It starts with the Constitution. You can ask what starts with the Constitution? I believe our nation being a nation of laws. It starts with our Constitution and then trickles down through all of our Federal, State and Local governments. Our Constitution is the framework on how our government is formed and the role that each branch of our Government plays in the day to day running of the nation. Our Constitution was set up with checks and balances that were supposed to insure that what they tried to make happen on January 6^th 2021 never happened. Who is responsible? Where did it go wrong? How can we fix it? Those are some of the questions that should be being asked by everyone. The January 6^th committee should have only been the start.

Richard Barnett from Arkansas was just found guilty for the role that he played in the Insurrection that occurred on Jan 6^th.. Most of you will remember, he was the guy with his feet on the desk on Nancy Pelosi’s desk. He was convicted of a total of eight counts. He made a lot of statements on why he was there and one of his was that he was there to defend the Constitution. That sounds great and we have heard that a lot from the people that participated and supported the Insurrection.  There is one huge problem with that argument. Congress certifying the election was the Constitutional duty of the Congress that they were there to do. It was just the formality of certifying the results from every State. It was not meant as an avenue to overthrow or reject the results of each state’s results. In reality, what the insurrectionist were doing was not defending the Constitution they were trying to stop Congress from performing their constitutionally sworn duty. Richard Barnett stated he was there to defend the Constitution. When he was questioned about the Constitution the only thing that he was really familiar with was the 1^st and 2^nd Amendments. The actual written Constitution and the duty that Congress was performing that day he had no idea about. I would be willing to bet that was the case in many of the insurrectionists. They were fed a bunch of lies by Trump and many of the Republicans that supported Trump. They went there thinking that they had the blessing of the Republican Party to save America.

Richard Barnett entered the Capitol with the American Flag and a stun gun which by the way is a weapon. In one bold act he broke the law and he, in my opinion, desecrated our Flag. To use the American Flag to try stop Congress from doing their constitutionally sworn duty was just as bad or not worse than the protestors during the Vietnam War that burned our flag. If you will remember people wanted a Constitutional amendment banning the burning of our flag. Where are those people now that witnessed our flag being desecrated that day? They sure are being real silent. Our flag is not a weapon to be used by people that truly do not know what that flag really means or the sacrifice of the people that died first defining it and then protected it. “I Pledge Allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands”, the flag represents the Republic that they were trying to overthrow. That is just as big of a crime as burning it if not more.

Barnett stated that he didn’t get a fair trial because he wasn’t tried by a jury of his peers. That the political climate is different in Washington and that he couldn’t possibly get a fair trial. He wanted the trial to be held in Arkansas where he lived. First thing that I would like to say is if he wanted a trial in Arkansas he should have stayed home and not committed a crime in Washington DC. Funny how that works, you get tried where you commit the crime. Second, if all you can say that he was making a political statement so he really isn’t a criminal when a political statement is violent it is a crime. As we were all told during the many protests of the past protesting is not breaking the law. Violence is breaking the law. Violence is not a political statement that can be justified because you are mad at the Government. Violent protestors and many non violent protestors have been arrested during my lifetime and what Richard Barnett did falls under the definition of criminal. The third point is him asking to be tried by jury of his peers that think like he does. That is like a bank robbery only wanting to be tried by other thieves or Al Capone wanting to be tried by other members of the mob. Our judicial system doesn’t work that way.

What bothers me the most is the lack of disrespect that has been shown by the insurrectionists, by Trump, by members of the Republican Party, by members of the press. Mostly I am hurt by the lack of respect that many of the general public has shown to our Republic and the document that defines our Republic, our Constitution. Many had sworn an oath to protect and defend that Constitution, an oath that many broke. They were just words that had no real meaning to them because the document that they had sworn to defend had not real meaning to them. They try and call themselves patriots but you have to ask patriots to what? It is surely not our Republic.