“The Most Threatened President in History.”

I encountered this story elsewhere yesterday, just saw it again. Linked here from Reader Supported News, written by Nathaniel Patterson from Causes.

The mixture of emotions this makes me feel… depression and outrage and indignation and even despair… 

Americans are blessed to live in a country where we are free to disagree; with our neighbors, our friends, our leaders. That is a freedom, and all one has to do is take a look at Egypt right now to remember how precious and hard-won it is. But disagreement does not extend to violence, or threats thereof.

What the Secret Service does, what they do better than any similar protective force anywhere in the world, is often misunderstood, and deliberately shrouded in mystery and misinformation. My admiration and respect for them is boundless. What they do, they do in the best interest of the nation, without regard for their personal politics or beliefs. They do it mainly without recognition, and often without it ever being seen. If they are seen, the odds are they’ve done something wrong. Which should tell you something about how often they get it right. Consider the stakes.

This is wrong. It is patently, flat-out wrong, and it is the product, in my view, of two things - of the grotesque dumbshow that divisive hatespeak politics has become, and of the horrific and frankly barely-concealed racism that is just another symptom of the growing intolerance fostered by the same.

We are better than this. We must strive to be better than this. Otherwise, there’s really not much a point, is there?