better not try to put that Scripture on Twitter. Even God would be blocked there. I get it.
Love and Prayers to all,
Pastor