You Are a Citizen, Not a Serf.
Donald Trump seems to believe that Renee Good, the mother and wife who was shot and killed by an ICE agent, even though that ICE agent was clearly not in danger at the time of the shooting, deserved to die. This is not, I think, a surprise. Trump is and seemingly always has been all about dominance. if you do not bend to him, he hates you. This is a man who wanted to shoot the mildest of protestors. What is interesting, to me, is his justification for the shooting and what it says not only about him but about the most important divide in the country.
Trump, when asked about her death, said that she had been “disrespectful”. Nowhere in his answer does he state that she was dangerous, or that she put the life of the ICE employee or civilians in danger, or that she was engaged in a crime that justified deadly force to stop. No. Merely that she was disrespectful. That she treated the ICE agent “outrageously”. She outrageously said “I’m not mad at you” before he shot her, from the side, three times, and killed her. Trump, obviously, felt that disrespect, the burn of contempt and dismissal in her voice. And decided that she needed to die for it.
And he is not alone. A lot of people feel the same way, and they tend to use the same language. She was an agitator. She was belligerent. She was disrespectful. She brought it on herself. She didn’t comply. To a normal person, this all sounds insane. Dying because you weren’t respectful? Putting the onus on you to be perfect or a cop can kill you? The standard cannot be compliance, because in these situations there are often contradictory commands — as there appeared to be in this shooting — and the people with the guns should be held to the highest standard. And more importantly, compliance is the path of the serf, not the citizen.
Citizens do not have to comply absent good reason. A cop telling you to shut up is not someone I, as a citizen, should listen to. An ICE employee demanding proof of citizenship as I walk down the street is not someone I should listen to. An ICE agent telling me to stop protesting is not someone I should listen to. A government official telling me to stop reminding troops that they do not have to follow illegal orders is not someone I should to listen to. I do not have to do what the state tells me to do under most circumstances, no matter how much it might irritate the government official. Serfs obey; citizens challenge.
And of course there are times when compliance is required. Times when you are in danger, or when you are putting others in danger. But those circumstances should be clear to everyone, not pulled out at the whim or angry and upset officers of the state. And even then, force should; be used only under the most extreme of circumstances. And there is nothing extreme about dealing with disrespect.
No one likes to be the focus of other people’s disdain and anger. But when you make certain choices, you have to accept such behavior from others. When you are a writer, you get rejected. When you are a teacher, you have to listen to parents complain. When you are a chef, people will leave bad reviews. And when you are a representative of the state, you have to accept that some people will protest you and your actions, and some people will not give you the respect you think you deserve. It is part of the job, and you either need to suck it up or find another line of work. If you do not like that, you don’t get to kill them.
But a significant portion of our society, including its current leaders, cannot accept this simple fact. They want unearned respect, derived from the power they hold rather than the effects of how they use that power. They cannot stand even a pitiful disconnect. This even applies to the Democratic leadership. The fight or not-fight argument is less about the specifics of the daily battles and more about the serf-citizen divide. Do you stand up to defend the people being abused? Or do you glide past it, afraid to call out the czar, and hope that the dirty protestors, the children used as bait, don’t draw too much attention to themselves and ruin your chances of winning the next election — and get some of that deference yourself.
Far, far too many of our fellow citizens are fine with that, fine with putting the responsibility on the people facing down the guns rather than on the people holding the guns, fine with imposing serfdom on us and themselves. Oh, they talk about freedom and cosplay as little-d democrats. But they certainly do like to see that knee bent.
Not bending the knee is hard, especially in times like these. That is why it is so important to support each others when the time comes. That is why the protests matter, why those with less to lose or more power support those who cannot take the same risks. And why they are so determined to make an example of people like Renee Good. If she deserved it, if people come to believe that compliance and deference are required, well, then, it becomes so much easier to use guns to enforce that deference, that compliance.
The problem with humanity, to paraphrase a better writer, is that someone took a pen and wrote “Kings. What a good idea” across their collective brains. Kings are not a good idea. The last year should have taught us that. But there are still people, in all places, at all levels of society who would bend the knee, who would be happy to live as serfs or minor lords rather than accept the messy realities of living in a democracy. But that way leads, inevitably, to a man with a gun who thinks you were not deferential enough and that a bullet is the best teacher. That, more than anything else, is the real divide in this country.