I went to the protest today in Birmingham, Alabama. I didn’t see Antifa or Hamas, but I saw a lot of grandmothers, parents with children in strollers, families, mostly ordinary people—a lot of them. Former veterans, teachers, students. I met a nurse, widowed and now her own sole support and about to be priced out of healthcare by a terrible bill.

I went because I love America. My wife and I went with friends to show up and cry out. I went as a moral protest, not for a political party. I went to protest against a government operating by intimidation, disregard of the law, eroding the civil rights guaranteed by the Constitution, and using the military to intimidate fellow Americans for patently obvious partisan purposes. Moral protest against a growing militarized federal police force not answerable to anyone that abducts the vulnerable whether they are following the process or not. I went to call out a subservient Congress to stand up and exercise its authority and oversight. I went to call for justice for my children and grandchildren. I went because Alexander Hamilton and James Madison told us to care for this beloved country and warned us about this moment.

“Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit. In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature, where the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger; and as, in the latter state, even the stronger individuals are prompted, by the uncertainty of their condition, to submit to a government which may protect the weak as well as themselves; so, in the former state, will the more powerful factions or parties be gradnally induced, by a like motive, to wish for a government which will protect all parties, the weaker as well as the more powerful.” The Federalist papers, no. 51.