We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. 

So begins our, the American, Declaration of Independence. “Consent of the Governed,” does not necessarily mean democracy. The American colonies, and after them The United States of America, were by no means democratic institutions, but those dwelling therein consented to governance.

Over the years since 1776 we have added voices to the chorus of consent other than the landowners, professionals, tradesmen, and merchants who formed our original constituency, but the universal principle has remained: legitimate government rests on the consent of the governed.

But what happens when the people do not consent? Our history is not all unicorns and rainbows. From the earliest times since our breaking away from English rule people have risen up against what they considered intolerable oppression by the larger government. Even before our Consitution was ratified, Shays Rebellion arose against excessive taxation, and the ink wasn’t yet dry when western Pennsylvania rose up in the Whiskey Rebellion – again over what they saw as oppressive taxation. And do I even need mention our American Civil War when the Southern States cried out in union, “We do not consent!” They made the case that as they had joined the Union voluntarily they could leave the Union in like manner and they put forward their non-consent by taking up arms to eject the civil and military representatives of their “former” government and establish a new one more to their liking. That didn’t go well. American fought American and brother fought brother in the bloodiest war ever fought by the United States. It ended with the devastation of the South, the imposition of martial law in the rebel territories, and a slow return to the status quo.

2020 began a new chapter in our “We do not consent!” story. We have seen a greater diversity of rebels than I have ever read in our history. Two rebellions are running simultaneously: there is the Trumpist Rebellion that broke forth in violence in January of 2021 at the nation’s capitol, and there is the Black Rebellion that flamed to life with the death of George Floyd and is still manifesting in our cities. Both of these rebel movements have been festering for some time and there is no end in sight.

The Trumpist Rebellion is rooted in a resentment to the triumphalism of the “Progressive” movement. The rise of militant feminism after the Second World War, the devolution of the traditional family and traditional values, and the general sense that “my people are being replaced by those people” have brought this resentment to a boil. To their eyes the “Progressives” are winning the struggle to determine what America is and will become – and they don’t consent to that future. Every rainbow and Black Lives Matter banner, every affirmative action by the government that puts them in the back of the line, signals their ethnic group’s relegation to insignificance, and they are in rebellion against that future.

The Black Rebellion grows from similar resentments. It is important here to point out that ethnicity and race are not the same thing. Race is a superficial classification based on superficial variations in physiognomy. Ethnicity on the other hand is the declaration of “this is who I am.” Peoples of different races can be of the same ethnicity and peoples of the same race can be of different ethnicities. Serbians, Croats, and Bosnians are of the same race but of very distinct (and usually antagonistic) ethnicities. The same can be said of the conflicts ongoing in Africa, the Indian sub-continent, China, and elsewhere. While there can be, and often are, conflicts between peoples of different racial expressions, race is not the most important element in the conflict. It’s not about “what I am” but “who I am.”

Anyway, the Black Rebellion is an ethnic conflict. Black America, by and large, has a separate ethnic identity marked by the way they speak, the music and art they produce, the way they dress, the food they eat, and the way they worship. A cultural anthropologist could drill this down deeper and point all the other distictives that define this ethnicity, but this is sufficient for my purposes. It is enough to say that Black Americans are a distinct ethnic group with distinct ethnic beliefs and practices. (Distinct even from their distant relatives on the African continent, I should add.)

I, in no wise condemn these dissenters. Whether it has been the back of the bus, a separate but unequal public education system, redlined ghettoes, diminished economic opportunty, (and the list goes on ad nauseum) the Black ethnos has been given the short end of the stick. How could they not resent and rebel? But what happens or is to happen when large segments of this ethnos no longer consents to be governed by the larger community? That is the question that now confronts us. Let’s take Milwaukee for example. What happens when the Black community there will no longer accept even reasonable and even-handed policing? The last uprising there was because a Black criminal violently resisted arrest and was killed in the process. Now in the White community (ethnos) a White criminal killed by the police would be greeted by a collective shrug and a “he should have surrended.” But the Black community in Milwaukee is rejecting policing by the larger community regardless the crime committed.

We – big tribe America – have a choice: we can either stop imposing our political will upon the Black tribe through policing or impose it through greater police or military action. Yes, we can bandaid the situation by concessions and bribery, but that will not provide a lasting solution. We can shove the Trumpists a little lower in the feeding chain, but that will just raise their resentment and spirit of rebellion. Or . . . Or we can recognize that the Black ethnos are a separate and distinct people like the Indian tribes and work out an arrangement in which they can self-police to a greater extent. I really don’t want to see another “balkan” conflict on our soil.