Cat Rocketship • I can't even title this. It would just come out emo.

I can’t even title this. It would just come out emo.

When I was a little kid, I really enjoyed history. I mean, I really enjoyed a lot of school, but history had a lot of reading and I liked reading and I loved learning about all the people who’d come before us.

When we first learned about the Bill of Rights I remember thinking the people who wrote it were so smart. Smarter than my feeble little kid brain could grasp. They’ve lived through a revolution of their own creation, and then sat down together to say, “Here’s how we’re going to prevent this new place we’re creating from becoming too awful.”

Today I watched this video. Here is the background on it: a group of people decided to set up tents on the UC Berkeley campus. The police arrived and directed them to remove their tents. The people refused, peacefully. They joined hands and refused to leave, but did not throw anything, or provoke the police.

A few seconds in, one officer viciously strikes a woman in line in front of him. And then the other officers join in.

People were arrested, and people were sent to the hospital.

Tonight I reread the First Amendment, this thing we Americans hold close to our chests and praise as the single most brilliant invention of our country.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

And then I was sad.