Tree of Blood: One of the front pages on Huffington Post was about the rebellion and possibly toppling of the government in Kyrgyzstan. It is an ugly bloody picture but it is what toppling a government looks like. Just in case any right wingnuts or ANY wingnuts think it is so romantic to overthrow a government it emphatically is NOT. Invariably a government it replaces is WORSE than the one toppled. It is NEVER clean and simple. It is brutal and harsh. Our country is a country of 300 MILLION. It is amazing that it runs as well as it does despite the nasty epithets thrown by the right AND the left against many people who possess power.

Much as there are those in our country who say otherwise, our government really DOES have an avenue to change and it has many times for over three centuries. Our Civil War cost us over 600,000 lives. That is A LOT of lives for the US population then with the crude armaments it possessed in comparison to what we now have. Rebellion is NOT pretty and it is NOT romantic. Rebellion hurts and kills only to find the government it replaces is just the same or worse as the one before. Witness the falling of the Vietnam Diem regime which was replaced by Nguyen Van Thieu and Nguyen Cao Ky who were despots. When they were overthrown upon US exit from Vietnam they were replaced by Communist Ho Chi Min and his Viet Cong. If one wants to see REAL tyranny look to that or to the Cambodian Pol Pot who rivaled some of the worst despots who ever lived. There are, of course, many other examples.

Our government is not perfect but we have one where, at the very least, our grievances can be addressed. It was not easy to get here and we have changed for the good at times despite or maybe because of the diversity of our numbers. Think about it when you think that picking up a gun and using it to maim or kill your fellow American whether on the political left or the right is a dandy thing to do. Making the policy of a government which would control a country of over 300 million people is hard to do. Policy is made through the torturous art of compromise which does not make for viewable media highlights.

When we do not like the policy we should CHANGE it, peacefully, through the avenues we already possess. We should not threaten to pick up a gun to water the so called “tree of liberty” since the water that tree is asking for is our fellow citizens’ blood and, ultimately, will not give us liberty but WILL surely give us death.