Playing Offense

A friend, Lea, who has been fighting the feds with her partner for the last 9 years to prevent him from being deported back to Canada, away from her and the country he has lived in nearly his whole life, said that they were both worn out, exhausted from fighting for so long and so hard. Her husband is the poster boy for excessive government turned inward and devouring its own people (http://proburrows.blogspot.com/). He is not a criminal, not a danger to the community. He is a Legal Permanent Resident and neither he, nor his partner, deserves any of what has been done to them.

What struck me was that comment – that they were worn out and exhausted. I’ve heard it before, said it many times myself regarding my own battle to prevent my country from deporting a man I value highly away from all of his family and friends who love him. But this time when I read those words I heard my son-in-law’s voice in my head and suddenly understood a concept I’d been trying to grasp for a long time. The reason those of us who are living under constant attack from our own government are so exhausted is we’re playing too much defense and not enough offense.

My son-in-law has played football for many years as a defensive player. When my daughter married him I knew very little about the sport, but he has done much to change that. After a particularly tough game he explained to me that he was exhausted, worn out because their offensive team was hardly on the field through the whole game, leaving the defensive team barely able to catch their breath as they were playing hard the whole time. Suddenly I saw where I’ve been going wrong while struggling to survive the mental and emotional brutality that is DHS/ICE - I’ve been playing defense most of the time. I’ve gone on the offensive and that always felt better, but when the opposing team is the federal government, it’s easy to slip back into a defensive position. I’ll get to that in a second, but would you look at that last statement: “when the opposing team is the federal government” . . . The federal government is not supposed to be playing against law abiding citizens and legal residents of the United States. Let me repeat that:

THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE PLAYING AGAINST LAW ABIDING CITIZENS AND LEGAL RESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES!

But they are and they’ve got some explaining to do! When they oppose decent human beings who are just trying to live their lives in peace they are the ones who should have their defensive team on the field scrambling, not us! When the federal government seeks to defeat its own people, it deserves to be put on the defensive and in fact, it is actually playing from that position. The impression that it, in fact, holds all the power is an illusion. A government that is playing on the same team as the people is a government that has no fear of those people and it has the power that comes with the support of a free and thriving population. The more a government plays against the people the more it must fear its citizens and residents and the more authoritarian and oppressive it becomes. If you want to know how much Freedom, Liberty and Justice actually exists in a country, look at their laws and their methods of enforcing those laws. A government of, by and for the people will have reasonable laws and compassionate enforcement. A government that is playing against its people will have many laws and harsh, unyielding enforcement. So is our government playing for us or against us?

Contrary to what you might believe, the people hold the ultimate power and a government out of control is a government whose very existence is on the defensive. They have reason to fear their people. Since ours is very thoroughly playing defense, I believe we would all be less worn out and exhausted if we would recognize that we are dealing with a government that is against us, shed the illusion that its power is absolute and begin to play the offensive position that is rightfully ours. A government playing against its people must fear its people. The histories of many countries, France and Haiti come immediately to mind, hold testament to the power of the populace and the depth of humanity’s yearning for Liberty and Justice that refuses to die no matter how hard it is held under the boot heel of oppression. Those of us being terrorized by DHS/ICE have been playing defense too long and that is why we are exhausted. DHS/ICE has acted against “we the people” so many times, it has abused its power so completely, it has done so with the blessings and assistance of our leaders for so long – it needs to be the one on the defensive, not us!

This is the 21st century. We have new weapons at our disposal – not the least of which is the internet. We have armor too – our greatest being the rule of law, the Constitution of the United States of America, The Bill of Rights and International human rights law. Those were created by wise men for our use in times of need. I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling that time of need is now. We’ve been playing the same position in this game for so long it’s not going to be easy to switch, but it can’t possibly be as tiring as what we’ve been doing. If life is a game, then we should play it to win. The way to do that is to keep our defense strong and keep our offense in the game!