Take your ball and go home.

I don’t remember how old, or in this case how young I was but I know I was in grade school, probably 4th or 5th grade.  It was summer and a group of us were playing football on my front lawn. Full exclosure here ….I grew up wealthy...far from it now,  my front lawn covered about a ¼ acre, plenty of room to play a football scrimmage between good friends with plenty of room for the hail mary passes that we enjoyed but very seldom caught.

The game had gone on for an hour or so when there was a disagreement over whether or not I had moved behind the line of scrimmage.  I had not but the perception of my friend on the opposing side was sure I had and he wanted the penalty.  No one really knew what the penalty should have been nor how to count our 5 yards or even 15 yards for the most egregious of mistakes but there we were 8 small boys arguing over the finer points of professional football, without a clue what the rules were or how to enforce the rules we thought we understood.

In total frustration and emotional stress my friend picked up his football and screamed at the rest of us that he was taking “his” ball home and leaving.  The game was over, or so he thought.  He stormed away and went home.  I am sure in his mind he thought that he could disrupt our fun and the game by leaving and taking his ball with him.  

It took us a few minutes of deliberation but in the end, we went back to playing, as young boys are prone to do.  We no longer played at football but we all found that hide and seek amidst the bamboo clumps and avocado trees more than sufficient for our childlike minds.  None of us thought negatively about the incident nor about our friend.  We were all around 10 or so and any long term issues were forgotten faster than they were created.

Trump's election and subsequent inauguration have in some sense created a similar problem with others screaming that they will not attend, they are boycotting the festivities and hoping that others will follow suit.  It’s understood that the election was hard fought and the aftermath created a bitter taste for those that lost but to refuse to attend and actively recruit others not to attend brings to mind the immaturity of my 10-year-old football group.  

Since the very beginning of our electoral process, there has been an unspoken rule, whoever wins the losers follow.  There are parameters to this rule but for the most part, the losers respected the office of the President and allowed some sort of grace period before the full brunt of any offense was started.  Politics seems to always be in play and regardless of the politics of an individual or group the fight used to be for what was considered right and truth not just for the political party victory.  

The level of discord today far exceeds the angst of simply losing.  Also, the level of activism against one party or another has breached the unforgivable in terms of their desire to upset the election within a system that has worked well for over 200 years.  It is this attitude of taking your ball and going home that disturbs me the most.  How can we continue to lead the world when we can’t even keep our house in order?  What gives those terrorists the right to disrupt that which was legally obtained?  I use the word terrorist because the tactics they use go far beyond their freedom of expression and have crossed the line of decorum and have fallen squarely into the category of fear mongering and hate, deciding to act beyond the legal parameters for the sole purpose of exploitation and propaganda.  

If the tables were turned and Hillary had won the outcome would have been disappointing, to say the least, but most republicans and conservatives would have been gracious enough to accept the results and let her have her time to succeed or fail of her own accord.  Politics is the fight between opposing party ideas and beliefs, but it is also the ability to accept the final vote, knowing that for whatever reason your message did not meet the hearts of the voters.  It’s now time to rethink and plan, to prepare for the next battle, the next election and hopes you can garner the support for your team to win.

If the participants refuse to play or during a game take their ball and go home, then it can be assumed that they simply cannot play by the established rules or they are immature to such an extent that only their self-interests matter, rules to them do not apply, only winning, by whatever means necessary.

As I have seen, rules only apply to those who respect the rules.  Criminals care little for the laws and rules and purposely live their lives outside the law whenever it suits their selfish needs.  Terrorist also forsakes the rule of law, wanting only to disrupt the society for their own aggrandizement.   The tragedy of this political season is the revelation that the democrats, not all but a growing number, fail to support the rule of law and purposely disrupt, criticize and openly oppose the rules because they have found it in their best interest not to do so.   The Black Lives Matter movement is a prime example of crossing over the line of decorum and into the realm of terrorism.  They have killed and maimed and generally caused a level of fear, all the while forsaking the rule of law.  

When a portion of society fails to live within the laws then those laws become less important.  The more of those who support this lawlessness the more fractured society, in general, becomes and the more fractured the rule of law becomes with the only avenue toward balance being a civil war.  When my beliefs are threatened by those who have no belief I am forced to fight for my continued rights to believe as I desire.  

Like our fight with the incursions of Sharia Law, we need to collectively agree that certain aspects of Sharia speak directly to the overflow of our constitutional rule, even when instituted limitedly, leaving us with no choice but to actively fight against those who would want to destroy what we have.  The question I have is why do the Democrats feel it’s OK to act in such a lawless and unconventional manner?  Ooh wait, I know this one….because they're democrats….