CONSTITUTIONAL CONVERSATIONS
Salem Witch Trials
by
M. E. Boyd, Esq., “Miss Constitution”
Miss Constitution knows that you all have heard that human nature does not really change, and that history often repeats itself. This is true. The Founders who wrote the United States Constitution tried to create a structure through reason that would guide human behavior toward individual happiness that would ultimately enhance the common good. In addition, through a complex system of checks and balances and separations of powers the Founders attempted to minimize official corruption by elected “servants” who they knew always go for power and money so accessible to them. The Founders also knew that for any system to be long-lasting, it must allow the individual to develop freely but, in addition, it must encourage a social conscience so that individual success is then transferred through charity and good works to the larger citizenry. The encouragement of a social conscience was to come, not from government, but from the values in a family and the indispensable reliance on a Supreme Being to whom all individuals owe a duty. It sounds very reasonable, and it was an extraordinary attempt to govern in a different manner, but alas, public corruption by elected representatives has not been thwarted, and these same officials have degraded the family and relegated God to but a “misty memory.” We are back where we started as a people – human nature unleashed, the reasonable replaced by the emotional, the factual replaced by the illusional, the empirical replaced by naïve hopefulness.
Miss Constitution thinks that the history that is being repeated is somewhat similar to the Salem Witch Trials that were held in 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston. You remember the story from your social studies class in 7th grade, don’t you? A number of children in the Puritan village began having fits and seizures and all manner of attempts to cure and console came to nothing. Since the doctor could not come up with a reason for these fits it was decided that Satan had taken over certain villagers and was using them to put spells on the children and imperil their souls. Soon the children were pointing out certain “witches” who they claimed had attacked them and caused their delusions. Trials were held. The accused was asked to look at the children. Immediately the fits and hysteria commenced in the courtroom. Then the accused were told to touch the children and the fits stopped. What more proof of witchcraft could one want? Hundreds were accused; nineteen were hanged; one was crushed to death for refusing to speak; and many more were condemned. No one was burned at the stake — a myth about the trials. As one observer noted regarding the quality of the evidence, “these methods will utterly ruin and undo poor New England.” Did it ever occur to anyone that these were children? Having found the adults in their lives so easily manipulated and knowing they would be severely punished if a prank were discovered, would it not be more prudent just to keep it going?
Miss Constitution thinks we are in a similar place today with different players. The children are a group of well-funded domestic terrorists who are intent on dismantling the social order of the United States and replacing it with an entirely different system. The United States Constitution would become moot. Hysteria having been created around purported police brutality under the banner “black lives matter”, in concert with an individual right against government power to peaceably assemble, these groups have burned, murdered, looted, destroyed, maimed, intimidated, and frightened individuals and whole communities to cave in to demands so ridiculous and extreme as to almost paralyze anyone with a reasoning intellect. Just as the fair-minded and well-meaning of Salem, Massachusetts in 1692, most Americans understand the total irrationality of what is going on but are afraid to speak out. Perfectly lovely couples having iced tea and a sandwich at an outside bistro are approached in public and assaulted. A young woman having her lunch inside a place of business is faced with intimidation so overwhelming that her arm goes up in a fist as demanded. Officers are ambushed in their patrol cars and shot through the face. Having made it to the hospital terrorists block entrance to the emergency room in the hopes the officers will bleed to death. Instead of the equivalent of public executions of the terrorists in the form of arrests, indictments, trials, and punishment, community leaderships are defunding their police departments, firing their competent leadership, dismantling whole anti-crime police operations, passing anti-bail ordinances and legislation, raising money for what bail, if any, is required, and putting sociopaths back on the streets to injure more people. To add to the uncontrollable hysteria, second-graders are being taught that police officers go around shooting black people; that classical music is a reflection of white supremacy because one has to show up to the concert on time; and that pictures of a beating so severe that a brain bleed occurred are really just images of a mostly peaceful protest for needed reform. Organizations one would think would speak out against this, namely our churches and synagogues, in many cases are doing the equivalent of raising their arm in a fist of solidarity. The National Cathedral in Washington, DC has a Black Lives Banner hung from its Gothic stone side as a virtue signal to the terrorists to leave the Cathedral alone. Miss Constitution would like to warn the church that this action has been tried and does not work. It only emboldens.
After a time, the Salem Witch Trials ended, but the reputation of the Massachusetts Bay Colony was forever tarnished. It has never lived down what happened. Hopefully, before any more lives are lost, it will become known that Black Lives Matter is internationally funded with $33M being donated by George Soros, a person whose hatred of the United States knows no bounds. This is not citizen protest this is insurrection. Cars drop off weapons and explosive “cocktails”; the rioters are paid salaries and bonuses; and the goal is not reform it is revolution. Black lives do not matter to this organization. When an embarrassed public finally awakens from this hysteria, and comes up with whatever excuses it can muster, let us hope the decision is made to honor the Constitution, and the opportunity it affords to all who prepare themselves. Without its reasonableness, we can expect human beings to launch yet again other Witch Hunts and Hangings. Actual facts and context must matter. To honor black lives all we need to do is help strengthen black families, hold all to the Rule of Law, and place God at the head of the nation once again.
Copyright©2020 by M. E. Boyd, Esq., “Miss Constitution”
www.missconstitution.com
